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Sea Witch
Sarah Henning
The fairy tale you thought you knew…The story of the Sea Witch, the villainess from Hans Christian Anderson’s classic tale The Little Mermaid, told from the viewpoint of the Sea Witch when she was a twelve-year-old girl…Evie has been wracked with guilt ever since her best friend, Anna, drowned. So when a girl appears on shore with an uncanny resemblance to Anna, Evie befriends her in an effort to make amends. And as the two girls catch the eyes – and hearts – of two charming princes, Evie believes that she might finally have a chance at happy ever after. But is Evie’s new friend really who she says she is? Or will Evie discover, too late, the truth of her bargain? A gripping story of friendship, betrayal and the power of hope…Because �though magic can shape life and death… love is the one thing it cannot control
(#ulink_ca61ac85-adb4-56af-aeb1-d3182dd598fa)First published in the USA by HarperCollins Publishers Inc. in 2018 First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2018 Published in this ebook edition in 2018 HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd, HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
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Text copyright В© HarperCollins Publishers 2018
Cover design copyright В© HarperCollinsPublishers 2018 Cover design by Heather Dougherty Cover art by Anna Dittmann All rights reserved.
Sarah Henning asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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Source ISBN: 9780008300845
Ebook Edition В© July 2018 ISBN: 9780008297220
Version: 2018-07-24
(#ulink_b0f1ab45-e4b3-574a-9809-2b5e65bbbf01)To Nate and Amalia—
the only ships in my sea.
And to Justin—
next time there will be
more car chases.
Epigraph (#ulink_0848c8db-972a-5762-848c-be77be8ae0a1)
I have sea foam in my veins, I understand the language of the waves.
—Jean Cocteau, Le Testament d’Orphée
Contents
Cover (#u8847ce00-44c2-5f56-b61f-82e86250cc4e)
Title Page (#ud0504cfe-29db-5a7c-849e-e3635b53ec9a)
Copyright (#ulink_bf4682b4-d166-5775-b6b9-d74dc596948b)
Dedication (#ulink_db18afed-dded-5b12-a92b-c3129ff5e030)
Epigraph (#ulink_038c16be-b91a-523d-a4ca-c9eb05851b80)
Contents (#u699ca211-234d-529d-a19d-09eec591f7df)
Prologue (#ulink_d02794ca-1fc8-5988-8bee-5608b17d4740)
Chapter 1 (#ulink_24d17062-9d59-5bf2-9d1e-712f2437b66b)
Chapter 2 (#ulink_b282792f-746e-505e-a539-ebf87ca802b6)
Chapter 3 (#ulink_2c9803a0-e226-5344-851c-e84c9ff7a548)
Chapter 4 (#ulink_0a9851c8-f75f-52b4-9dd1-013eed2d8326)
Chapter 5 (#ulink_598d16bd-61b1-53a2-8d09-3a993fa2d02f)
Chapter 6 (#ulink_c39e792b-ac84-5f0e-a01d-3a0e27084df1)
Chapter 7 (#ulink_a0f756bb-b646-5d90-a363-78b47dc54f9a)
Chapter 8 (#ulink_045bd18d-98d2-5111-a978-3ee47b1b8de5)
Chapter 9 (#ulink_b2556542-5a34-5c99-9c3f-d91cc6721759)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 24 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 25 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 26 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 27 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 28 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 29 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 30 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 31 (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue—Fifty Years Later (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
Books by Sarah Henning (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue (#ulink_b4a55128-3f9c-5819-9e06-451c0f3f0d4d)
Two small pairs of boots echoed on the afternoon cobblestones—one pair in a sprint, the other in a stumble and slide. A blond girl, no older than five, dragged a raven-haired girl an inch taller and a year older down the sea lane toward a small cottage.
The dark-haired girl’s lungs were sputtering, each inhale a failure.
She was drowning on dry land.
As the house came into view, the blond girl opened her mouth to scream for help but before any sound could come out, the other girl’s mother burst through the door. Like she knew what had happened—she always seemed to know what they’d done.
“Evie!” the mother cried, cradling her daughter in a heap at her chest and running toward the cottage. “Anna,” she said to the little blonde, who was panting from carrying her friend so far,“fetch the royal physician—”
“But—”
“Go!”
The girl didn’t protest again, fine boots clacking against thecobblestones as she regained speed.
When her mother shut the cottage door tightly behind them, the raven-headed girl knew the physician’s medicine wouldn’t heal her.
Only one thing would.
“Gianni!” The mother called, and the girl’s father poked his head out of the bedroom, his face slack with the sleep he wasn’t allowed on his latest whaling trip.
“Evie . . . what—”
“A broken rib. Maybe a punctured lung.” She laid the girl in her bed and ripped the girl’s bodice to her navel. Blood under the skin showed black across the expanse of the little girl’s ribs, fissures like spiderwebs crossed from spine to sternum. The mother tried to read her daughter’s dark eyes. “What happened?”
The girl licked her lips before inhaling just enough air to speak.
“I saved Nik.”
That was true. And the little girl was proud. Daring to smile despite the pain.
They’d spent the morning together—the blonde, the raven-haired girl, and their boy—running through the waves, climbing rocks, dancing in the sand. But then the afternoon came and it was time for them to part. The boy sent back to his castle, the little girls home—the younger one to her mansion, ten times the size of the other girl’s tiny cottage.
Mischievous and sunburnt, they ran in protest, the boy leading the way, holding the girls’ hands as they raced across the stepping-stone rocks that led into the cove. They giggled andshrieked as they hopped from rock to rock, the boy’s minder chiding them from the shore.
But one rock was slick with moss. The boy slipped—falling backward, the base of his skull aimed directly at a crook of solid stone.
In a blink, the little girl made her choice.
She threw her body between the boy and the jagged edge of the rock. Her back took the hit with a huge crack. Her head snapped back, her skull missing impact by a hair. Just as she hit, the boy’s head bounced onto the pilled cotton of her bodice rather than smashing into the rock.
It was a thing of magic that she’d made it in time.
They were caught then. The boy’s minder yanked them back onto the beach and told them in stern tones to never do that again. Then the old woman hauled the boy away without a good-bye, leaving the girls on the sand.
As they turned for home, the little raven-haired girl stumbled, the shock wearing off and the pain beginning. It radiated up her back, around her rib cage, to the front of her dress. She couldn’t catch her breath, each inhale stopping short. The little blonde said she’d walk her friend home but by the time they made it to the sea lane, the raven-headed girl couldn’t stand, all her weight on the blonde’s shoulders.
“Oh, Evie . . . ,” the girl’s mother said. As if she’d seen it all. Immediately, she sent her husband for her bottles. Her inks. Not that one. This one. She laid the girl in her bed and lit a fire with a snap of her fingers.
And tried every healing spell she knew.
