by Sarina Dorie
Another black shape loomed. I pointed. Thatch turned. It wasn’t one, but three sharks.
“Someone is drawing predators. Which of you is cut?” Thatch demanded. “Miss Lawrence, have you mastered that healing spell Josie taught you yet?”
Red lines marred my hands where I had battled with the net and cage. I didn’t see blood, but the skin was shredded. Josie had shown me a simple spell for healing, but the incantation was in Japanese, and I didn’t have it memorized. Nor could I chant anything at the moment.
Thatch waved his wand through the water, ribbons of light shooting out from the tip. Circles of light arched around him and the cage, a structure made of magic slowly taking form. One of the sharks nudged a glowing bar with its nose. The magic sizzled against its flesh. The shark shook and backed off.
Thatch continued slashing out with his wand, creating more bars to protect him and us. A smaller nose poked through the gaps of the cage of light, snapping at the wooden cage and grabbing hold. It shook us and battered us against the sides.
Thatch stabbed his wand at the shark. A cloud of scarlet poured out from its neck.
I looked to Maddy. She was busy untucking the seashell we’d found earlier from her seaweed belt. I tugged at her arm. She hid the seashell and gave me more air.
“Blast it, seal up those wounds,” Thatch said. “I can only cast one spell at a time.”
Didn’t he get it? I couldn’t chant incantations without the use of my mouth!
Thatch finished creating the cage made of light around us and resumed the magic spell to allow me to breath underwater. More sharks prodded and then jerked away from the structure.
Thatch resumed his spell on my neck while Maddy intermittently gave me air. Thatch’s wand illuminated his somber expression. My neck itched. The skin felt as though it were crawling. My lungs shifted and spasmed.
“Exhale,” Thatch said.
The air whooshed out of my neck, and I tried to suck in a mouthful, but I coughed it out.
“Use your gills, not your mouth,” Maddy said kindly.
I sputtered again. Breathing water didn’t come naturally. I made myself focus on keeping my palette pressed to the back of my throat so I didn’t breathe through my nose. I sucked water into my lungs, and it didn’t burn.
I could breathe! Relief flooded through me. Maddy smiled and lifted her hand to give me a high five. I wasn’t shivering anymore either. Thatch healed my hands next. The bars to the cage parted, the gaps between them growing wider as if inviting me to leave. I tried to wiggle through the opening, but an invisible force propelled me back inside.
“It’s not going to let you go. The magic wants to use you as bait to entice me inside,” Thatch said. “An effective strategy.”
He shimmied through the bars, obliging the magic. It would have been handy if the enchantment had invited him inside before the sharks attacked.
A moment later, the cage thudded against the bottom of the sea floor. I crashed into Maddy. The cage drifted and then thudded again, this time staying put. The wooden bars parted, stretching out to close around the mouth of a shadowy cave covered with coral.
Once again, our exit was trapped. There was nowhere to go but deeper into the cave.
“What should we—” I tried to talk but blew bubbles out my nose. I choked on a mouthful of water.
Maddy laughed. Breathing underwater was hard enough. Talking was beyond my current abilities.
“We have to ask pardon from the ruler of this territory in order to leave.” Thatch’s brow furrowed. He looked to Maddy. “Do you know the Fae rulers in this kingdom? Is it the Mer Court or the House of Blue?”
I hadn’t heard of either. Only the twelve biggest houses were listed in the books I had studied. None were aquatic courts.
“I don’t know,” Maddy said. “I try to avoid them. They’re all nasty.” She slipped her arm around mine, obviously scared.
“Indeed.” Thatch nodded. “We might as well get this over with.” He cast a venomous glance at me. “I will do the talking with the monarchs. Keep your mouth closed or you’re liable to make matters worse than they already stand.”
I nodded. A string of bubbles escaped from my lips.
His wand lit the contours of the jagged tunnel we swam through. Even with the light of Thatch’s wand to see by, it was difficult to tell shadow from craggy rock, and I collided with a barnacle-crusted wall. I bounced off one rock and floated into Thatch. He shoved me ahead of him, which was even worse, considering my body blocked the light from his wand, and I couldn’t see ahead of me now.
