Sea Witch and the Magician

by Savage, Vivienne

  “They’re willing to brave those waters. We aren’t. Though, from what I understand, Captain Vandry has made the voyage more than most.”

  “She does,” he murmured, thinking of an unusual device Amerys had gifted him from across the sea. She’d visited areas of the world few others dared travel. “Maybe one day I’ll make the trip myself when the seas are safe again.” His gaze drifted to the ships moored out in the bay.

  “Well, you can count on my aid when it comes to Wai Alei. I cannot say with any certainty what fate awaits Caecilia, but I can promise to help watch over these lands. If she truly is fading, the world will be poorer for it.”

  * * *

  While the Wai Alei hosted a grand revel for the sailors, Caecilia pondered the merits of bottling fear potions as a final parting gift to them in the event of her demise. If she failed to earn Joren’s love, she couldn’t bear to leave Neverland defenseless. Their witches and shamans could be formidable, but they’d been unable to stand up against the mechanical might of the Ridaeron Dynasty, with their technological advancements and enslaved mages.

  At that very moment, Joren waited in the glow of a campfire for their reunion. She’d watched him from the shade of the trees with a shawl wrapped around her shoulders to conceal the telltale shell pendant, knowing he’d sent Tiger Lily and a dozen elders out searching for her.

  But all she’d been able to do was watch, lacking the courage to approach him after the kindness and respect he’d shown to her true self. He’d shown her compassion she no longer deserved.

  I am a monster. I don’t deserve him. I’ve told him lies. He’ll never forgive me.

  The cauldron bubbled and steam billowed from the milky surface. She sprinkled magic and all her vitriol and spite into the spell, pleased when a heavy mist rolled from it that smelled like absolute terror.

  Perfect.

  Then something tinkled from the entrance of her grotto, and she knew without looking that she’d regret not sealing off the entrance as she sometimes did to deter company or islanders seeking her magic.

  In her smaller form—though it was no longer necessary for the fae to be the size of a cherry pit—Tinker Bell flitted into the watery haven and stopped opposite the cauldron. Despite the golden light surrounding her, Caecilia picked out the shape of a tiny woman with both hands on her hips.

  “What brings you here, fairy? I have nothing to offer you that you do not already possess.”

  Tink landed on a rock near the cauldron. “Answers. You’re up to something, and I won’t let you meddle with my friends.”

  Laughing, Caecilia turned away to gather empty glass vessels from the shelves. “I see becoming a godmother hasn’t made you any less intrusive.”

  “I demand for you to take me seriously.” A small thump followed the fae’s impassioned words, causing Caecilia to twist around and look at her. She arched a brow and dropped her gaze to Tinker Bell’s feet.

  “Did you stomp your foot at me, little fae?”

  “Maybe.” Tinker Bell said. “I know you’re up to something. Your magic disguise didn’t fool me. I saw you watching us and the prince from afar at the party.”

  Caecilia’s stomach sank. Of course. As a grand fae, it made sense that Tinker Bell would be able to see through her enchantments. “It is not what you think.”

  “Oh? Because what I think is, you’re meddling with Prince Joren’s affections. What I can’t figure out is why. Who put you up to it, hm? What scheme are you trying to weave?”

  The abrupt accusation put Caecilia on the offensive. She drew herself up, spine stiff, tail whipping across the cavern floor in agitation, and scowled. “Leave; you have no right to be here.”

  “Oh, I’ll leave, and I’m going straight to James and Joren to tell them of your deception.”

  A cold upwelling of fear surged through her, but only for a moment. The hard lump vanished nearly as soon as it formed, and she slanted a look at the fae, narrowing her eyes. “You can’t. You would have told them already if you could.”

  “I…I can tell them you’re up to no good.” Tinker Bell stuck out her chin and shook her blonde hair over her shoulder. “I can tell them to beware and say enough things they’ll know not to trust you.”

  “You could attempt as much, but it would be a lie.” Caecilia sighed and waved the fairy away, shoulders slumping. “Bah. Begone with you and do what you will.”