It only took seconds to know none of them would work. The girl’s breath withered until it was almost nothing at all.
The mother wept, wishing for her sister—the strongest witch. Healer of Kings, reviving those in power who turn a blind eye to magic when their lives depend on it, but banish it when it doesn’t. She was the reason the physician might come at all—though he would be too late. As would Hansa, a day away, healing yet another noble.
The girl’s father pressed his hand into his wife’s shoulder and wiped away her tears. Then he squeezed his daughter’s hand, already growing cold, her circulation failing.
“I’ll go fetch the minister—”
“Not yet,” the mother said, determination ringing in her voice. The girl’s mother stood at the edge of the bed, her shoulders now pin straight, her voice calm and direct. “There is one more spell I can try.”
With gentle fingers, she painted octopus ink across the little girl’s cheeks, down her neck, and across her chest. Then her mother laid her hands gently over the girl’s chest.
“Don’t you worry, Evie.”
The words she said next were old and dark, and the little girl didn’t understand them. They made her blood crackle like the fire across the room. Stole the air from the cottage. Made her mother shake, violently, as she held her hands to her daughter’s skin.
The little girl couldn’t do anything but watch her mother,her veins singing. Soon, her mother’s palms on her skin became more than damp. They began to burn.
And then the pain stopped. Air rushed into the little girl’s lungs, and her chest rose. She exhaled, long and deep.
At that the girl’s mother smiled—just before her own body began to seize, her eyes rolling back in her head.
It was too much. The mother’s chest compressed, a long breath pushing out—but no inhale following.
“Greta! Greta!” The girl’s father placed his hands on his wife’s face, his palms burning and flying away, suddenly red.
The prickle in the little girl’s blood spiked with fear. She struggled to pull herself to sit, her mother’s hands sliding away as her form slumped over and her pale cheek smashed into the bedsheet. The little girl didn’t hesitate, reaching for her mother’s potions. She turned her mother’s head to face upward before smearing ink across those pale cheeks, her little fingers blistering with the touch. Her own skin was pink and warm and full of life as her mother’s skin turned as white as snow, as hot as ash.
The girl was smart, though. She’d watched her mother enough. She knew how these spells worked. Magic was barter—the right words, actions, potions for the right result.
She put her hands on her mother’s face and began repeating those strange words.
Words of life.
“Evelyn, no!” Her father didn’t move, just screamed, fear freezing him to his spot at the foot of the bed.
But the little girl had fumbled her way through the wordsenough that her own skin began to grow hot. The pain returned. Her breath became shallow. Then her mother’s eyes flew open, showing beautiful hazel instead of the whites.
It was working.
Her father looked from his wife to his daughter. Those words were dark. Old. Powerful. He knew this as much as he knew his native tongue.
Her mother’s lips began moving. She took a deep breath. “Gefa!” With this single command, she stole the words right from the little girl’s mouth. Dark words and dark magic and all sound gone from the girl’s powerful tongue.
Still, the child kept going, chest heaving—she was yelling but could not be heard. Tears as dark as night flowed down her little cheeks. Black coating her vision, the girl began to wail without sound, her whole body shaking.
And, with her last wisp of energy, the girl’s mother looked to her father.
“Bring Hansa home. Tell her. Promise.”
As he nodded, her mother whispered one last spell, and the little girl’s screams filled the air, black tears dripping onto her ruined dress.
“No, Mama, no!”
The little girl grabbed her mother’s hand, still burning to the touch, and saw the light flee from her hazel eyes.
1 (#ulink_c49f0fc8-a9ae-5f03-ad99-44d70643881c)
THE SEA IS A FICKLE WITCH.
She is just as likely to bestow a kiss as to steal the breath from your lips. Beautiful and cruel, and every glimmering wrinkle in between. Filling our bellies and our coffers when she is generous. Coolly watching as we don black and add tears to her waters when she is wicked.
Only the tide follows her moods—giving and taking at the same salty rate.
Still, she is more than our witch—she’s our queen.
In all her spells and tantrums, she is one of us. The crown jewel of Havnestad, nuzzled against our shores—for better or worse.
Tonight, dressed in her best party finery, she appears calm, anger buried well below her brilliant surface. Still, there’s a charge in the air as the stars wink with the coming summer solstice and the close of Nik’s sixteenth birthday.
Formally: Crown Prince Asger Niklas Bryniulf Г?ldenburg III, first in line to the throne of the sovereign kingdom of Havnestad.
Informally: just Nik.
But “just Nik” isn’t quite right either. He’s not just anything to me. He’s my best friend. My only friend, really.
And now he’s dancing with Malvina across the deck of his father’s grand steamship. That is, if you can call her violent tossing and whirling “dancing.” My stomach lurches as Nik comes within inches of tipping over the rail after she forces an overenthusiastic spin. I wish she’d just give it up.
Malvina, formally Komtesse Malvina Christensen, is a perpetual royal suitor. She and her father have been vying for King Asger’s attention for years, hoping he will make the match. Yet despite Nik’s good-natured patience for her dancing, I have my doubts there will be a royal wedding in their future.
I want to look away from the pink silk blur of Malvina, but Nik’s eyes are begging me to rescue him. Pleading. Silently calling my name across the distance—Evvvvvvieee.
I am the only one who can save him. Every youth in town is here, but no one else can cut in on a girl like Malvina. For the others, there would be consequences—lost invitations to galas, the oldest horse on the weekend hunt, a seat at the table next to one’s senile great-tante instead of the Komtesse. For me, there are none of those things. You can’t fall far in society if you’re not part of it to begin with.
After another aggressive turn, I finally stride onto the makeshift dance floor, ignoring a chorus of smirks as I go—they’ve seen this play before. Malvina will be the victim, I’ll be the villain, and Nik will let it happen. It can be a messy business, being the crown prince’s confidante; enduring small humiliations is only a fraction of the cost. But I won’t apologize for helping him. We all make compromises in friendships, and having Nik’s loyalty when no one else will even look me in the eye is worth every criticism I face.
I tap the girl on one sturdy shoulder, screw my face into exaggerated panic, and point to the eight-layered, blue-sugar-spackled monstrosity she insisted on crafting.
“Oh, angels, Evie! What is it?” Malvina barks.
“The cake’s icing—”
“Fondant,” she corrects, as if I’ve spit on her oma’s grave.
“The fondant—it’s bulging.”
True panic colors her features as her feet refuse to move. Torn between dancing with Nik and rescuing her masterpiece from a bulbous fate, her eyes skip to my face for a moment, incredulous. She fears I’ve purposely stolen her turn. It’s just the sort of thing the girls of Havnestad think I would do—the ones whispering in the shadows about us now. Except in this case, they’re right.
“Do your duty, Malvina. It was lovely dancing with you.” Nik bends into a slight bow, royal manners on display, not a hint of displeasure in his features.
