The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea

by Maggie Tokuda-Hall

  In her shallows, she feels the many schools of fish part, making way.

  Eels slip back into the safety of their coral homes.

  In her depths, an anglerfish douses her light.

  First one shark, long and cold, follows in the Leviathan’s wake. Then many.

  And all the while, above, the seagulls circle and call.

  Blood is coming.

  The Sea knows this, and she swells in anticipation. The Leviathan is her ship, her gift to humanity. She made it herself, from the bones of ships she’d swallowed before, cannons stolen from sunken decks. It is kissed by mermaids. It bears her blessing. It rose from her depths, and it was a gift of her as much as it was a gift from her.

  A promise was made: to protect the mermaids from man.

  A deal was struck: a ship to see it done, and blood to pay its price.

  A treaty was made: protection for protection.

  Flora purchased a small boat with the money she’d taken as payment from Inouye. The vendor had laughed at her, at them both, when he realized they meant to take it past the bay.

  “Idiots!” he’d said, laughing. “You boys never find anything out there, and you die.” Neither Flora nor Evelyn made to correct him on either count, and ultimately, he’d accepted their money.

  After they rowed out past the break, Flora told Evelyn they’d need to sit still for a while, and so — if she could — to stay silent. It was, Evelyn thought, a clever way to ask. Of course she could, but making it a challenge made it something Evelyn would relish. And so she sat, silently, as Flora tried her best at her second spell cast without Xenobia’s careful supervision.

  The revelation that Flora was now a witch had been a lot to take in the abstract. It was even stranger to accept now that Flora was attempting a spell in front of Evelyn.

  She had never had a moment to appreciate the Floating Islands from afar, and now she could see where their name came from — mostly obscured by the fog, it looked as though they were suspended impossibly in the air. On those islands in the distance, Lida pretended not to know where Evelyn had gone. On those islands, Commander Callum seethed with rage. The witch waited. The markets would be open and loud with commerce. They were beautiful.

  Evelyn never wanted to see them again.

  Flora’s face was screwed tight in fierce concentration as she murmured words Evelyn could not quite decipher. Her eyes did not waver from the small knife she clutched in her fist so tightly that her knuckles shone white from the effort. It was, Flora had told her, a knife Alfie had given her. It would lead them to the Dove, she said. If she could do the spell.

  It did not appear to be working. Part of Evelyn was nearly thankful for that. She knew, of course, that basically everything she’d been taught as a child had been a lie. But it was hard to shake the notion that witches were evil, especially since one had just sold her out so coldly. It seemed impossible that her beloved Flora would be one.

  “Listen,” Flora said. “You are a knife that binds, and you bind me to my brother. You will take me to him. You will put me where I belong, at his side, together again as we are meant to be.”

  But nothing happened. They were not, in fact, close to Alfie, nor the Dove for that matter. They sat in the boat, Evelyn playing her game of silence, as the sun beat down on them, the winds picked up and then died again, and the sun set.

  But still, Flora chanted.

  “You do not cut anymore; you will never cut again. You bind me to Alfie, and Alfie to me.”

  It was just as Evelyn thought it may be time to gracefully break the bad news that Flora was not, in fact, a practical witch when it happened.

  “I can’t believe it!” Evelyn cried. Which was true. She couldn’t.

  “Neither can I.” Flora looked around, bemused.

  It seemed she had only blinked, and when she’d opened her eyes once more, the Floating Islands were gone. Instead, on the horizon, she could see a ship. The air, which had been warm and without wind just a moment ago, whipped Evelyn’s skin with freezing seawater. It gusted with the power of the open sea, and their little boat rocked.

  Flora had some new talents, indeed.

  So much of what Evelyn understood and knew about the world had changed since leaving Crandon. Florian was Flora, and Flora was a witch. Magic was real. The Emperor’s forces were cruel and unjust. Her parents were happy to see her dead if it meant a settlement of their debt. The Pirate Supreme was not just a myth made up by superstitious sailors. Witchcraft was just a skill, like reading or dancing, capable of being taught.