  “No, I will not ‘begone’ until I have answers.”

  Bothersome pests, fairies. Caecilia abandoned her potion-making efforts and dragged herself deeper into her grotto, but Tinker Bell followed, an unrelenting gnat.

  “Had you ever considered that I enjoy his company?”

  “You have all sorts of company on the island.”

  Caecilia scoffed. “They fear me.” No islander ever visited for the sake of gaining her companionship, and even if they saw her on the shoreline, they watched from afar, never venturing close enough to speak. Ghost Hawk had been the first and only to initiate contact without desiring anything in return.

  “Yeah, well, you ask for things. Things like wings and memories. Precious things people don’t want to give up.”

  “I ask only what the price of magic demands. Did you yourself not give up three years of your life? How was that price any kinder than what I asked for?”

  Tink snapped her mouth shut and frowned, hands against her hips as she considered the argument. “Well,” she said after a moment, “I still think you’re up to something.”

  “Were you up to something when you decided to throw away three years of your life to get a human inside you?” Caecilia seethed, finally losing her temper.

  Hot red color flooded the fae’s face, so bright she glowed scarlet.

  “Well?” she pressed. “Were you?”

  “I loved James and I wanted to spend time with him as a human. There’s a difference.”

  “You could have loved him as a fae. Nothing about your size prohibited loving and affection, or the reciprocation of it from him. If anything, you wanted sex with James. You wanted to know what it would be like to have complete intimacy.” Caecilia clenched her jaw and straightened, pushing back her shoulders. “You’re a grand fae now. Then you know who and what I am. Don’t try to bullshit me by twisting the truth. At least own what you did and wanted.”

  “This isn’t about me,” Tink shot back. “This is about you messing around with the prince, pretending to be a girl so he—” She stopped herself and tucked her lower lip between her teeth.

  Caecilia blinked a few times, the only way to ease the burning sensation creeping under her eyelids. “Get out.”

  “You like him.”

  “Get out!”

  To her surprise, Tink stepped back. “I’m going, but not before I offer you some advice. Tell him. Don’t let him find out on his own, because it could ruin everything.”

  * * *

  Joren met Tiger Lily after the party, once the coals were nothing more than dying embers and most celebrants had crept away to sleep off the liquor coursing through them, or make love beneath the stars with new acquaintances. Joren had already tripped over one of his sailors in a tangle of limbs with two islanders.

  “Have you any news about my lady friend?” he asked, daring to hope.

  “I sent word to every village across the islands.”

  “But?” Joren pressed, sensing the unspoken word.

  “I asked the many elders. It is their duty to know every man, woman, and child among their individual communities. No one knew of a girl named Coral Shell.”

  “It may not be her name. She can’t speak. She only gestured to the pendant she wore—”

  “There is no young woman wearing a coral shell pendant either. Nor a girl unable to speak. I mentioned all of these things.”

  Joren’s shoulders fell. “Then what could it be? I don’t understand. She was clearly one of your people, Tiger Lily. You saw her.”

  Tiger Lily’s lips pressed into a thin, tight line
. “Only briefly as she sailed from your ship to our shores. Something about her troubled me even then. I saw a magical disturbance around her, Prince Joren.”

  “I never sensed any magic surrounding her. What does that mean?”

  “She could belong to a family of hermits. Some of our shamans choose to live on the fringes of society for their own well-being. Here, there are many ghosts among our people, and their impressions can make life difficult for those who sense them.”

  The relief spilled from him on a long breath. “That’s not a big deal.”

  “It isn’t. Or she could be a ghost herself.”

  With one suggestion, Tiger Lily ripped the world out from beneath him. He stared at the young chieftain, as a sinking sensation burrowed in his gut and refused to let go. “I don’t understand. Wouldn’t a ghost be tied to your lands?”

  “Not necessarily. A ghost may become bound to a place, an object, or a person. In the case of your Coral Shell, she may have been powerful enough to bind herself to something new.”