When his eyes cut away, Malvina sneaks a glare my way, her disdain for me as clear as her worry that I’m actually telling the truth. She doesn’t need to say what she’s thinking, and she won’t—not if she ever wants to dance with Nik again. So, when Nik completes his bow, she simply plasters on a trained smile and leaves him with the most perfect curtsy before running off in a rush of golden hair and intent.
Now Nik bows deeply to me as if I’m his newest suitor, his mop of black hair briefly obscuring his coal-dark eyes. “May I have the remainder of this dance, my lady?”
My lips curl into a smile as my legs automatically dip into a polite curtsy. My lady. Despite how good those words feel, they’re enough to earn me the ire of everyone on this boat. To them I am just the royal fisherman’s daughter abusing the prince’s kindness, using him for his station. They won’t believe we’re just friends, as we’ve always been, since we were in diapers. Before I knew what I was and he knew who he was meant to be.
“But of course, Crown Prince Niklas,” I reply.
He meets my eyes, and we both burst out laughing. Formality has never worn well between us—regardless of Nik’s training.
We settle in and begin to waltz across the deck. He has a good foot on me, but he’s practiced at leaning in—whispers are often our most convenient language.
“Took you long enough,” he says, twirling me through the last bars of the song.
“I wanted to see how long you’d stay dry.”
He gasps with false horror in my ear, a smile tingeing it. “You’d send your own best friend swimming with the mermaids on his birthday?”
“I hear they’re beautiful—not a bad present for a teenage boy.”
“They also prefer their presents not breathing.”
My eyes shoot to his. I can feel the slightest tremble in my jaw. Today would’ve been our friend Anna’s birthday too. It still is, though she is no longer here to celebrate it. She was exactly a year younger than Nik. We’d each had our share of close calls in those days, the great and powerful goddess Urda seeming to want us all for herself. But we lost Anna. I glance down, feeling tears hot against my lash line, even after four years’ time. Nik sighs and tugs a curl off my face. He waits until I finally glance up. There’s a soft smile riding his lips, and I know he regrets pulling us from a place of joy to one so fraught. “Well, thank you for saving me, Evie. As always.”
It’s as good a subject change as any, but it’s not enough—and we both know it. I take a deep breath and look over Nik’s shoulder, not trusting myself to say more. I swallow and try to concentrate on the party. Everything here has been borrowed for Nik’s celebration—the ship, the free-flowing hvidtøl, the band, two servants, and a coal man—and it’s beautiful. I focus on the miniature lanterns ringing the deck, the golden thread of my single fancy dress catching their glow.
Suddenly, Malvina hoists herself onto the dessert table, still frantically trying to control the cake’s growing bulge. I expect Nik to laugh, or at least knock out a very royal snort, but instead he’s looking over my shoulder, portside, at the sea. I follow his eyes, and my heart sputters to a stop when I make out a swift schooner, the familiar line of a boy—a man—adjusting the sail.
“Iker . . .” His name falls from my lips in a sigh before I can catch it. I meet Nik’s eyes, a blush crawling up my cheeks. “I didn’t know he was coming.”
“Neither did I.” He shrugs and raises a brow. “But Iker’s not exactly one to confirm an invitation. Missed that day at prince school. The lecture about being on time, too.”
“I believe it’s called �fashionably late,’” I say.
“Yes, well, I suppose I wouldn’t know,” Nik says with a laugh.
The little schooner closes in, and I see that it’s only Iker—he hasn’t brought a crew with him from Rigeby Bay, not that I’d expect him to. He’s a weather-worn fisherman trapped in a life designed for silk and caviar. He redirects the mainsail perfectly, his muscles tensing tightly as he aims straight for his cousin’s form.
Nik leans to my ear. “There goes my dancing partner.”
I punch him on the arm. “You don’t know that.”
“True, but I do know how you’ve looked at him since my cake had about ten fewer candles on it.”
I roll my eyes, but I can’t help a smile creeping up my lips. He’s somewhat right, though now isn’t the best time to argue that the way I looked at Iker changed from brotherly to something else entirely about four years ago, not ten.
I clear my throat. “I’m sure Malvina won’t mind—she’s almost finished with your cake,” I say, nodding in the direction of the blue monstrosity but never taking my eyes off Iker as he readies to throw up a line to the steamer.
Nik hugs me close and dips down to my ear. “You’re such a ravishingly loyal friend.”
“Always have been. Always will be.”
“’Tis true.” Nik grins before waving a long arm above his head. “Well, if it isn’t the crown prince of Rigeby Bay!”
“And here I hoped to surprise you,” Iker says, laughing. “Can’t surprise a lighthouse of a man on his own boat, I suppose.”
Nik laughs, standing even taller. “Not if I’m turned the right way.”
Iker laughs even deeper. There is salt in his hair and few days’ worth of scruff lining his strong jawline, but he strides across his deck with the elegance of a prince. He glances up at me, his eyes briefly betraying a hint of doubt about the sturdiness of my frame, but tosses the line to me anyway. I catch it, securing it with a knot I learned from Father.
Iker hauls himself up the rope and onto the ship. He manages to land on the small patch of deck just between Nik and myself. Behind us a crowd has gathered.
“Happy birthday, Cousin.” Eyes laughing, Iker claps Nik on the back and brings him in for a hug, his toned arms fully encasing Nik’s spindly-yet-strong form.
When they release, Iker’s eyes go right to me. They’re the clearest of blues—like ancient ice in the fjords of the north.
“Evelyn,” he says, still retaining an air of formality from his upbringing, but he then shockingly pulls me into a hug.
I freeze, eyes on Nik as he and everyone else on the ship stares. Iker doesn’t seem to notice or care and pulls me tighter, his arms wrapped around my waist. Warm from ship work, he smells of salt and limes. His shirt is freckled with water droplets, onyx on the starched gray fabric—the sea leaving her mark.
When the moment is over and he lets me go, an arm lingers across my shoulders. I try to ignore the question nagging me, the one I’m sure everyone else is asking too. Why me? We’ve known each other since we were children, but he’s never shown me this kind of affection before. I’m not his type. I’m not anyone’s type. Yet Iker continues to act as if it’s all completely normal. He turns to Nik, to the crowd, and grins that perfect smile.
“Good people of Havnestad,” he says, his voice commanding yet sincere. Then the grin grows wider. “Let’s give the prince a celebration so hearty, he’ll never forget it.”
2 (#ulink_c9152fbc-612c-564d-8192-83854de3f694)
I FEEL AS IF I’M LIVING IN A DREAM.
Still warm from Iker’s strong embrace, I twirl across the dance floor in his arms.
I tried to tell Iker we shouldn’t, but he wouldn’t hear of it. “Let them talk,” Iker said. If only he knew how much they already did.
