Sea Witch Rising

by Sarah Henning

  “Magic,” I whisper with a smile. Clever Katrine. “I can smell it. A cloaking spell of some kind.”

  “Well, how do you uncloak it?” Sofie asks, thumping her rucksack to the ground. “Katrine! Are you in there? It’s us!”

  Will grabs her arm to try to silence her, nearly dropping Agnata in the process. “It could be a trap.”

  “Wait, look!” I say, and they both quit fussing.

  The hillside before us shimmers, and then a hole appears, door-shaped and yawning wide. Katrine’s wild hair blows into the wind, almost a vision. She looks both pleased and horrified to see us.

  “Come inside, quick! Runa, there’s something you must see.”

  She leads me into the room first, almost herding me inside. As my eyes adjust, my lips fall open. There, hovering above the fireplace in words as clear as any inked on paper, is a very succinct set of instructions.

  Your father’s war is here.

  I cannot fight by your side without the ring.

  Return it to me as soon as you can.

  The ring.

  I look to my hand but know it’s not there.

  It wasn’t there the moment I came to inside the warehouse.

  As this realization washes over me, Sofie is in my ear asking all the questions she didn’t whisper-scream on the beach.

  “What’s this about, Runa? What is it about that ring that’s so special, and who the hell is writing words in the air with smoke like some third-rate ghost from my fairy tales, huh?”

  I swallow and catch eyes with Will. He’s the only one who knows, and it’s very clear he’s kept my confidence. Behind him, Katrine watches calmly.

  I take a deep breath and turn to Sofie, who’s mowing me down with that unflinching glare of hers. “The sea witch who changed me into a human needs the ring to stave off war from my father, the sea king. Happy?”

  Shock blinks across her features and then morphs into something closer to camaraderie. “And I thought my father was an ass for aiding a war. Your father is going to start one? Doesn’t he know we’re already busy enough with our own up here?”

  “That’s exactly why he’s doing it, Sof,” Will says, as he sets Agnata more gently than she deserves onto a dining chair. “Strike ’em while they’re down. Works in world domination just as well as it does in boxing.”

  I nod. “For reasons that are partially my fault, Father is in a position where he needs more magic. He has a monopoly on the sea’s lot of it, so he’s coming to claim the only magic that isn’t his—ours.”

  Sofie accepts that news by dropping into the closest dining chair, her bones heavy. “I did not renounce my family, become a witch, and destroy royal property to be assassinated by some magical merking.”

  I draw in a deep breath. “Sofie, this wasn’t exactly my plan either, but it’s what we’ve got. At this point, the only way we—and any other witches within our general proximity—are going to survive this attack is with the sea witch’s help. We need to get her Niklas’s ring, and we can’t wait. Those dead fish? They’re just the start.”

  “Well, we all know I don’t have the ring,” Sofie sniffs, crossing her arms over her chest.

  “No,” I say, before tipping my chin to our captive. “But she might.”

  Sofie and I search Agnata’s pockets, Will watching and waiting with a frown. We all know it won’t be there, but it’s still a disappointment when we find exactly nothing of the sort. Though we do find a small drawstring bag of krone.

  Agnata indeed sold us out for more than just her freedom.

  Will pockets the coins as I crouch down in front of the girl and remove her gag. Her head lolls to the side, dark hair fallen out of her braid.

  “Vakti.”

  The moment the spell is out, the girl’s eyes fly open and she inhales a deep breath as if she’s been underwater for the last couple of hours, not asleep. Her eyes snap from my face to Will’s before finally settling on Sofie’s. Katrine ignores her altogether as she puts on the kettle.

  “Am I still . . . here?” Agnata’s eyes narrow on mine. “I thought you were going to murder me. Like you did those guards. Those poor men were doing their—”

  “Save your righteousness. They’re not dead, dummy.” Sofie shoots to her feet. “You’re lucky you’re not, though, so I’d save your critiques for someone else.”

  “Where’s the ring?” I ask, because we really don’t have time for this.

  “The ring . . .”