  “Or someone.”

  Tiger Lily nodded.

  “No, she can’t be. It doesn’t explain how she interacts with us. I wouldn’t be able to touch a ghost.” He swallowed, mind returning to the days aboard his fishing boat when he’d watched her consume numerous meals. He told himself a spirit couldn’t eat food, but he’d seen stranger things over the years.

  His eyes could have been playing tricks on him.

  She could have dumped the fine meals overboard.

  How many times had he truly watched Coral dine on anything at all while they were in Eisland, and how much had she bedazzled him, such that if she performed even a minor sleight-of-hand, he would have been far too enchanted to notice?

  “You don’t understand, Tiger Lily. She touched me. We’ve had…close and intimate contact,” he gritted out, praying those words would be enough to dissuade the chieftain from her theory. How many nights on the Cannon had they sprawled across his bed together, her silky hair fanned over his chest? If he closed his eyes, he could smell the lavender in her hair, taste the sweetness of her mouth.

  Tiger Lily’s brown eyes softened. “There are powerful spirits, often from powerful shamans.”

  He didn’t want to believe, but after everything he’d seen in the world, the good and the bad, he couldn’t dismiss any possibility. Even one that would leave him with nothing but an empty life and a broken heart.

  * * *

  With Tiger Lily’s warning fresh in his mind, Joren searched the entire main island for Coral. He visited the ship, hoping she’d have boarded to wait for him, and he even asked the locals of the village if anyone had caught a glimpse of a young woman wearing a pink shell.

  “I see her,” said River Crane, whom he fondly recalled as his rescuer. “You look for girl in red dress. Pink shell.”

  “Yes. Where is she?”

  River Crane pointed south. “Follow beach.”

  Joren followed it at a jog at first, but then it became a desperate run fueled by two long weeks of longing and hoping to see her dazzling brown eyes again. The moment he saw her silhouette beneath the moon, his soul burst into elated song, like golden notes he only heard when his Coral came into view.

  Now he could propose.

  Now, he could finally utter the words on his mind.

  He swept her into his embrace the moment she rose to greet him. “There you are. I’ve looked everywhere for you.” She felt real and warm and alive in his arms. She couldn’t be a ghost. He’d seen the occasional wandering or lost spirit, even contacted one during his studies at the collegium, but Coral had a warm heart beating in her chest. He squeezed her extra tight and buried his face in her dark hair. “Even two weeks apart from you are two weeks too long.”

  Soft lips feathered a kiss against his cheek. Then she pushed against his shoulders with both hands until he set her down.

  “Apologies for the over-enthusiastic greeting. It’s just that…Tiger Lily had the most absurd idea about you,” he murmured. He took her hands and squeezed before raising both to his lips and kissing her individual fingers, thrilled by the lively touch of her. She can’t be a ghost. Those words became his mantra, and he repeated it over and over again until it solidified in his mind and he knew they were the truth. “She seems to believe you’re a spirit.”

  Coral pulled her hands back.

  “What’s wrong?” He cursed himself for leaving the parchment pad and quill behind. “Is it something I’ve done?”

  She touched her throat then her lips and swept her hand out toward him. “You want to tell me something. Coral, you can tell me anything.” She touched the necklace and caressed the coral beads. When her brown gaze rose to meet his, it flooded with tears.

  And he knew at that moment, whatever the secret his beloved held, it wouldn’t easily be rectified.

  * * *

  Caecilia would miss dinners by candlelight, sunsets on the deck of Eislandic ships, and music in snow-filled squares. And she’d miss Joren most of all, but in hindsight, it had been cruel to hold him in a three-month lie.

  As her time came to a close, with no cure to her father’s curse, Joren would only be left to wonder at her disappearance. This was better, she thought. Better for him to hate her than to mourn yet another loss.

  With what courage she had left, Caecilia flicked open the shell and let the magic spill out to engulf her. It swept over pretty brown skin and long hair, leaving a haggard gray mess with a crooked spine in its place. Her tail coiled beneath her like a dead worm.