  “The Dove,” Flora said, whispering at first. “The Dove!” she cried.

  It should have been harder to accept. And yet. Somehow, this new reality, Evelyn knew, was as right as her life had ever felt. Magic was real, and she was in love. These truths held hands in Evelyn’s mind, entwined.

  They each picked up an oar and made to paddle to the boat. It was night, at least, and they prayed they would not be immediately spotted. Flora thought if they could sidle up along the starboard side, she would be able to reach the rigging and climb aboard the Dove undetected. Evelyn would have to do the same, a task that Flora had full confidence in Evelyn accomplishing. Evelyn was not quite so sure of herself, but she did not wish to hinder their mission.

  “You’re going to do well,” Flora said. She gripped Evelyn’s hand and squeezed reassuringly.

  “I wish I shared your confidence.” Evelyn tried to smile, but it didn’t take.

  “You just escaped an Imperial commander to come find me. And you doubt yourself now?”

  “I’ll just say you’re somewhat more equipped for this than I am.” This time the smile did take.

  “You’re the smartest person I know, and I need you if we’re going to pull this off.”

  “Do you need some flowers arranged, or — ?”

  But Flora cut her off with a stern look. She took Evelyn’s hands in her own and held her eyes meaningfully.

  “You are my love and my equal, and we will see each other through this. If you had not been here to remind me of my conscience, we would not even be here. We’re in this together. Yes?”

  “Yes,” Evelyn said. She kissed Flora’s hand.

  Then up they climbed.

  The rigging was taut, and it hurt Evelyn’s hands even sooner than she’d expected. The combination of the wetness and the texture of the coarse rope tore at her soft skin. Good, she thought. Who needs soft hands, anyway?

  Flora was nearly a body’s length ahead of her, and she looked back periodically to check on Evelyn. In her periphery, Evelyn was aware of their boat floating away.

  There was no escape now.

  Genevieve tried not to look at the blood. Not directly, at least. She was aware of it, of course. She could smell it so strongly that she could nearly taste it. But she did not want to look at it, if at all possible. She knew blood was a part of her life, but she did not like it.

  The Lady Ayer was a flurry of activity. As soon as Rake had stepped from the room, she’d started strapping her various pistols and blades to their particular hiding places around her body. The dagger at her ankle. The pistol at her thigh. But Genevieve knew the time had come when she pulled the samurai sword — earned in years of service to the Emperor — and strapped it visibly across her back.

  Genevieve felt her face crack into a grin. How lucky she had been to be blessed with the Lady Ayer as her mentor. How lucky she’d been to be selected for training as an operative at all. She was young, but not as young as she looked; she was told she could pass for twelve. But she was fifteen, and she was being trained by the Emperor’s finest female operative, his only female operative, a fact that left Genevieve suspended in a nearly constant state of heart-thundering pride.

  Because if she was worthy of being trained by the best, Genevieve reasoned, it was likely that she, too, was thought to be the best of her generation. And Genevieve had no intention of proving anyone wrong on that count.

  “Thanks to the E
mperor, we have delivered the captain his operative,” the Lady said. “Now it is his turn to deliver.”

  “The Pirate Supreme.” Genevieve’s voice was a whisper. The Supreme had evaded more than one of the Emperor’s finest operatives. But he’d never sent his best.

  The Lady Ayer smiled. “We shall have the scum in shackles by morning. I’m afraid poor Rake is in for a tough night.”

  Genevieve nodded. Of course he was. What did he expect? For an operative of the Pirate Supreme, he was not nearly as smart as Genevieve had assumed he would be. When the Lady Ayer had briefed her, she’d come aboard the Dove expecting the operative to be nigh impossible to spot, like smoke. But there he was, with his bright-red hair, his eyes ever watching the captain.

  She liked Rake, in the way any law-abiding citizen could like a criminal — which was to say, she appreciated his utility in this short window but was not terribly sad to know their time as enforced allies was over. Besides, his animosity for the Imperial Guard had been clear, and Genevieve could not and would not abide his irrationality. She was not of Imperial blood, either, but that did not cloud her judgment. She’d been eager to leave Quark for just this reason. She could not stand being surrounded by those who acted against their own self-interest.