  “Agnata, seriously, I’m ready to singe your eyebrows off, and Sofie would do worse. Niklas’s ring,” I snap. “I had it on before I was knocked out and dragged into the warehouse. Where did it go? None of the guards we frisked had it.”

  “I—I,” Agnata stumbles.

  Sofie takes four long strides and lights her inked arm in wildfire like it’s nothing. I feel a pang of pride. “How do I aim this stuff at her eyebrows, Runa? Still learning.”

  “No! I’ll tell you,” Agnata screeches, her eyes squeezed shut as if that can protect them. Her voice comes quieter this time. “Just please put that away.”

  Sofie kills the fire, glaring hard at her former friend. “It’s easy to see why you didn’t last long under castle guard interrogation.”

  “Go on, Agnata,” Will says.

  “After you were knocked out, I sold it to the man you heard the night before—the messenger. He’s a member of the king’s guard, not the Holsten contingent, so he wasn’t at the warehouse . . . but he was waiting in the vœrtshus. And then I joined you as a captive in the warehouse.”

  Oh, Urda. We can’t go into the castle looking for a random guard with the ring.

  “Where is he now?”

  Sofie waves her arm in front of Agnata’s face. “Before you say ‘I don’t know,’ I want you to again consider your eyebrows.”

  Agnata scrunches her whole face into a ball before answering. “This man, called Møller, he said he had a buyer for it. Promised me another ten percent once it sold.” Her eyes flash open. “He planned to meet this person at the vœrtshus tonight. Eight o’clock. He told me to be there by nine to collect my cut.”

  I glance to Will and Sofie. “Time to brew another plan. And quick.”

  We lock Agnata away in Katrine’s bedroom, and then proceed to work away at the table with mugs of piping tea and open-faced sandwiches that Katrine has prepared. We huddle over the map we used this morning, but a plan is slow to form.

  To get the ring, we have to go back to Havnestad, into a tightly packed tavern, with Agnata, who’s already sold us out once. Worse, the man we’re meeting is a king’s guard who will most likely recognize us on the spot. As will literally anyone else in town. A disguise will be essential but tricky—we must blend in long enough to get the ring and get out.

  We drag Agnata back into the main room and take turns changing clothes in Katrine’s bedroom, each finding something suitable for a night out. I spell them clean and make them dark so that they look fancier than they are.

  Then, I get to work spelling Will’s hair darker and Sofie’s to be much redder.

  I reach for a bottle of squid ink Katrine has deemed inert and expired to do my own, when Sofie grabs my hand.

  “Why don’t you just do to yourself what you did to me?” she asks, sweeping her hand around her head in a little loop. The dark red looks lovely on her.

  “I’ve tried since I came ashore, and it won’t work. The sea witch took my hair as part of our deal, and nothing seems to change it.”

  “But have you tried since you became human?”

  I blink. “No . . . I haven’t.”

  Sofie arches a brow. “Worth a shot, don’t you think?”

  Okay. Yes.

  She holds up a small looking glass. “Go ahead.”

  My hair hangs just past my chin. I’ve come to like not being bothered by long hair in the past few days, but it is very noticeable.

  I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and feel my magic, amethyst pressed against my palm. �
�Vaxa.”

  It starts as a tingle on my scalp, then a burn. When I open my eyes, the girl I was is staring back at me, different but the same, with hair past my shoulders.

  “Lovely, Runa,” Sofie says softly.

  She means it as a compliment, but suddenly there’s pressure behind my eyes, and a tear slides down my cheek.

  “Runa? I—it was lovely before.”

  I wave my hand at my long hair, searching hard for words to explain the grief sitting on my chest. “It’s her. It reminds me of Alia.”

  Sofie snags my fluttering hand and tucks it into her warm palm. “You don’t have to explain.” Her words catch and she glances down. The guard’s words about her own departed sister hang between us, a truth.

  I draw in a shaky breath. “Can you help me braid it?”

  Her rosebud lips press together in something of an actual smile. “Yes.”

  33

  Runa

  THIS MISSION MIGHT BE MORE DANGEROUS THAN SETTING the warehouse afire. It’s strange to think of what we’ve accomplished, and yet this last piece could undo it all.

