by Lucia Ashta
My heart was heavy at the true weight of Count Washur’s transgressions. It’d been bad enough when we’d believed he’d tricked and coerced people to give him their souls in exchange for something important to them. But now that we realized he didn’t even do that? That he killed and stole souls with impunity and without care?
Somehow, it made what I’d believed to be as bad as it got far worse.
None of us said anything further, until Madame Risco finally broke the silence. “It’s time for us to go,” she said, her fiery bluster absent. She was no longer an energized woman, bustling with a semblance of life.
She was a spirit, she was dead, and she was forced to weave her way through terrible circumstances. “Albacus, you’re staying?”
“For now. When it’s my time, I’ll find my way. Thank you for everything, Madame Risco.”
I prepared to hear her say something about how he owed her more than thanks, but she merely nodded. Then she turned and began to float upward, pulling the boy by the hand, leading him toward the water’s surface and, I hoped, to some kind of afterlife that might have a chance at making up for all they’d been through.
En masse, the other spirits rose to follow their leader, who had enough determination to get them where they were supposed to be, to the place where spirits went after death when there wasn’t a dark sorcerer to interfere.
Their bodies played against the water as shadow and flickers of light, but before long, the dark water swallowed them up. The moment they passed the boundaries of the mervillage, where the light of its glowing orbs no longer reached, the spirits disappeared from sight.
All that was left for us to do was hope that Madame Risco would deliver them to peace.
Chapter 23
The moment the spirits vanished from sight, a reverent hush descended upon our slice of the sea, as if we’d made a communal decision to observe silence to honor so many lives lost, now free.
I swam to Marcelo’s side and tucked myself beneath his good arm. I allowed the steady beating of his heart to comfort me, to suggest the sweet possibilities of a shared future amid so many horrors.
I was the first to break the silence. “I can’t believe he stole all those souls like that.” Even though my voice was soft, everyone heard. “That he lied to us about only taking souls when they were given to him.”
“I guess we should’ve known better,” Marcelo said. “There was nothing honorable about the man or the way he did things. We should’ve expected the worst.”
Mordecai said, “No matter what we might’ve expected or thought, it wouldn’t have changed a thing. He still would’ve done what he did.”
It was true, and we shared another moment of reflection while that sunk in. When someone of Count Washur’s amassed power and skill decided to turn to darkness, there was little anyone could do to stop him.
Short of death.
“At least now he can’t hurt anyone else,” I said.
“Did you kill him, Clara?” Mordecai asked.
“No, Brave did.”
All eyes, including Albacus,’ swung over to Brave. He didn’t look regretful that he’d been the one to do it. “But Clara bound him, and that was really helpful. She distracted him while I snuck behind him and managed to get the killing spell off before he could stop it.”
“I didn’t realize that’s what you were doing,” I said, even though I couldn’t bring myself to regret that Brave had killed his father either.
“Either way, it helped that you bound him. He was too busy freaking out at your new kind of magic to notice what I was doing. He always underestimated me. This time, the mistake killed him.”
“Wait, Clara, what is this binding Brave’s talking about? How did you manage it, when my binding didn’t work? Was it with this five-petal knot you talk about? Tell me all about it.”
For once, I got to turn Mordecai’s style of deflection back on him. “There’s no time for it now. Maybe later.” I tried to keep the corners of my mouth steady, but I feared I was revealing how much I was enjoying having the upper hand for once. “We have bigger things to address right now.”
Mordecai opened his mouth to complain, but Brave silenced him. “Do we need to take his body back to land, or can we leave it here?”
Grand-mère said, “We’ll have to ask the merqueen of these waters. It should be her decision.”
“What are you doing?” Mordecai asked Brave.
“I’m taking his ring with the family crest on it as proof.”
“Proof of what?”
“That I’m his heir. He might not have done anything good for me while he was alive, but before he died he told me I’d inherit his title and properties. I intend on claiming them.”
Marcelo said, “You’re absolutely right, Brave. You should claim them. If the man was too twisted and dark to give you anything you deserved while he lived, you should take whatever you can now, and then put it behind you. Live the rest of your life free of his shadow, but with whatever advantages you can afford yourself.”
Nephew and uncle locked eyes across the water, the glowing orbs of the mervillage illuminating their expressions with a softness they might not have otherwise had. Marcelo had been forced to kill his own father, a protegé to Count Washur, for similar reasons.
“The darkness left him just before death,” I said to no one in particular, without understanding the reason for saying it. As awful as Count Washur had been, there’d been some goodness left in him, beneath all that darkness, and it felt somehow necessary to set the record straight. “I wonder if the darkness robbed him of his own free will ages ago.”
“No, Clara,” Marcelo said, “the darkness can’t take you without you giving yourself to it at some point.”
But I wasn’t so sure. Hadn’t Marcelo shared his father’s memories with me, and hadn’t I seen that Count Bundry hadn’t entirely understood what he was agreeing to when he gave his soul to the darkness? Was it truly free will when the person didn’t really know what he was agreeing to?