  Joren remained where he stood, but his entire posture changed. He’d gone rigid, tension standing out in every line and angle. She recognized the cold, hard gleam in his eyes and swallowed back her hesitation.

  “This is who I am,” Caecilia said. “Now we may finally speak. Or perhaps I should say, we speak again.”

  “You’re not an islander.”

  “No,” she whispered, voice rough and throat tight. “I’m not. Not really.”

  With a dozen excuses on the tip of her tongue, Caecilia wrung her gnarled fingers together and didn’t meet his eyes.

  “So it was all a game to you then, all this time?”

  “No. No game. That much I can swear to.”

  “Just a prank then. A cruel joke on the foreigners.”

  “No! It was never a prank or a game. I wanted to get to know you. I wanted—” She licked her lips nervously, afraid of what she’d see if she met his gaze again. “I made a deal with another witch doctor to appear as I did when uncursed. So we might meet. The cost was my voice.”

  “You deceived me. You used magic to fool me. To fool everyone, and all for what?” He shook his head and stepped back. “Get to me? If you knew anything about me, you’d know I cannot abide liars or betrayers. Those who hide behind false faces. I lived too long under a lie to ever want to do so again.”

  “I didn’t know anything about you.” Caecilia swallowed. “I never knew of your past or what happened with Gothel until the day we arrived in Eisland and I overheard the stories. I didn’t realize.”

  “But you still said nothing!” His shout echoed across the sky. “You’re no better than she was, tricking people into falling for a lie.”

  “It wasn’t my intention to lie! I only wanted to be seen for…for a person again. Joren, please.” She moved forward to take his hand, but he jerked beyond her reach. “I watched them care for you and knew if Hook took you away, I’d never get the chance to meet you. So I snuck onto his ship for the chance we could meet. I didn’t know how easily I’d come to love you.”

  “Love? You think this is love?” He laughed, the sound harsh and dry, without any true humor. Then his eyes went cold. “Love can never come from lies and treachery. My mother taught me that.”

  “I’m not her. I—”

  “I never want to look upon you again. I don’t need another betrayal in my life.” He pivoted and headed up the beach without a single backward glance.

  He may
as well have cracked open her chest and ripped out her beating heart. Eyes burning and tears blurring her vision, Caecilia watched him leave. It made no difference whether or not she told him she’d been the one to rescue him from the water—he’d only hate her more for allowing the Ridaerons to take away his crew, even if it had been a choice between them and him; his life or theirs. Loathing the cursed coral shell, she tore it from her neck and flung it into the sea, her anguished wail echoing across the skies.

  The ocean could keep it. Not that it mattered when the curse had wound to its final days.

  Chapter 26

  Preferring not to run to his twin and sob in a magic mirror like an overgrown manchild, Joren opted for the next best thing and visited the Jolly Roger. He planned to do his weeping—or his raging—in person, with people who could at least drink with him. Rapunzel’s belly meant alcohol was off the table, and he wasn’t yet so pathetic he would imbibe alone in the dark in his own cabin.

  Yet.

  James set two glasses on the table between them. Just before sunrise, after a long night of wandering the beach lost and confused, furious with himself for falling into the witch’s trap and hating himself even more for being so gullible, Joren wanted nothing more than to be deep in his cups. In his experience, nothing remedied a broken heart like chugging liquor until one was falling down drunk.

  “So…what you’re telling me,” James said in a conversational tone, “is that Coral, the mute girl, has been Caecilia this whole time?”

  “For the hundredth time, yes!”

  James filled his glass full to the brim, and then did the same to Joren’s. The potent aroma of rum filled the cabin and the fumes stung Joren’s eyes. The former pirate must have opened his best stuff.

  “Sorry. I simply cannot believe it, no matter many how many times you repeat yourself.”

  “I’m not lying.”

  “No, no, no. You misunderstand; I believe you implicitly. It’s the idea of it all.” James shuddered. “She never tried such a trick with me.”