  “Now we’re wanted for two crimes,” Will says as he secures his cufflinks. He’s wearing a suit that makes him look very important and expensive, but not regal. “Regicide and destruction of kingdom property.” It sounds so official and stark as he lays it out. “Probably robbery too, considering we still have Freyja in our possession and I’m not planning to give her back.”

  “Four crimes,” I correct. “Let’s not forget witchcraft. That’s part of how you sold it to me.”

  He grins. “I did.”

  Sofie rolls her eyes. “I’m glad you two found each other, but could you just stop making me want to vomit? Because if I vomit, we don’t have time to clean it off this silk, magically or otherwise.”

  I’ve come to learn Sofie’s mechanism for survival is to deflect actual feelings as forcefully as possible. That, or bury them. Which is what she’s done with Niklas—we haven’t spoken his name while planning to snatch the ring, and we won’t.

  “All right, everyone. Good luck. Tandsmør and I’ll be waiting for you here.” Katrine doles out hugs to each of us, even Agnata, and sends us on our way.

  The storm started an hour ago, and I feel Father inside it like a heartbeat. The sky won’t quit. The rain is sheeting like it aims to dump all of Havnestad into the sea. And maybe it does. I keep this to myself. The weather is making everyone nervous enough without an additional explanation from me.

  We load into the car as we did before—I’m next to Will, and Sofie sits in the back, minding Agnata. Agnata is dressed just like us but disarmed, her forearms clean and bare, no stone in her possession. We tied her hands as precaution for our travel, though the binds will have to come off the second we exit Freyja.

  The road winds through the valleys, past grass overwhelmed by the rain, the earth unable to soak up any more. Water sits atop the pastures, glistening when the moon finds a sliver in the clouds, as we repeat nearly the same route we took earlier today. Urda—or maybe Freyja—is on our side, and the road is smooth and the wheels don’t stall, though the headlamps do very little to light the way as we crest Lille Bjerg Pass.

  “There they are,” Will says, under his breath, as the headlamps key back down toward town. “But what is that?”

  The lights illuminate a line of guards standing in the road, gas lamps in hand.

  “It’s a checkpoint,” Sofie says, leaning forward into the front seat.

  My stomach tightens. We were lucky that we didn’t pass by one earlier in the day, but now, the guards of Holsten and Havnestad are working together, both on the lookout for the same traitors.

  Luckily, they think what has been stolen is a green motorcar. Freyja is now a sleek black.

  Will pulls into the checkpoint and shifts his features to put on the same show he so often performed at the castle. He’s affable, a real man’s man, and, here, he’s out for a night on the town with not one but three ladies, all dressed to the nines to hang off his well-appointed arms.

  A guard in a rain-drenched coat and hat of Øldenburg blue leans into the driver’s side window, flashing a gas lamp across the faces in the back. As he does this, two other men begin to search the perimeter of our car.

  “Name and destination, sir?”

  “Remy Johansson, and these are Frigg, Fulla, and Hela. We’re headed anywhere with a sturdy roof and hvidtøl on tap.” He smiles at the man. “Do you have any recommendations for me and my gals?”

  The guard’s sternness cracks just a bit. I’m not surprised. Men can always bond over the objectification of women.

  Behind me, Sofie is coiled tight, her hand digging into the top of my seat, ready to bat Will across the ears if he says something worse, even if it means we can drive away.

  The guard cocks a brow at Will. “I do have a recommendation, Herr Johansson, but only if you have one in there for me.”

  Will laughs and, oh, Urda, he winks. “A man doesn’t share his greatest treasures, my friend.”

  The men checking our car for the marks of the missing one are finished and give the guard at our window a signal. But then the man’s smile dies on his lips.

  “That’s understood, but can you tell me, are all these women able to speak?”

  “Of course, sir.”

  The guard smiles briefly and then his stern face returns. “Please have each woman say her name so that they can prove it.”

  Will’s smile is stretched so thin it’s almost a grimace. “Why, sir?”

  “We happen to be on the lookout for three women wanted in a plot to kill King Niklas of Havnestad. Surely you heard the news.”

  “I . . . wasn’t aware it was a woman’s doing.”