The water grew warmer as I floundered. I wasn’t sure if that was from exertion or from being farther from the winter of the Pacific. Through cracks and crevices around us, the water was no longer a deep azure, but bright turquoise and unnaturally clear. The cave looked more like it was made of coral than rock. Sunlight shone from between arms of coral, painting the undersea world with vivid light. It was like an underwater photo of Hawaii with bright underwater flowers and exotic fish. Aquatic fauna danced as we passed.
We weren’t in the Pacific Ocean anymore, Toto. Maybe we had passed into the Unseen Realm or deeper into the Fae Realm.
The tunnel opened to a garden. Bright sea anemones glowed and danced. Columns of ancient buildings supported the roof of a Greek-style temple. Naked men with the heads of hammerhead sharks and bone spears greeted us. They were like mermaids, only in reverse. With their toothy grins of razor-sharp teeth, I doubted they needed the spears.
One of them said something to Thatch in a language I didn’t understand. Thatch responded in English. They grimaced and shook their heads.
“They can’t understand you,” Maddy said. “Do you speak Mer?”
Thatch shook his head. “No, but you do, I take it. Tell them we are teachers from Womby’s School for Wayward Witches, and you are in our care. If they don’t release us, they’re breaking the law.”
Maddy hugged my arm, hiding her face as she told them.
The hammerhead guards prodded us toward the stone building. Glowing jellyfish lined the path like lanterns. I ducked to avoid the tendrils of one. Purple starfish shrank back as we passed. I wished I could have taken a photo of how beautiful it was. Giant creatures that reminded me of crabs, only the size of cars with long spindly legs like stilts, picked their way across the sea floor. The hammerhead guards ignored them, pushing us through the group without a second glance.
We were brought into an immense temple. The vast space was filled with chests of gold and jewels. Up ahead loomed a giant tortoise shell the size of my classroom. A long serpent neck emerged from the shadows and craned over us. Two shark heads with knifelike noses were attached to that neck and watched us impassively from above. Writhing tentacles darted from underneath the shell. A scorpion tail waved at us from somewhere behind, towering over the figure. It was the freakiest monster I’d ever seen, some kind of underwater chimera.
The giant sea monster lounged on a throne made of pearls. The shark guards said something.
Maddy whispered. “They said, ‘All hail, King of the Pacific.’”
Thatch bowed. I followed suit, though less gracefully. He gestured in front of himself. The emblem of the school, made of silver and black, light floated before him.
Thatch bowed again, keeping his eyes on the ground. “I apologize for this intrusion and humbly present myself before the mighty King of the Pacific. My name is Professor Felix Thatch. I teach at Womby’s School for Wayward Witches. This is Clarissa Lawrence, another teacher. We lay claim to this student for our school.”
Maddy translated in a shaking voice. In the brighter water, and without a net tangled around her, I could truly see Maddy for the first time. She was inhumanly beautiful. Her skin was almost luminous, catching the light like mother-of-pearl. It stung my eyes to look at her for too long.
When Thatch gestured in front of me, the school crest floated before me, though fainter than his ow
n. The sea creature waved a tentacle toward us. Thatch didn’t flinch, but Maddy and I both did.
“Stay still,” Thatch said quietly.
Other runes and symbols shone and flickered in front of Thatch. He was enclosed in a sphere made from a mesh of fine lines threaded around him, woven like Celtic knotwork. Hovering just inside the mesh was a silhouette of a raven.
When the king waved a tentacle in front of me, the weaving of magic that appeared wasn’t as intricate. Green lines made a pattern about three feet out around me, but another layer in red encased that, farther out. I caught a silhouette, perhaps a rune or another school emblem through the lines of light, but it was blurred and indistinct. I wasn’t sure what was being revealed. I hoped I would live to ask Thatch about it later.
No lines of light encircled Maddy.
A low rumble shook the columns around us.