Marcelo continued, “Even if Count Washur lost much of his free will along the way, he was still the one to choose his path somewhere along the line.”
Mordecai added, “Even within darkness, those with the strongest light can break through it. Count Washur chose the darkness and aligned all his thoughts and actions with that choice.”
I didn’t voice my objections to their theories, but I wondered about them. They might be right, of course, but they also might be wrong.
Either way, Count Washur was dead. He was free of the darkness now. “Where will his soul go now?” I asked.
“Let’s hope somewhere fiery and terrible,” Mordecai said, staring at his brother, who was no more than a wisp of a person thanks to the Count.
But I couldn’t share in his hope. I wished that there was no such a place as hell, or any other location reserved for eternal torment. Count Washur’s actions in life were terrible, of that there could be no argument, but before death, I was certain I saw regret, a fleeting wish or two that he could’ve been a better, stronger man, one able to resist the lures and power of darkness.
“You may leave his body here,” came a voice from behind us.
I whirled around to find its source so fast that Marcelo’s arm fell from my shoulders.
“The ocean will put him to good use,” the angelic-looking merqueen said. “His body will nourish life.”
An appropriate end for a man who delivered so much death and destruction, I thought. He could begin to do good in death.
“Come join us,” she said, “Be our guests.” Then she swam back toward one side of the clearing, where I could make out Anna—and Mirvela—waiting for us.
I would’ve followed the merqueen’s sparkling magenta tail, long trailing hair, and melodic voice anywhere, and I was the first to fall behind her.
Marcelo soon caught up with me, his body lean and muscular, his strokes strong and sure.
Wait. His strokes are strong and sure, h
is strokes are strong and sure!
I stopped swimming to grab his arm, bringing him to an abrupt stop next to me. But he didn’t care. He was grinning as much as I soon would be.
He was waving both arms and hands around his body with the grace of a ballerina.
My eyes grew wide and happy. “When the Count died he took all of his darkness with him, didn’t he?”
I didn’t think Marcelo could smile any bigger, but he managed it. “That he did, my love, that he did.”
Before I fully processed what that meant, he took my hand with his left, fully functioning hand, the one that had hung limply at his side when Washur was alive. Hands clasped, our swimming was awkward, and Mordecai, Brave, and Albacus, who didn’t swim but rather floated, passed us, while Grand-mère swam off to retrieve Randolph.
But things were starting to look brighter. We’d rid ourselves of an enemy, and Marcelo had recovered the use of his left arm.
And the night was only half over.
Chapter 24
“Anna!” I called ahead to my lady’s maid. I hadn’t had the chance to get to know her as I did Maggie back at Norland Manor. The poor girl looked terrified, overwhelmed, and exhausted—as if she’d just survived being kidnapped by a mad dark sorcerer, driven beneath the sea where she wouldn’t survive without magic—which she didn’t possess—and nearly murdered by a wicked merwitch. The look on her face was haggard although she was younger than I was.
She attempted a smile, but it crumpled. “Hello, Milady.”
I released Marcelo’s hand and swam the rest of the way to her. “I’m so relieved to see you, Anna. Are you… all right?” I didn’t know what to ask, clearly she wasn’t all right, perhaps the better question was whether she ever would be.
Her lips quivered and I was sure she’d be crying if we were above water. “I thought they were going to kill me.”
“I know, I’m so sorry. They tried to kill me too, I understand what it feels like.”
“Then you lead a terrifying life, Milady.” It was a bold statement from a servant, no matter what the circumstances, but that didn’t make it any less true.
Although I preferred to see my life as exhilarating, since that seemed like the better option, the one that would keep me from freaking out about the gravity of my new life as a witch. Even with Washur now dead, I was no longer naïve enough to believe my troubles were over, and it wasn’t just because Mirvela floated stiffly in the grip of the merqueen’s two personal guards on the other side of where Anna sat, looking small and vulnerable in her maid’s uniform.
Count Washur wasn’t the only dark sorcerer, he’d just been the most powerful among them. Once news of his death spread throughout the magical underworld, it’d create a power vacuum, one I had no doubt there would be a line of dark sorcerers competing to fill.
No, our troubles were far from over, but that only meant there was all the more reason to enjoy our blessings while we could.
I tried to comfort Anna by placing a hand against her shoulder. “Don’t worry. We’ll get you back on land soon and then this will all fade into a bad memory. You’ll be safe then.”
I wasn’t sure she’d be safe, because the reality was that since I’d discovered I was a witch, and a formidable one, no one around me had been safe—no one. But Anna didn’t possess magic nor was she someone I was particularly close to, so chances were higher than with most that she’d be left alone.
“I recovered your hair pin and have it back at the castle for you,” I said, thinking it might be uplifting to have the family heirloom restored to her. “It was very clever of you to drop it so we’d find it.”
“It worked then? You understood what had happened?”
“Right away.” Or nearly right away, anyhow. Count Washur riding the dragon Humbert out across the ocean with Anna in tow wasn’t the most obvious conclusion, but it was the one we ultimately arrived at. “Thanks to you and your clue, we knew exactly where to find you.” More or less. The ocean was a vast place, but the details of the situation didn’t matter right then.