I can sense Malvina’s eyes following me. Yes, Malvina, this is what it looks like when someone dances without fearing for his life. But I try not to think about her. I want to remember this moment, even the smallest details. Everything about him wears like oiled leather and loved muslin. His hands are rough and worn from the sea, and yet they are gentle, his thumb delicately caressing mine.
My twelve-year-old fantasies were never this detailed—hardly anything beyond me in a grand purple gown and Iker in his royal finery hand-in-hand on a stroll through the palace gardens. The reality is so different, so intense, and I’m not sure I’m handling it well. I know I’m not. Can he feel my palms sweating? My heart beating loudly against his chest?
“I saw you from my deck, you know,” he whispers in my ear. “Before coming aboard. You’ve never looked more beautiful, Evie. And I’ve never begged the gods to steer my ship faster.”
I don’t know what to say, my voice seizing in my throat. I look around instead, trying to organize my thoughts. The sun has completely set, the last strands of light gone with our plates in a rush and clatter of tiny quail bones, torsk tails, pea pods, and strawberry hulls. And though the entire ship deck is still lit by a ring of miniature lanterns, the remaining shadow is enough that it almost feels as if we’re alone.
Just a boy, a girl, and the sea.
The song ends and he hugs me tight. When he pulls back, he runs his fingers along my jawbone. “I shouldn’t have stayed away from Havnestad so long,” he says, capturing one of my curls between his fingers. “You have the same hair you did as a child.” His gaze lifts to mine. “The same starry-night eyes.”
I struggle not to look down—down to where he’s still wound a lock of my hair lightly between his fingers. I bite my lip to silence the sigh there. His fingers wind tighter around the curl. It almost seems as if he doesn’t know he’s doing it—this boy made of smiles and grand gestures doing something so small it’s escaped him.
Iker’s eyes drift to the band members who have circled around a bench where someone has begun to play a guitaren. Though we can’t see him, the shiny, precise plucks are a dead giveaway that the musician is Nik. He’s always been the kind to pick up any instrument and immediately know exactly how to play it, ever since we were children. He’s strumming the song I used to sing on the docks as a girl to wish my father safe travels on his fishing trips. Nik said it always got stuck in his head.
Iker drops the curl.
Clears his throat.
Adjusts his body so that we’re not touching in so many places.
It’s over. I know it. Perhaps fantasies are only meant to come true for a moment. Surely a trick of the gods.
His eyes linger on the band when he eventually speaks, but his tone has changed. “Evie, I love visiting Havnestad, but I don’t like to step on my cousin’s toes.”
Now my voice isn’t right. Whydid Nik have to play that song? I swallow. “But you aren’t,” I say, hoping he can’t hear the pleading in my tone. “Besides, I don’t think Nik would mind seeing more of you, and there is the Lithasblot festival coming up in a few days.”
“Ah, yes, when you people go nuts for Urda, throw bread at anyone without a double chin, and run in circles until you pass out.”
“You people?” I say and give him a jab. Iker may be from across the strait, but he’s just as much an �ldenburg as Nik. Their family has ruled Denmark and Sweden for four hundred years. They know better than anyone not to discount the harvest the goddess has bestowed on us. “Don’t poke fun at the games. We take them very seriously.”
“Oh yes, a life-or-death game of carrying around the heaviest rock.”
“Or running the length of a log. All useful skills.” I laugh, happy to have lightened the mood again.
Iker turns to me. “If I stay for this Lithasblot extravaganza, you must promise you will scramble across some recently murdered tree for my entertainment.”
“If that’s what it takes, then I promise,” I say, dipping in a mock curtsy.
A laugh escapes from my lips, but Iker’s attention is locked on my face. Almost as if he can’t help himself, his thumb grazes my cheekbone again, down my jaw and to my mouth. The touch of his finger to my lips sends color rising in my cheeks as I meet the glacier blue of his eyes.
“Iker, I—”
“Gooooooood people of Havnestad!” Our heads whip around as Nik’s voice booms across the length of the ship. He is still holding the guitaren, but now he has a crown fashioned of lemon wedges squashed on his wavy flop of hair. There’s a huge smile tugging at his cheeks, and his long arms are thrust high into the air. He’s actually doing quite the unintentional impression of Iker, though only after a few mugs of King Asger’s special brew. “As your crown prince, I hereby issue a royal decree that we sing for me on this, the sixteenth year of my life.”
“Hear, HEAR,” yells Iker, followed by the rest of the crowd, which has suddenly crept back into the corners of my vision.
“Excellent. Ruyven has sent the signal for fireworks. But first, a so—” Nik’s voice cuts out as Malvina’s strong hand jerks him down so her lips can meet his ear. The other hand is gesturing behind them, toward the cake. Nik stands back up slowly and resets the guitaren. “The lovely lady Malvina has informed me we are at a loss for candles.” Nik points the instrument’s neck at me, feigned formality still thick in his throat. “Evelyn?” He raises a brow.
I raise one back.
“Come on, I know you know where they are.”
And I do. Exactly where Nik left them when he “borrowed” the king’s boat for the first warm day after a long, ice-filled winter.
“Yes, I do, good prince.”
As much as I don’t want to leave Iker’s side, I step away, the warmth of him clinging to my skin for a ghost of a second as we separate. I snag a lantern that’s dipped low on the line ringing the deck and move away from the crowd.
Boots clomping on the stairs, I disappear belowdecks to the captain’s quarters. The space is much larger than something that should be a captain’s anything—the whole place is nearly bigger than the home I share with Father and Tante Hansa. The miniature lantern struggles to keep up with the vastness, illuminating a halo barely beyond the hem of my party dress. It’s utterly annoying.
Glancing up the stairs, I confirm that I am alone; no one followed me below. My back to the door, I reach a hand into the lantern. Softly muttered words of old fall from my lips as my fingers pinch the tip of the candle. “Brenna bjartr aldrnari. Brenna bjartr aldrari. Pakka Glöð.”
The candle begins to glow with the full force of one three times its size.
It’s a small act—something so subtle I probably could’ve done it in full view of everyone above. But even something as run-of-the-mill as a strengthening spell is dangerous here.
Women burned for far less under the Г?ldenburgs of yesteryear.
My relatives burned for far less.
Which means there are things about me Nik and Iker can never know.
Besides, I already took a risk tonight when I silently urged Malvina’s cake to shed its sugary skin. I hadn’t tried something like that since I was a child, but it worked well enough. Strengthening the candle in the open would have been pushing my luck, though, and I’ve never had much of that to begin with.
Now the cushion of light is more than enough. I ease my way through the vast space and toward the pair of chairs under one of the starboard portholes, a chessboard painted into the oak table between them.
