by Coralie Moss
“What is he doing here?” I asked.
“We don’t have time for expla—”
“Laszlo, tell her.”
“For decades, Gosia has worked for an underground organization that rescues missing Magicals. Some of the Magicals she has helped are those who requested a formal Unbinding, then disappeared before Serena or Moira could help them.”
Laszlo pulled me tight against him and nuzzled my cheek. “Some of the Magicals Gosia has tried to locate and rescue are the young ones, Clementine. When Rémy hired your mother to find his beloved, it was out of concern for Gosia and her work. He wasn’t asking your mother to match him up—he and Gosia were already bound. But she was pursuing an Unseelie Fae, a man of extreme wealth and power who lives in France and who was rumored to be collecting the rarest of Magicals in the realms. Gosia had to go deep undercover, which meant cutting off all communication with Rémy because she is one of the beings the fae have been collecting.”
“One of what kind of beings?” I asked, wanting to believe every word of Rémy’s story, wanting to believe he would not lie if the stakes were truly this high.
“Gosia is one of the mythical Melusine.”
I had never heard of the Melusine. My sister groaned and opened her eyes, only to close them before vomiting up quarry water. I knew she’d be okay.
I hoped she’d be okay.
She had to be okay. We had a lot to talk about.
“Do you have an extra knife I can use?” I asked Laszlo. “I want to get this stuff off me and Alderose.” I picked at the soaked patches of threads clinging to my clothing, hair, and skin. These were not the threads my mom had created for Gosia’s use. These were some kind of magical knockoff.
One dull, black patch in particular bothered me. I poked at it. The surface of the threads had lost its luster the way a fish’s scales did as they died—the way Gosia’s eyes had dulled to a nonresponsive hue before she marched me to the edge of the quarry and pushed me over the edge.
“Rémy, could Gosia be under a spell?” I asked. “Because something in her changed between the first time I met her and Jadzia, and—”
Rémy froze. “Did you say Jadzia?”
I nodded.
“Jadzia with orange hair and the”—he waved his fingers in the general area of his mouth—“spots on her skin?”
I nodded again.
“Jadzia is an agent of the fae who is behind the disappearing Magicals.”
16
Maritza was right in thinking the U in my mother’s shorthand meant Unseelie, not underland. I filed that away to share later. Rémy had more to say, once he made sure that Alderose was breathing on her own and as comfortable as we could make her.
I was worried the trauma of our cold-water plunge had put her out of commission. I asked Rémy and Laszlo to move my sister next to me for warmth. Rémy had to be convinced to continue his story and not rush back into the waters in search of Gosia.
“The Melusine are always born female. They are similar to mermaids.” He leaned against the rock. The outlines of multiple necklaces crowded underneath the top half of the wetsuit. He ran his forefinger under the flat collar and freed a few gold and silver chains, palming a cluster of vials and appraising their contents with a sad smile.
“Each of these contains water from sources where the Melusine were known to have bathed. These rivers and lakes contain multitudes of creatures. None of these bodies of water are home to women who grow fishlike tails once a month and who must care for their tails unobserved by human eyes.
“The fae were rumored to have harvested Melusine ova decades ago and hidden the eggs within their realm.
“Gosia had a personal interest in the case. Her mother had been courted by the man—the fae—who later became her captor when he discovered she was Melusine.”
Alderose groaned, curled into a tighter ball, then planted one hand on the ground followed by the other. With great effort, she sat upright. I curled my arm around her back and offered her my shoulder. She stiffened when she saw Rémy.
The mage continued. “Gosia couldn’t break her cover. She’d warned me before she accepted the mission that it might take her a long time to construct an airtight persona. I had no idea a long time meant years, not months.”
“Maybe she didn’t know that either,” I said. “But something must have made you suspicious that things had gone wrong.”
“Jadzia. She showed up one day, said she was half-Melusine, half-fae, said Gosia had found her and recruited her. Said they were getting close to blowing the case open. It was Gosia’s birthday. I couldn’t bear the thought of another day passing without letting her know how much I missed her, how much I—I loved her. I asked this Jadzia to bring my love a gift, a raw diamond on a simple chain, something she could have easily hidden.