Maddy turned to me. “He asks what gifts you’ve brought him. He says you’ve broken etiquette. He won’t even talk with you unless you’ve brought him some kind of present.”
Thatch looked me up and down. “Are you wearing any jewelry?”
I shook my head. Thatch sighed and removed an old-fashioned pocket watch from his vest. It reminded me of one my father had owned that he’d gotten from his grandfather. Thatch frowned at it, each step forward weighted with the years of future grudges. He laid it down before the ruler. The creature nudged the pocket watch with a tentacle before lifting it and examining it. The metal looked like silver. The creature dropped it into an open treasure chest filled with pearl necklaces and gaudy jeweled accessories. He rumbled again.
Maddy said, “He says he will speak with us now.”
“Please explain to him his guards have mistakenly captured us,” Thatch said. “We forgive the mighty king for this error and wish to be on our way.”
Maddy translated. Thunder shook the temple.
Her eyes widened. Realization swept across her face. She dug the pretty oyster out of her belt and threw it onto the sand.
I patted her back, wishing I could offer words of comfort.
She squeezed my hand. “He says the man is free to go, but we have to stay because we fell for the trap and by right, we’re his.”
I hadn’t fallen for the trap. Well, I sort of had, but I hadn’t touched the shell. Unless I had done so as I’d been floundering in the water.
Thatch scowled at me. “If Miss Lawrence touched the oyster, it was simply to take it away from you to throw it back into the sea. She did not fall for the trap.” He raised an eyebrow at me as if daring me to contradict him.
Maddy translated. The earth quaked, and I was pushed back as a current of water gushed from the sea monster as he answered. I careened into one of the hammerhead guards, who snagged me by the arm and pushed me forward again. The other grabbed onto Maddy. Only Thatch remained rooted to the spot before the king.
Maddy turned to Thatch, eyes wide. “He said you’re a bottom-feeding slick talker, and he isn’t a Dungeness crab about to devour your excrement.”
“Such colorful metaphors.” Thatch gestured to me. “Tell his eminence to examine the crests on Miss Lawrence more closely.”
After she spoke, one of the guards pushed me close enough that the sea chimera could have snatched me up as a snack. I gaped in horror. I tried to back away a few inches, but the guard shoved me forward again.
The sea monster stank like rotten fish. I didn’t know how my gills smelled, but they did.
The grid of lines appeared around me once again. I studied them, trying to see what Thatch wanted King Crabby to see. The creature waved a tentacle over me, and I flinched. The school crest glowed brighter. So did the dark shape beneath it. Before, it had been blurry and indistinct, but upon my second inspection I could see it was the shape of a black bird in flight, wings blurred.
Bubbles burst from the king. He inclined both his heads to me in an almost bow.
Maddy bit her lip and looked to me. “He apologizes. He didn’t realize you belonged to the Raven Court.”
I gave Thatch a sharp look. I did not belong to the Raven Queen. Did I? He hadn’t told me if that was the case. He and I would be having words later.
One of the monster’s heads nuzzled against the other. They looked like they were whispering sweet nothings in each other’s ears. They rumbled again.
Maddy hung her head. “He says you’re free to go, but I’m their slave.”
Thatch lifted his chin. “The school laid claim to this student before she fell for the trap. I was in the process of marking her with the school’s crest when she picked up the oyster.”
The king waved a tentacle casually.
Maddy translated his next rumble. “He said he’ll strike a bargain with us.”
“No bargains. The school does not bargain with Fae,” Thatch raised his chin. “We are in the right.”
But we weren’t in the right by their rules. Maddy had already been trapped in the net. She’d already fallen for the bait. She hadn’t even accepted the invitation to the school before she had picked up the oyster.
The king rumbled again. Maddy looked relieved. “He says he’ll let me go. All he says you have to do is give him your firstborn child.”
I tried not to laugh. This was ridiculous. Bubbles burst out my nose. No one else was laughing.
“No,” Thatch said. “Tell him, I’m quite sorry, but I’ve already agreed to give my firstborn child to another Fae.”