I’d watched Nik stuff the ship’s allotment of extra candles into the table’s drawer while helping him clean up evidence of his warm-weather get-together. Not that his father wouldn’t know about our little celebration—dishonesty has never sat well in Nik’s royal mind—he just hadn’t wanted to leave the castle’s harbor crew with more work.
With rescued candles and matches in hand, I grab the lantern and spin toward the door. But suddenly in my peripheral vision, I catch two flashes of shocking white and blue. I spin back around to where a small halo of light beacons through the porthole.
My heart sputters to a dead halt as I realize I don’t know of any fish with markings like those.
Like human eyes.
Lungs aching for me to remember how to breathe, I raise the lantern to the porthole, my mind churning to account for everyone onboard the ship. Yes, everyone had been there when I descended the stairs.
Yet, when the halo of light reaches the thick glass, a friend’s eyes are there, deep blue and framed by luminous skin, water-darkened blond waves, and a look of surprise on parted lips.
“Anna?”
But in the instant I say her name into the damp cabin, the face vanishes, and I’m left staring into the indigo deep.
My lungs release and draw in a huge gulp of air as I race to the next porthole, my breath coming in rapid spurts as I repeat her name. But there’s no sign of her beautiful face at that porthole or the next two.
I stand in the middle of the king’s great cabin, heart pounding, breath burning in my lungs, as a heavy sob escapes my lips. Tears sting my eyes as I realize that even with Nik’s brotherly friendship and Iker’s new affection, I’m still just a lonely fisherman’s daughter.
A lonely fisherman’s daughter wishing that I could have my sweet friend back. Wishing hard enough that I’m seeing ghosts.
Wishing so very hard that I’m losing my mind.
3 (#ulink_0eb43534-187b-557e-88c4-b0e4c4a7d1c8)
I WIPE MY EYES WITH MY WRIST, THE CANDLES AND matches still clutched in my fingers. A couple of deep breaths, and I will myself through the door and up the stairs, my legs leaden.
“The good lady has returned with the candles!” Nik shouts when he sees me, his voice half-singing in tune with the guitaren.
“And the matches, my prince,” I hear myself say in a much steadier voice than I’d have thought possible.
“My dear Evie, always rescuing her prince from his own lack of forethought.”
“Someone has to, Cousin,” laughs Iker, rising to his feet while Malvina snatches the goods from my arms. Immediately, she bustles behind Nik, spearing the beautiful layers of fondant with the fat ends of the tapers. No thank-you from her, even though for anyone else, her trained manners would require it.
Nik begins the song before they’re all lit. His voice soars above us all, even over Iker’s baritone. As usual, I just mouth along to the words—my singing voice was ruined the day I lost Anna. Tante Hansa says I’m lucky that is all the sea took. Nik has his eyes shut and isn’t even facing his cake, the flames flickering and twisting behind him, manipulated by a strong wind from deep within the �resund Strait.
My gaze follows the wind into the dark distance. Just past the edge of our wake, the indigo skies go pitch-black, the furrowed edges of an angry line of clouds moving in at a furious pace.
“Iker,” I breathe.
“. . . Hun skal leve højt hurra . . .” Nik hits the final line of the traditional birthday song and turns to blow out the candles, opening his eyes just as the first of the fireworks shoots off from the beach. Bursts of white and red stream across the sky in quick succession, illuminating Havnestad below and the ring of mountains surrounding the city proper.
“Iker,” I repeat, my eyes still upon the clouds closing in. He turns, hand still set heavily about my waist, and I point to the storm line as a tendril of lightning strikes the water just beyond the confines of the harbor.
A flash of recognition hits his eyes as they read the distance between the rain and the ship. “Storm!” he yells, a clap of thunder cutting off the end of the word. “Everyone belowdecks! Now!”
But, of course, our party turns toward the storm rather than away, human curiosity flying in the face of safety. Iker, Nik, and I rush into motion as the first fat drops of rain splatter onto the deck.
Nik begins directing the crowd belowdecks. Iker is up at the wheel, working to right the ship toward the harbor after sending its previous driver—the coal man—down below to feed the steam engine.
With the rain already sheeting, the boat tips as I climb the stairs to the stern. I cling to the rail. There is no magic I can do in the open to stop this, which makes me grateful to be the salt of the sea and the daughter of a fisherman. I’m not helpless in the least.
Thunder rumbles deep and rich directly overhead. The cake’s candles and the lanterns ringing the ship have been blown out by the blustery wind, and I’m thankful when a flash of lightning cracks across the sky just long enough to show me the scene.
Iker—getting the boat going in the right direction, his feet planted and muscles straining.
Nik—trudging up the stairs after barring the door down below, his crown of lemons fed to the sea by the flying wind.
The cake—tipped over and beached on its massive side as the boat lurches starboard.
Another clap of thunder sounds as I reach Iker and help him hold the wheel. Iker is strong enough to steer it by himself, but the boat’s line noticeably straightens when I help him maintain control.
“A birthday pleasure cruise!” Iker yells across the booming skies as I smile at him through clenched teeth. His eyes dance even as every tendon in his neck strains to keep our course. “All clear skies and fancy drinks. Isn’t that what Nik promised?”
Muscles already screaming, we both focus on the lighthouse at the edge of the harbor, still minutes away. A heavy wave crashes along the deck, taking the remainder of the cake with it. Nik manages to hold tight to the stair railing, his white dress shirt plastered against his skin.
“We’re too slow,” Iker yells into my ear between peals of thunder.
I nod and grit my teeth further as a gust of wind pulls the ship portside, yanking the wheel with it. “I’ve got it,” I say. “But we won’t go any faster unless—” I nod toward his prized craft, a present from his father.
Iker nods, heeding my suggestion. “Nik!” he yells over the whipping wind and angry waves. “My schooner! Help me cut it loose!”
Somehow Nik hears him and immediately pulls himself portside, where Iker’s little boat is adding too much weight.
Another wave tips up the ship, sending us starboard. Boots sliding, I manage to keep us steady, pinning the wheel in place with all my weight. On the main deck, Nik has made his way over to the portside rail. He hooks one long arm around the rail to steady himself, and then works furiously with his free hand on my knot. Iker is on his way there.
The boat lurches again, and I close my eyes, willing land to get closer. When my eyes open, we might be closer to Havnestad’s docks, but only by a few feet. I twist my head to the side and see that Nik nearly has the knot free.
A whitecap splashes over the side, drenching Nik. He shakes his head, wavy hair splaying out to the side. He rights himself, the slick railing and new floorboards doing him no favors in traction or leverage. With one final pull, the rope is completely loose, and slides over the side of the ship. Nik, much stronger than he looks, hangs on as the steamer’s equilibrium changes with the loss of Iker’s schooner.
“Three hundred yards to the royal dock!” Iker yells, making his way to the wheel. I look from Nik back to land. The lighthouse is indeed finally closing in, the blaze atop the tower looming just below the steely thatch of clouds.