“Jadzia reached for the box and for a split second, her true self shimmered below the surface of her skin.” He tapped his thumb against his fingertips. “What I glimpsed wasn’t the Magical I was expecting. This being had metal blades instead of fingernails, a sign of true fae. She grinned. She knew I had seen her. And because I feared for Gosia’s life, I said nothing.”
Silence. Rémy’s tale gave me a lot to absorb, especially this new piece of information detailing the kind of being we would be going up against. I had to break the tension, move us from eulogizing to strategizing.
“So, all we have to do is swim through cold water in the middle of the night and hope that we can find Jadzia. Then we have to get her to drop the disguise, show her true face and confirm she is indeed the enemy, then rid Gosia of whatever spell or glamour she’s under.”
Alderose lifted her head off my shoulder and gathered her hair into a topknot. “First, Rémy has to convince me he’s telling the truth.”
The water mage lurched onto his knees and got right up into Alderose’s face. “I don’t have time for your doubts, and Gosia doesn’t have time for you to figure out if I’m a good guy or a bad guy.”
My sister reached into my pocket, withdrew her knife, and waved her hand at me for the matching blade. I slapped the handle on her palm and watched as she brought the tips of her blades to the base of Rémy’s throat and his crotch.
“Back. The fuck. Down.”
“She’s serious. We all need proof,” I said.
“Your mother made something for me.”
“Show us.”
“It’s in my backpack.”
Alderose withdrew, keeping her knives at the ready. Rémy held eye contact with her while he shrugged off the straps and passed the pack to Laszlo.
“Inner pocket of my coat,” he said before sitting back down. He crossed his legs, kept his hands in sight, and never wavered his gaze off my sister.
Laz shook out the wadded up fabric. I spied more than one pocket on the inside of the voluminous garment. “You stash anything in here that bites?”
Rémy shook his head. I ran my hand down the lining fabric and stopped when I came to the shape of a doll. Before I slid my fingers inside the pocket, I softened my gaze and searched for remnants of my mother’s magic. The thinnest of threads tacked the layers of fabric together, keeping the pocket’s contents secure. I withdrew one of Alderose’s knives and used it to slice the knotted ends.
The doll inside had been made by my mother. The simple female form ended with an elaborately beaded, embroidered, and sequined fish tail. I dipped my fingers into the pocket of my coveralls and felt for the beads I had transferred from the pockets of my mother’s shop coat.
What originally caught my eye were the unusual shades of iridescent pinks and oranges. The beads matched. The doll’s hair and body color were the same as Gosia’s, and the story threads weaving their way around the figure and my hand were saturated with love and trust and longing.
Gosia’s longing for Rémy, Rémy’s longing for Gosia.
“He’s telling the truth about him and Gosia being mates,” I said. Rémy’s chest rumbled with a thunderous growl. He leaned
forward again, only to find the knife tips pressing at his throat and inner groin.
“Wait.” The story threads had more to say. A trio broke away and swam through the air to Rémy, coiled themselves around one of his chains, and lifted the attached vial. The mage sucked in his breath and froze.
“What’s in that vial?” I asked.
“Gosia’s tears. Legend says Melusine tears burn the liar and bless the truth.”
I palmed the vial. The small bit of liquid contained inside was pink-tinged and luminous. “Hold out your hand.”
Rémy hesitated before extending his arm toward me. I ran my fingers over the chain, found the clasp, and released its weight into my hand.
“Before you open that, Clementine, you must ask him a question and it must be worded such that his answer cannot be distorted.” My sister spoke to me while keeping her gaze and knives pointed at the water mage.
I stared into the vial and invited my mother’s magic to guide my words. The sensation was familiar, natural, as though I had performed the action a hundred times before. When the question came, I wasn’t surprised by its arrival. I was surprised by its content. I asked it anyway.
“What is the one thing Gosia would be willing to sacrifice her life for?”