  “It was,” the guard says before spearing each of us with his dark eyes. “Now, ladies, one by one, please say your name loud and clear for me. Let’s start with you.”

  The guard looks to me, in the front of the car. The one who looks most like Alia’s description, no doubt. I smile brightly and repeat the Norse goddess’s name I’ve adopted. “Frigg.”

  Sofie goes next, her name nearly trampling over the end of mine. “Fulla, sir.”

  Heart crawling into my throat, I let my eyes swing to Agnata, sitting in the back, her bound hands covered by a blanket over her dress. I bite down hard on the inside of my mouth and stare at her, not knowing what I’ll do if she outs us. Our firearms are hidden under the carpet at our feet. Would we have time to grab them before the shooting started? Or would they force us out of the car? How many guards can’t we see? Is it just these four?

  Agnata seems to calculate this too, glancing at the sliver of space between her and Sofie. Will forms a tight smile at the guard. “Hela’s a bit shy.” He turns around to lock eyes with her, kindness in the set of his features. “Come on, my dear, tell the man your name. The night awaits.”

  Agnata’s mouth drops open and my hand slides into my pocket, fingers wrapping around the amethyst there. Sofie is smiling at Agnata like her face might crack in two.

  “Sir, my name is Hela.”

  I exhale slowly out of my nose.

  “There we go,” Will says. “I hope that will suffice. I’m sure your job isn’t easy in a downpour like this.”

  The guard doesn’t comment. “Have a safe night, Herr Johansson.”

  With the checkpoint behind us, Will finally exhales. “Good job, ladies.” The way he says that, I know he really means “Agnata.”

  “I wasn’t going to out you,” Agnata pouts.

  “You were thinking about it. I know you were,” Sofie accuses, not looking at her.

  “I made one bad decision and now there’s no trust between us? At all?”

  “You made two bad decisions, actually,” Will says, eyes flashing up to the mirror. “Sharing our plan and selling the king’s ring.”

  Sofie turns the knife. “And it wasn’t a bad decision for you; it was a bad decision for the rest of us, and that’s the problem.”
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  “What would you have had me do? Rot in the castle cells?”

  Sofie cocks a brow. “Yes, actually.”

  “Can we save this argument for after we get the ring back?” Will asks. “Driving in this weather isn’t exactly the easiest.”

  “What—oh,” Sofie says, finally looking out into the streets.

  Water streams down the cobblestones at least two inches deep under our tires. The wheels struggle to hold fast to the road, and we list from side to side down the narrow streets.

  As we turn onto the sea lane that runs parallel to the shoreline, the Øresund Strait looms ahead. Lightning spider-webs across the sky, and I gasp. The water is a living mass. Frothing, festering, churning, boiling. Whitecaps crest into waves that slam into the shore with enough force to swallow the beach whole. There’s not a grain of sand to be seen, except in the little cove, cordoned off by rope and respect—the sea witch’s lair.

  Cluttering the storm tide are the bodies of more fish, all bleeding black from their eyes, deposited and then shuffled again with each new wave, unable to rest. Freyja’s wheels skid and thump over a few of the dead fish.

  “It might be best to park the car here,” Will says when a school practically washes beneath the wheels.

  “You want us to walk in that?” Agnata asks, eyeing the streaming water outside her window—high enough to soak the hem of her dress right along with her boots.

  “Do you have a better idea?” Sofie says. “Get out.”

  Will hops out first and helps Agnata from her bindings. Sofie and I grab the pistols from under the carpet at our feet. We each hand them to Will, who is the only one whose clothes can cover their bulk. If it comes to it, Sofie and I have our gemstones—we’re already wanted for horrible things, and those guards suspect we’re both witches, so there’s no real point to hiding our magic if we’re under fire.

  We slosh through the water, our boots bumping the bloating carcasses of fish along the way.

  “Why are their eyes like that?” Agnata asks, looking to me, for obvious reasons.

  “Magic,” I say. “No more questions, please.”

  We haven’t told her of Father’s plans. Nor have we told her why we want the ring. Despite an afternoon of her pestering questions, there’s no way we’re spelling anything else out to her.