But not as fast as the biggest wave we’ve seen yet.
Black as the sky above, the wall of water splashes hard on the portside, sending Nik to his knees. I call out for him to stay down—a lower center of gravity is safer—but my small voice is swallowed up in the storm.
He stands.
A charge of lightning rips across the sky.
The ship tips, pulled down with the weight of the wave, rocking Nik headfirst into the deep.
4 (#ulink_e6d63003-3451-5178-ada9-3c887cc142f2)
“NIK!”
I scream his name as loudly as I can. The boat rights itself, but there’s no sign of him along the portside. Only wet wood and sea foam where he once was.
“NIK!” I wail again and let go of the wheel, passing Iker and sprinting toward the stairs to the main deck.
My mind moves faster than my wind-battered body, a string of thoughts running together in the murk as I dash forward, not caring or paying attention to the wind, the rain, the course, or even Iker.
No.
You CANNOT have him, you wicked sea.
Your mermaids will have to take someone else.
Nik belongs to me.
“Evie!” Iker yells. “Don’t! Come back! It’s not—”
“NIK!” I lunge down the stairs. The deck boards are slick under my boots, but I race to the spot where Nik fell. The wind whips my curls about my face as I squint through the rain and night at the churning sea below. “NIK!”
I yell his name over and over, my voice becoming raw and weak, to the point where it’s barely a whisper. Finally, we reach the royal dock. I drop onto the wood before Iker and the coal man even have time to anchor. I scan the horizon for any sign of a long arm, a flop of hair, or a piece of boot.
Iker heaves himself over the railing and onto the dock next to me, leaving the coal man to free the rest of the passengers from the captain’s quarters. “Evie,” he says, his voice much calmer than it should be—the sea captain in him overruling his bloodline. “Look there.” He points to just this side of the horizon, where the stars have returned, unhidden by the clouds. “The storm’s almost over. Nik’s a strong swimmer.”
I nod, my hopes pinned on the reason in his eyes. “But we still need to find him,” I say. Everything my father taught me about the sea kicks in, and I point to a spot in the churning waves. “We were about there.” I move my outstretched fingers in a sloping line in the direction of the wind, following the line until it lands on the cove side of Havnestad Beach. “Which means he will most likely be . . . there.”
I don’t look to Iker for confirmation—I just take off down the dock, tear onto the sand, and race across the shoreline in that direction.
“Nik!” I choke, my voice still raspy and hopeless against the wind. Iker is on my heels for a few strides and then ahead of me in a few more.
Havnestad Cove is part jutting rock, part silty beach. There’s a rolling W shape to it, and a few large boulders form footstep islands toward its center, before the waters become too deep. In good weather, it’s a beautiful escape from the rest of the harbor. In bad weather, it’s a hurricane in a birdbath.
Iker points to the biggest island—Picnic Rock. “I’m going there to see what I can.”
The wind is already calming, the rain tapering off. Even the lightning seems to be behind us, disappearing with the storm into the mountains. The swiftness of such a powerful storm confounds me. The magic in my blood prickles at the strangeness, but I have no time to think of things beyond this world.
I tilt my chin toward a mass of rocks farther along the shore, the point that makes the W by jutting deep into the middle of the cove. It’s just tall enough that it blinds us from the remainder of the beach.
“I’ll climb up there and take a look on the other side.”
“Wait!” Iker says, his face weary. For once, he doesn’t seem to know what to say. He reaches his hand through my hair and pulls me close. My heart is pounding.
“Iker, we ca—” The words are whispers on my tongue—that we can’t delay, that he shouldn’t slow me down—when he tips my chin up and his lips are on mine.
I breathe him in, long and deep, and for a moment we’re not on a gritty beach, soaked to the bone, searching for Nik. We’re somewhere far from here. A place where class, title—none of that matters. Somewhere that surely doesn’t exist outside of this instant. Another trick of the gods.
He pulls back, and I’m stunned still, staring into his cool eyes.
“Be careful,” he says.
Shaken back to reality, I pick up my waterlogged skirts and run along the coastline to the wall of stone. The swift clouds have almost reached their end, their tail nearly directly above the cove entrance. Starry night reigns above the massive sea beyond, calm waters with it. My eyes are constantly scanning the waves, looking for any sign of Nik.
But there’s nothing.
I steal a glance back at Iker. He’s already made it to Picnic Rock, hoisting himself up. I breathe a sigh of relief that the stormy churn didn’t wash him away and turn back to the approaching boulder just steps ahead.
I’ve climbed this giant rock hundreds of times since childhood, as have most of Havnestad’s youth. I know the placement of the fingerholds with my eyes shut; my boots automatically drift to the perfect places to wedge themselves before taking another step up. The rain has all but stopped now, and the crag of stone is mostly damp, not slick.
I lug myself on top and scan the waters again, squinting at every irregularity, struggling to use the limited moonlight to make out what is yet another coastal rock and what might be Nik. I close my eyes, dread piling at my feet as I pivot toward the hidden portion of the cove. When my eyes spring open, I have to blink again to make sure my mind isn’t playing tricks. A flash of bright-white fabric swims on the distant sandy line.
My heart swells with hope. I scramble down the rock and onto the other side of the beach. My feet work overtime to propel my body forward as the wet sand swallows my boots with each step.
Lightning radiates over the mountains, illuminating the sky for a flash—long enough for my brain to register the outline of Nik’s body against the sand.
And the form of a girl hovering over him.
“NIK!” I yell, my voice coming back to me.
In response comes Iker’s baritone from behind, “Evie!”
But I don’t wait for him. I don’t even turn in Iker’s direction, keeping my eyes only on Nik and the girl leaning over him, her body still mostly submerged. Without another stroke of lightning, I can’t make out much more than her long, long hair—so long it drapes over the white of Nik’s shirt.
The girl’s head tilts up in the moonlight as if she’s just now noticed me running toward her at full speed. The lightning returns in a burst, and though my legs keep moving, my heart skids to a stop.
Large blue eyes. Butter-blond curls. Creamy flush of skin.
It’s the girl. The one from the porthole.
Anna?
No, it can’t be.
Recognition seems to fill the girl’s eyes, and her features skip from contented calm to a pure rush of panic. Panic that sends her straight into motion. A gust of wind pushes her hair over the curve of her shoulder as she takes one hasty and last glance at Nik’s face before heaving herself fully into the water.
“Wait!” I yell as best I can, but it’s useless with her ears deep under the waves.
In less than a breath, I get to Nik and crash to the sand next to him, pulling his chest to mine, my ear to his mouth. A rush of air from his lips touches my cheek as Iker yells both our names from behind.
Nik’s lungs work in great rasps, but they work. His eyes are closed, but he seems to be conscious.