Rémy’s determined expression crumbled along with his defiance. He swiped his cheeks, and said, “Our daughter. Zazie went missing this summer. She had been begging me to allow her to connect with other teenagers, others of her kind—even though she is unique amongst Magicals. She’s on the cusp of turning thirteen and she’s been lonely without her mother. I—I gave in and allowed her to attend a gathering in Vancouver in September. She came home from those three days, so excited, so—” He shrugged. “She was so happy. She immediately connected with her new friends on Faebook and whatever other social media the kids were using.”
He took a deep breath. “Zazie disappeared the next day.”
Stories of motherless daughters always did me in. I uncapped the vial. The liquid inside was more viscous than watery. One slow drop landed in Rémy’s palm, mixing with the tears he’d wiped from his cheeks and creating a pale, vaporous cloud that hovered above his skin. Inside, the figures of Gosia, Rémy, and a sweet-faced girl, with hair like her mother’s and wearing a scallop-shell crown, held each other in a joyful embrace.
The water mage was openly sobbing, his tears flowing in rivulets down his cheeks. Alderose withdrew her blades slowly, all the while intent on watching for any change in Rémy’s demeanor. There was none. The man was in undeniable pain. I screwed the cap back on the vial, looped the chain around Rémy’s neck, and secured the clasp.
“Why didn’t you just level with us from the start?” I asked.
“Because I ca—” Frost burst across Rémy’s face, covering his entire jaw and mouth. The tears in the corners of his eyes froze. He waved his palm at me and reached behind him with his other hand.
He singled out one of his dreadlocks and pulled it forward. This one was different. It was braided in a pattern I recognized from my childhood.
“That’s the braid Mom used on us,” I said. “She would sing while she did our hair. Do you remember, Rosey?”
She nodded, then asked, “Why did Mom braid Rémy’s hair?”
The answer came to me without hesitation. “Because in exchange for finding Gosia, she needed to make sure he couldn’t jeopardize the other women she was helping. Mom knew he would never cut his dreadlocks so she worked the spell that keeps freezing his face right into Rémy’s hair.”
Alderose rolled onto her knees and handed me the blade in her left hand. “Hold this.” She gestured to Rémy. “Lean forward.”
“Rosey, what are you doing?”
“I’m doing my job.” Faster than I’d seen her move outside of when she sparred with her martial arts master, she pulled hard on the braid, forcing Rémy to twist his head and expose his neck, and stabbed forward and up with the tip of her blade. The hank of hair she came away with writhed in her hand as the ice coating Rémy’s face melted.
“Thank you, Alderose, daughter of Moira, wielder of the blade,” the mage said, pressing his palms and forehead to the ground. “I am in your debt.”
“We’re good.” Alderose handed what was left of the braid to Rémy. He gave it a long look, dropped it into the water, and watched as it fell apart.
“Let’s get ourselves armed,” Laz said. “Anyone object to traveling in pairs?”
“I’d like to be with my sister.” I wrapped my fingers around Alderose’s wrist. I wanted her to know I had her back, and her sides, and her front. We would have time to talk later.
Rémy wiped his face and switched gears. He patted the pockets of his coat, extracted a handful of stubby, chalk-white sticks, and handed them around. “Deep-sea marine shifters make these out of bleached coral,” he explained. “They’ll illuminate a radius of six feet in any direction if you position the piece close to your body. If you want it to work more like a flashlight, extend your arm like this.” He gripped the stick and straightened his arm. “Makes it more challenging to swim.”
Laszlo took over. “I think I can get us close to where I found you, Clementine. Is everyone okay with me landing first?”
“As long as we’re close enough to help if you get into trouble,” I said, acknowledging the internal pull that flared at the thought of Laszlo and I being separated again. His smile was tight but tender when he agreed. I wondered briefly if the dampening spell my aunt worked into the charm around his neck was working too well.
“Operation Free the Melusine is a go.”