I never could tell when Thatch was telling the truth or lying. In any case, I didn’t blame him. It was one thing to give up a watch, something else entirely to give up your own child.
Maddy relayed the information. After more dialogue, she translated again. “He wants to know about your secondborn.”
“The answer is no. That one has been claimed as well.” Thatch waved a hand at me. “Miss Lawrence cannot take a lover without killing them both with her magic, which means making a bargain with her would be pointless. If she did produce a child, no doubt the Raven Queen would be interested in him or her.”
I stared at Thatch, trying to catch his eye. He didn’t look at me. I had no idea if this was true or not. Did he understand how the Fae Fertility Paradox worked? Or was this all a bluff to save me from King Crabby’s debt?
The king interrupted Maddy as she explained our excuses. Her shoulders sagged. “He says he’ll let you keep me if I give up my firstborn child. I have one hour to decide.”
We were escorted to a pretty underwater room decorated with a rainbow of starfish and sea anemones growing out of the coral walls. Light shone in through a lattice of plant spines that might have been the equivalent of bars on the windows. Tiny silver fish darted in and out of the cell. The room was smaller than my dormitory. With all the jagged coral, opening and closing mollusks, and sharp-looking sponges, there was no place to sit. It was hard enough floating without bumping into anything.
“At the rate things were going in my life, I was probably going to be a teen mother anyway,” Maddy joked. Her laugh bordered on hysterical, but her face was scrunched up. I suspected she was crying, only I couldn’t tell because we were immersed in water.
“It could be worse,” she said.
Thatch shook his head. “We need to come up with a better bargain. I’ll see if I can negotiate an indenture. After you graduate, we’ll see if he’ll allow you to work for the Pacific Court. He’ll probably ask for ten years. I will negotiate for five.”
Maddy covered her face. “That’s way worse than giving up a child. They’ll use me for my powers. For ten years they’ll make me drown fishermen and sailors. I’ll probably have to have sex with those hammerhead guys, and they’ll claim any child I have anyway.”
Thatch paced back and forth. His feet landed on an invisible surface a foot above the layer of coral on the floor. “They’ll expect you to work, and you will do their bidding, yes. However, I might be able to add a clause to the bargain for what they intend to
use you for so that you won’t be used for sex magic.”
“That’s if they even consider giving me an option to be an indentured servant. They want me to be their slave.” Maddy looked to me. “Clarissa, what do you think I should do?”
“It’s Miss Lawrence,” Thatch corrected. “If you’re going to be a student at our school, you will address teachers by their proper title.”
I ignored his remark. “I don’t know, honey.” A slew of bubbles escaped from my mouth. I sounded like I was gargling and tried not to breathe as I spoke. “If Professor Thatch thinks you should let him come up with some other solution for you, he’s probably right.”
“And if they don’t agree to it?” Maddy asked. “Either it’s my firstborn or my life, right? Maybe I can agree to giving him my firstborn, but then become a nun or something and be celibate.”
“You don’t understand what you’re agreeing to,” Thatch said. “If you make this bargain, you’ll live to regret it. You think you can trick a Fae? The Fae will figure out a way to get you with child, whether you consent or not. This isn’t the first time I’ve negotiated on behalf of a student. The most a Fae usually allow is a promise not to interfere until the student graduates from high school. After that, it’s fair game.”
“So that gives me some time to get pregnant,” she said.
Thatch scowled. “Do you know what it will be like for you if you agree to give them your firstborn? They will grant you freedom, yes, but you will never be free until you have that child. They will hound you until you give them what they want. Do you think they will allow you to choose the father? Those hammerhead guards are nothing. At least they have human bodies.”
Maddy stared with wide eyes. She clutched my hand.
Thatch spoke slowly, driving each point home. “If they grow impatient, each night they might send a man—if you want to call the monsters they send men. Each night you will be raped by a different aquatic creature until you are with child. If it turns out you are infertile—as many Witchkin these days are—it won’t matter. They aren’t going to stop trying. They’ll keep sending males for you, and you will be forced to do their bidding until you die.”