“Evie . . .”
“I’m here, Nik. I’m here.”
A ghost of a smile touches his lips. “Evie . . . keep singing, Evie.”
Confused, I begin correcting him. “Nik, I’m not—I don’t . . .”
My mouth goes dry. I scan the waters for any sign of the girl. The girl who looks like Anna all grown up. The girl who must like to sing the way my friend did as a child.
At first, there’s still nothing. Just ever-calming waves and starry night, backlit by the summer solstice moon.
But then, just at the edge of the cove, I see it.
Blond hair gone silver under the clear moon, peeking up for a swift moment before the girl dives back underwater. A trail of sea spray flies up in her wake—and with it comes something more.
The perfect outline of a tail fin.
FOUR YEARS BEFORE
The sun was out, as fierce and as hot as possible inHavnestad. It wasn’t as fierce or hot as it is in other places, but memorable to those in the mild-mannered �resund Kingdoms, much more accustomed to Mother Nature’s cold shoulder than her steamy smile, though it was the height of summer.
Two girls, one with waves of blond, one with curls of black, pranced along the shoreline. Their voices lifted toward the naked June sun, carried aloft by a deep wind from within the strait.
A boy, already as tall as a man, trailed them, piccolo to his lips, writing a tune for the girls’ merry lyrics.
Despite the sun, the main beach was clear, the majority of Havnestad hauling fish and hunting whales at sea, the bustle of a modern economy weathering a boom. They would flood the shores with catch and tales soon enough, returning that night for the days-long Lithasblot festival and the midsummer full moon. For now, the whole stretch of sand belonged to the two girls and their boy.
The waves, heavy and exuberant, churned in the strong wind, tossing themselves at the girls’ ankles—bare without anyone there to correct them. The boy’s boots were on—his feet were gangly and hairy in a way they hadn’t been last summer, and he didn’t want the girls to see. He stayed on dry sand, justbeyond the waves’ reach, coal-dark eyes pinned on the girls’ delicate toes, which also seemed to have changed in a year, but only maybe in the way he couldn’t look away from the flash of skin beneath their skirts.
They went on like that until the girls suddenly stopped—singing, prancing, everything—so suddenly that the boy bumped into the raven-curled girl’s back. She laughed it off, but both girls’ eyes were locked on the sea. Watching the whitecaps with wonder, adventure flashing in their eyes.
The one with the blond waves and ocean-blue eyes spoke first. “She’s angry—foaming at the mouth.”
“Are you calling the sea a rabid dog?” asked the raven-haired one. “She wouldn’t like that much.”
“I suppose not.”
A black brow pitched above eyes blue like midnight. “Touch the sandbar and return to shore?” She smiled, lips pinned in a slight twist. “Dare you.”
The blond girl considered it, chewing on her lip, reading the waves. Finally, in answer, she began unlacing her dress’s bodice.
The boy sat on the sand behind the girls, playing the piccolo so they’d think he was distracted, not paying an inch of attention to them as they stripped to their petticoats. Even in surreptitious glances, their shoulders and arms were things of beauty, smooth as the marble statues his mother had commissioned for the tulip garden. So beautiful they made his cheeks hot. He knew he should not look—it wasn’t right, not at the age they were getting to be—but still, he watched.
The blond girl watched back, her eyes finding him, cheeks pinking as her clothes fell to the sand. The raven-curled girl thwacked her on the shoulder, dark eyes big and knowing. No secrets between friends, except those in plain sight.
When the girls were ready, they stood, dresses neatly folded, and pointed slim fingers toward the sea.
On the count of three, they were gone.
5 (#ulink_c9d18023-e93a-5f72-af31-0f092f1b4c0d)
I DON’T BELIEVE IN MERMAIDS. I DON’T. THEY ARE JUST an abomination ancients like Tante Hansa dream up to keep children from doing especially dim-witted things. If you touch that hot pot . . . if you eat that whole cake . . . if you take that candy . . . the mermaids will steal you away. We’re superstitious, children of the sea, but we’re not gullible.
Mermaids don’t exist.
But I know what I saw. I know who I saw.
Nik, for his part, doesn’t seem to remember much. He thinks I rescued him. He thinks I sang to him.
It’s been more than a day, and I still haven’t told him that he’s lost his mind if he thinks that’s what happened. Mostly because I don’t have an answer to what really did. None of it makes any sense.
No, I don’t believe in mermaids.
But I do have a strong belief in friendship—more than anything in this world.
I believed it with Anna.
And I believe it with Nik.
Iker—I don’t know what to think of Iker, though he’s standing right before me on the royal dock, borrowed crew packing a borrowed ship behind him.
“Come—the sea calls.” Iker brushes away a few of my curls and cups his hand about my ear as if to amplify the sea’s ancient voice. He leans down, his cheek brushing right against mine, his lips warm next to my skin as he whispers, “Evelynnnnn.”
His enthusiasm makes my heart skip, and I wish I could go, but Father is leaving this morning as well, and he hates the idea of me being aboard a different ship while he is at sea too. He’s superstitious to a fault, even if it’s just for a quick trip up the Jutland and back before Sankt Hans Aften and the opening of the Lithasblot festival. Iker is enchanted by sightings of a large whale—one that would feed Rigeby Bay for weeks in both meals and trade. I hate it, but I know Iker must go—the seafaring season waits for no one, not even a prince.
“I’m so very sorry to disappoint,” I say. And I am. This time with him has been strangely magical, even if all we’ve done is sit with Nik, telling stories to make him smile as he recovers.
“Too late, the sea is already disappointed—your skills during the storm were top-notch. You’re a sailor she needs upon her waves.” His eyes flash, the curve of his mouth serious. Vulnerable, even, as strange as that is. But I don’t—I can’t—let myself think that it’s he who needs me and not the sea. Reality doesn’t work that way.
“The sea will have to wait.”
“And so will I.” He bends down to kiss me then, and though it’s the second time, it’s still a shock—a deep dive into ice-capped waters.
“You don’t have to go,” I say when we part, my voice small and slurred.
“What’s that?” he says, pretending not to have heard. “You don’t have to stay?”
He grabs my hand in both of his and begins to tug me toward the ship, full of crew waiting for his instruction. “Splendid, let’s get going—you steer; I’ll sip portvin and keep an eye out for the whale.”
I laugh and let him tug me a little farther up the gangplank than I should. In my heart, I don’t believe in Father’s superstitions. And yet I have superstitions of my own. Nik is still recovering. I can’t leave. What if he took a turn for the worse while I was gone?
No, I must stay.
Iker will come back. He says he will.
I know he will.
Something changed that night on the steamer. More during the storm than in the huddled moments before—we’d seen each other in our element. The salt of the sea, the both of us. And despite choosing to stay, it is the very last thing I want Nik to know about. Most especially the kissing. But it shouldn’t be too hard to keep a secret from my best friend—after all, I’ve been keeping my magic from Nik his whole life.