  “You’ve done fine work here, my lady.”

  The Lady Ayer turned and regarded Genevieve warmly. Genevieve knew her comment did not demand any response, knew she could never demand anything of the Lady. But all the same, the Lady reached out a hand and ran it down Genevieve’s cheek affectionately.

  “Thank you, sweet girl. You know how disappointed I was when that Hasegawa girl managed to bungle her role. Alas, Callum will have to find another excuse for war, won’t he?” She rolled her eyes. “Men. Always thinking about conquest, never about logistics. If you can’t get shipments to and from a colony, what’s the point in having it? But I dare say you’re not wrong. The Pirate Supreme. Quite the prize.”

  “Quite the prize,” Genevieve echoed proudly. “Thanks to the Emperor.” She kissed her fingers, and the Lady Ayer beamed at her.

  “Well. Let’s not celebrate before the fight’s won. Have you all the weapons you require?”

  Genevieve patted her sides, accounting for each of the blades and pistols she carried beneath her kimono. “Yes, my lady.”

  “Good girl. Let’s go make the Empire proud, shall we?” She opened the door to the cabin and stepped daintily over Cook’s blood.

  Abovedeck, the men of the Dove seemed stymied. Certainly, none had ever imagined that their first mate was anything short of the captain’s man, through and through. And yet there was Rake, shackled at the wrists and tied to a mast.

  When he saw the Lady Ayer, saw the sword across her back, he swore loudly.

  Even in the night, Genevieve could see that Rake was glaring not at the Lady Ayer but at her, his eyes aflame against the dark sky. She was hardly surprised. She could sense him, always, sizing her up, trying to see the Quark in her, smell the rice paddy on her, though she’d all but trained it away. He could hate her all he wanted now. He wouldn’t be alive for much longer.

  The captain reached for the Lady’s hand and gave it an audibly wet kiss across the knuckles. “I trust your hidey-hole has been lavishly comfortable?” he asked.

  If she did not know the Lady so well, she would not have recognized the distaste that furrowed her brow for only a fraction of a second. In fact, the tiny space where the Lady and Genevieve had been hiding — a cupboard-size secret hold behind the bookshelf the Lady had installed in her cabin — was anything but comfortable. It was cramped and wet and smelled like feet. Surely, the captain knew that. Surely, he’d known that when he made his deal with the Lady all those months ago. Surely, he’d had a good laugh at their expense, imagining them with their knees to their chins for hours on end.

  The Lady held her composure well, though, and her chin high. “Absolutely not, sir. I am glad to be abovedeck, and I’ll thank one of your men for bringing as fresh of food as you can muster for my girl and for me. Those apples you left for us were hardly adequate.”

  She snatched her hand back from the captain and pulled a spyglass from her sleeve. She scanned the horizon briefly, then stowed it away once more. “Our ships are but an hour away.”

  “Great,” the captain said. He sounded, Genevieve realized, a little drunk. “Fantastic.”

  “Food?” the Lady reminded him, a little irritably.

  “We’ll do what we can. What with the cook bein’ dead.” The captain bowed with facetious theatricality, then clapped his hands. A sailor stepped forward, and the captain ordered him to fetch something good from the kitchens for the Lady and for Genevieve.

  “You’ll all die, you know,” Rake shouted. “Imperials are coming! Do you think they will spare you? Do you think they’ll consider honoring a treaty with crim —” But before he could finish, the man standing next to him, a huge man with the build of a wall, punched him across his jaw, silencing him. There was some murmuring from the men, but none stepped forward. Surely, they must have heard the truth in Rake’s words. Yet all were too cowardly to speak to it.

  “There now, Fawkes, that’ll do. I imagine the Lady here would like our Rake intact.”

  “Quite right.”

  The man called Fawkes shook out his fist and smiled. “You just let me know if you’d like him punched again, milady. I’d be happy to do it.”