There wasn’t enough room for any of us to stand. Rémy rolled his coat into a tight ball and shoved it into his pack. We slipped into the water one at a time, making the hole crowded. Laszlo oriented himself then us and reviewed the next step. “Activate the light sticks, take a deep breath, and follow me.”
The tunnel into the main body of water was mercifully short and much easier to navigate without my wrists and ankles shackled. Curious, I pointed my light downward. The beam disappeared into murky nothingness. I let a few bubbles out of my mouth and stayed in line as we swam our way up the rock wall. My toes brushed against the top of Alderose’s head. I found the sensation comforting.
We broke the surface one after the other in quick succession, minded Rémy’s advice to muffle our breathing, and followed Laszlo. Ahead and to the right was the dimly lit outcropping where Jadzia had earlier hauled me and Alderose.
The demon motioned for us to douse the lights and remain in the shadows. He paused, felt for a handhold, and pulled himself out. He waved at me to join him. Alderose pulled herself up next, followed by the mage.
Two figures were silhouetted at the tunnel’s opening, their backs to us. One stood with her feet planted wide apart and her fists on her hips. She laughed into the night, and spoke to someone I couldn’t see, “You hold no power over me, witch.”
Jadzia. She flung her arms out to the sides. Her height and shape changed subtly as metal sliced the air and two more identical figures appeared, one to her right and one to her left. Waning moonlight glinted off the blades emerging from their outspread hands and another piece of the puzzle snapped into place.
One-Becomes-Three, the being who threatened my mother enough that she was forced to flee her workroom. Jadzia was One-Becomes-Three, and she had Gosia in her thrall.
Gosia didn’t even flinch when the taller fae next to her held her neck in the crook of their elbow, drawing her close as though they were the best of friends.
Sparks rained down, lighting up the quarry’s rock walls. “Give us Gosia and give yourself up, fae. There’s no way out for you.” My aunt’s voice from somewhere outside and above was magically amplified.
All three fae laughed this time. The one in the center hid her blades, threw Gosia over her shoulder in a fireman’s carry, and jumped. The two others dove in, one after the other. All three sprouted dorsal fins and flippers as they leapt.
Rémy le
d our foursome to the entrance. “Tía!” I swept my gaze up the cliffs to where the quarry began and shouted, “Rosey and I are down here. Laz and Rémy are with us.”
“Alabastair’s creating a portal for us. Stay where you are.”
Rémy pushed to the front of our group. “I can’t stay. Gosia’s down there and—”
I grabbed his arm. “Can the Melusine breathe underwater?”
He nodded, adding, “It’s not as effortless for them as it is for merpeople. I don’t know if her gills will activate if she’s been drugged or spelled.”
“We have to hope that Jadzia wants to keep her alive.” I found Rémy’s hand gave it a squeeze.
A pop and a soft “Oh, my” sounded behind us. Alabastair steadied my aunt. “I was hoping at least one of you would be able to keep the charmed button on your body,” Maritza said, patting her throat. “And that wherever you landed would be a place we could access.”
Alabastair added. “I can create a portal to a specific place under the water but I need each of you to wear these to act as a beacon I can home in on.” He unzipped a pocket of the pouch strapped across his chest and withdrew a handful of slender metal cuffs. He snapped one around each of our wrists.
“Why two?” Laszlo asked.
“In case you lose an arm. You’re going up against three armed Fae, possibly more, in an environment they are obviously used to navigating.” Alabastair’s matter-of-fact tone was comforting in the face of what lay ahead. “I am armed and shall remain with Maritza while she works with her magic and continues to track you. Should the fae return, I can fight.
“If any of you become injured, Maritza will deal with your wounds and keep your life force flowing. If the situation becomes dire I can transport you to the nearest treatment center for Magicals.”
“Got it,” I said. Laszlo and Rémy nodded.
“What’s your plan?” Maritza asked. “I believe we might have reinforcements on their way.”
“The plan is to disarm the Fae. Rescue Gosia. Then find her and Rémy’s daughter.” I ticked off the obvious, then asked, “What do you mean about reinforcements?”