“And Carlton?” she asked meekly. “Is he… dead then?”
I squeezed her shoulder. “He is. Did you see how brave he was? He gave his life to save mine.” It was a burden I imagined I’d carry for a long time. A man had died so I might live.
It gave me all the more reason to make the most of my life while I could. A good man had died so I could continue. I’d honor him by living fully, by making the most of my magic and my companions.
Marcelo interrupted my thoughts as I arranged them into useful determination. “Carlton is… dead?” He sounded far sadder than he had when he’d been forced to kill his own father. Carlton had been a spot of kindness in a cruel household when Marcelo was a boy.
I left Anna’s side and went to Marcelo’s. “Carlton died saving me,” I repeated.
“How?”
The depth of sadness in his eyes held me captive while I answered. “Count Washur formed one of those balls of magic, the ones he used to kill, and he threw it straight at me. Carlton struggled until he broke free from Mirvela’s hold, and he swam between the ball and me. He interrupted the ball’s trajectory and it hit him square in the chest. He died instantly.”
Marcelo didn’t say a word.
“If he hadn’t done it, I’d be dead. There was no time for me to do anything to prevent it,” I said around a lump in my throat. “If he hadn’t given himself so selflessly, I wouldn’t be here.”
Finally, Marcelo nodded. “That’s the kind of man Carlton was.”
I sidled closer to Marcelo, wrapped a hand around his arm, and leaned my head against his shoulder. “He was a good, kind man.” What else could I do? Nothing I said would make it better. Carlton would still be dead.
No one said anything while we honored Carlton and his sacrifice with our silence, until I asked, “Will we see his spirit come out of his body, like the others?”
“I don’t know,” Marcelo said, so I looked to Albacus. Surely he was now our resident authority on spirits.
“Spirits aren’t always visible,” he said, and I tried hard not to allow my sense of loss to increase as I looked at him—and through him. The sense of loss was already weighing me down, and I felt, now more than ever, that it was important that I keep my resolve uplifted. I owed it to Carlton—and to myself.
“We can be seen if we want to be, but only by those who are open to our existence. If a person doesn’t believe spirits exist, then to them we don’t.”
“Really?” I said. “But everyone here sees you, right?”
“Not everyone.” Albacus drifted over to Anna and stood a foot in front of her, so that if she extended her arm, it’d run right through him.
But Anna’s forlorn expression didn’t change. She didn’t draw back at Albacus’ invasion of her personal space.
“Incredible,” I whispered. “Anna,” I said, and she looked at me, straight through Albacus. “Do you see anything directly in front of you?”
Immediately, the maid looked confused. “In front of me, Milady?” She looked more worried than before.
I regretted our experiment. “Never mind. It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.” But to Marcelo, I whispered, “We have to get her out of here fast.”
He looked at Anna and nodded. The reasons why were obvious.
Albacus floated over in front of Marcelo and me. “See?”
“I do,” I said. “But we can see spirits, obviously, so will we see Carlton’s?”
“If he wants to be seen by you, and if his spirit hasn’t left his body already. Has one of you been watching him the entire time since he died?”
“Of course not. We had people trying to kill us.”
Albacus shrugged, the beads in his beard looking as if they should jingle like they had when he did that in life—but they didn’t. “His spirit could already be gone then.”
“Oh no, I hope not,” but even as I said it, I sensed that Albacus was right and Carlton’s spirit
had already drifted away from this ocean bottom.
“Why do you wish his spirit were still here?” Marcelo asked.
“Because I wanted to thank him! What he did for me… I need to thank him.”
Marcelo smiled, and although it was nothing like the smile he’d given me when the use of his left arm was restored, it was enough to alleviate some of my worry. “Clara, he knows, of course he knows.”
“But he got killed because of me!”
Marcelo pulled me into him, my bare chest pressed into his side. “No, Clara. He isn’t dead because of you. He’s dead because of Washur, because a sorcerer gave himself over to darkness.”
“But—”
“Clara,” he whispered, and he pulled me fully against his chest. My bare breasts and stomach flattened against the web of crisscross scars across his chest, further evidence that we’d been at the mercy of the darkness—and madness—of witches and wizards for a long time.
And we’d survived it.
“Clara, it’s better this way. You want Carlton’s spirit to be free of this world and at peace, don’t you?”
“Of course I do, but—”
“But nothing. I more than anyone wish Carlton were still alive. But he did what he needed to do, and he understood what he was doing, I’m sure of it. He was the kind of man who’d do what was right no matter how high the price.”
I tried to pull back to protest, but he wouldn’t let me. He laced his arms around my lower back and pulled me against him, harder. “He wouldn’t regret what he’d done, Clara. He’d know he did the right thing, and it was the right thing.”
“Why? Why was it the right thing? That he should die so I might live?”
It was Mordecai who answered from off to the side. “Because he saw what we all see.”
I turned my head against Marcelo’s chest to look at the old wizard. “Oh? And what is that?”
“That your magic is unique. It’s what we’ve been waiting for.”