  The Lady regarded him coolly but did not deign to respond. Instead, she turned to the captain once more. “I have done my part,” she said. Her voice was like steel. “I am sure I need not remind you what shall happen if you do not do yours.”

  The smile fell from the captain’s face. “Indeed not, ma’am.”

  “My lady,” Genevieve corrected, and the captain had the propriety to at least appear abashed.

  “Apologies. My lady.” He barked some orders at the men to prepare the ship to be boarded. As they scurried about seeing his orders done, he turned to the Lady with an uncharacteristically worried look upon his face. “The deal is the same, then? I can keep my ship and —”

  “But not your crew, I’m afraid. They’ve all seen too much.”

  The captain waved this away, as though their lives hardly mattered. They didn’t, Genevieve supposed, but it was still a cruel gesture. “Yes, right, but the mermaids?”

  The Lady gave him a patronizing smile. Genevieve knew, of course, that pirates enjoyed the hallucinogenic effects of the mermaid’s blood, but she hardly respected the tradition. Not because she disapproved of killing mermaids; on the contrary, according to the Lady Ayer, the Empire had nothing to lose and everything to gain from their demise. The capture of mermaids was hardly a credible pursuit for Imperial operatives such as the Lady, but it did serve the Empire’s interests. The more the Sea forgot, the more memories stolen from her, the more egalitarian her waters would become. Finally, they would be free of the scourge of pirates. Their trade routes safe. Their control absolute.

  The Emperor could not make the sea favor his ships. But he could rob her of her will to see them harmed.

  “Yes, of course, man, you can still hunt your quarry of choice. When I return with reports of your good behavior, the Emperor will surely legalize the hunt of mermaids, and you’ll do so on an Imperial stipend. So long as you deliver us your Supreme.”

  The albatross circled and left.

  The wind had changed. Not just because Imperial sailors were boarding the Dove, though that certainly did not portend well for him. It changed in the way it always did as the Forbidden Isles grew near. He’d been so close to completing his mission, and to be thwarted in such tantalizing proximity to the end set his hands shaking with fury.

  The Lady Ayer stood next to Rake proudly, as though he were an animal she had hunted, shot, and trussed. It served him right to trust an Imperial, even only by half. They were a cruel people, and if he ever freed his hands from his bindings, he’d see them wrapped around her thin, pale throat until the lif
e faded from her eyes.

  For his part, the captain stood at his helm, as though he couldn’t be less concerned about all the Imperials now boarding his ship. And though he played the part well, Rake was an experienced enough actor to see that his vague smile did not touch his eyes, and that his hand fiddled absently with his spyglass, stretching it out and then closing it again.

  Good. He should be nervous. He should be unhappy. His life was about to become Imperial property. And whatever the captain had said — on many occasions — about the Pirate Supreme, at least he respected them. All pirates did. And with this deal, the captain had committed the greatest and most irredeemable treason of all.

  There were some stiff introductions between the Lady Ayer and the ranking Imperial officer before the officer bowed to her in that strange, formal way the Imperials did. So she outranked him. She wasn’t just any Imperial; she was an important one, higher in regard than the commander of a fleet.

  Rake wanted to kick himself. How had he not realized immediately that she was an Imperial operative? The leading questions. Her skill with the knife. The goddamn insignia on the blade, and he’d only distantly wondered if she was who she said she was. He was going to die, and he deserved it.

  “Thanks to the Emperor,” the Lady said. “Here’s the Pirate Supreme’s operative. It is my belief that he meant to lead this ship into the Supreme’s grasp.”

  The officer nodded. Rake wanted to spit at him but didn’t. No reason to court a beating right off the bat.

  “Thanks to the Emperor. We’ll interrogate him immediately,” the officer said, but the Lady Ayer shook her head.

  “I will. You may bear witness.” She motioned to the Imperial sailors, who set about making Rake ready for transport belowdecks. He did not struggle. It would do no good to struggle.

  Instead, he stared forward, looking over the deck of the Dove. She was a beautiful ship.