I step down from the gangplank and onto the dock. With a wave and a shout to his crew, Iker is off, taking our secret leagues away as I tuck it deep within me. I watch as he leaves the harbor, standing there just long enough to glimpse him turning back, my hand ready to wave. And then I set out for one more good-bye and my daily duties, Tante Hansa’s amethyst heavy in my pocket.
No, I don’t believe in mermaids. But I am willing to believe in whatever it is that happens when I kiss the amethyst to the bow of my father’s ship before an expedition. What happens when I cast the spell I created using centuries-old magical wisdom.
It’s only been a few weeks, but already it has worked, bringing in far more catch than by this time last year. I smile when I see the fishermen celebrating on the docks now. After four years of suffering through the Tørhed, a barrenness so severe the town’s fishing fleet decreased by half, these hearty cheers are welcome sounds. I haven’t heard them since before Anna’s death; the grumbles from tired fishermen coming ashore to restock on salted meat and limes have filled our ears instead.
After three years of the TГёrhed, King Asger knew that praying to the gods was no longer enough. Havnestad had to find a new way to stay afloat. The royal steamship was ordered, and any man not at sea was put to work building the boat from late summer to first frost, shaping wood, and fitting sheets of metal to the smokestack.
But even that ship, hammered together by the strength of this fine town, was not enough to keep all of Havnestad’s bellies fed. The steamer was a one-time measure. Even the crown can’t afford a new ship every year.
I had to do something.
So, as I’ve done since the summer of Anna’s death, I stole into Tante Hansa’s room while she was off playing her weekly turn of whist down at Fru Agnata’s shack. Hansa’s bedroom is a stifling place, with the fire lit every night, even in the summer. Dried roses line the walls in a ring as high as she can reach—the hundreds of them a testament to her belief that their scent and beauty are superior to the tulips so popular throughout the �resund Kingdoms.
Beneath the line of roses, in a corner opposite the flue, there’s a sea chest draped in shadow and an ancient moose hide. Inside is everything the �ldenburgs fear, all they have banished by law: gemstones, age-stained books, cobalt bottles sealed with pinches of cork and wax. The very same items Tante Hansa used on me when I resurfaced in Nik’s arms four years ago, Anna nowhere to be found. When I’d been in bed, nearly dead myself, watched over by Hansa and spoon-fed elixirs tasting of perfume and age. And aged they certainly are, passed down in shadow generations for centuries. Someday they will belong to me, I suppose.
That day I took a purple stone—one so small that I hoped it would escape Hansa’s notice, but big enough to have an impact. I snagged one of the tattered books with crumbling spines, too, fishing it out from where it was packed under a cake of beeswax and a marble mortar and pestle.
Hours after lights out, I crept down to the beach, but well beyond Havnestad Cove. As the shoreline thins, becoming one with the rocky mountain, sharp boulders jut out from the sea. The water is deeper there and the waves choppy, but in between the shadow of two large rocks is a swath of sand. Overhead, stone from the edge of Havnestad has formed into a perfect arch, the result of Urda coaxing the sea into this crevice for thousands of years.
This place doesn’t have a name, as far as I know. I’ve never seen anyone come here, and it’s hidden from view on the beach and by the boulders from the sea. I’ve taken to calling it Greta’s Lagoon, after my mother. She would have liked a place like this. Deep in the shadows of the lagoon is a small cave barely large enough to fit two, but it’s plenty big to store the few tinctures and inks Tante Hansa has entrusted to me.
I moved away the few small boulders I use to hide the entrance and lit a candle. With the amethyst stone cradled in one hand, I slid the book under the meager light. The words were ancient and yet familiar, recalling our great goddess, Urda, and the power she bestows on the land and sea. As the waves splashed against the rocks outside, I read the scrawl over and over, swirling the spells across my tongue. It took until nearly daylight, but finally I could feel the magic tingle in my blood.
After nearly three months of practice, I spelled Father’s boat for the first time.
Three days after that, he came home with his first whale in more than two years. It was thin, but fat enough for all the joy that came with it.
Now the spell is a must.
The need to keep Father safe and prosperous is thick in my veins each morning when I wake, jamming my heart with anxiety until I can do my job. My part.
Even when I’ve done my duty and he’s away for days, I come to the harbor and spell any ship docked and still. The fishermen are used to seeing me daily now. They don’t seem to find it strange that I’m always there, letting my closed palm trail along the salt-worn bodies of ships, old and trusty.
And today is the day I begin to do more. Along with what I cannot claim, I have been working away on something I can. Something all of Havnestad will recognize as helpful and not some fate of Urda.
“Evie, my girl!” Father is hauling a crate up to the deck of his whaler—Little Greta, also named for my mother. There isn’t a single crate of supplies left on the dock beside the ship. I’ve only just caught him. “I wasn’t sure you’d come.”
I laugh lightly, fingers tight over the gem in my palm. “Just because I want you to stay doesn’t mean I’ll miss you going.”
Father’s mouth settles into a tart line, the sun spots marring his forehead crinkling up to his black hair—he’s Italian by birth, though he’s Danish through and through.
We walk up the gangplank together. He drops the crate two feet from the innovation I know will make these desolate seas that much easier to fish—a permanent cure my magic cannot provide. Mounted proudly to the mainmast, half-harpoon, half-rifle, my darting gun looks as shiny and perfect as I’d hoped.
Father hugs me close. “My Evelyn, the inventor.”
“It was nothing,” I say, though we both know that’s not true. It took me the whole winter to create one from an old rifle and modified harpoon, but if my calculations are correct, the contraption will send out both a bomb lance and a tether harpoon, narrowing the chances of a whale escaping. If all goes well with Father’s maiden voyage, we might be able to transform the way Havnestad snags its whales.
“It’s not nothing. It’ll be a revolution.”
I tilt my face up to his, brow raised. “It’ll still be a revolution if you wait a week.”
Father bristles at the sore spot between us. He’s not the only fisherman headed out during the festival, though far more are staying than leaving, bolstered by their recent luck—my recent help. But he’s the only one I care about. And, as the royal fisherman, he’s the only one King Asger cares about as well.
“There will be other Lithasblot festivals, Evelyn. If you’ve been pelted with bread once, you’ve been pelted with bread a thousandfold.”
“But—”
He cuts me off with rough fingers on the point of my chin.
“But nothing. I have to seize my luck while it’s there.” Father’s grizzled old thumb settles on my bottom lip. “I’ll return for the close of the festival—the ball.”
Despite my disappointment at yet another good-bye, I form a tight smile after his words. “If you’ve seen me once in my only nice dress, you’ve seen me a thousandfold.”
He leans in and gives me a quick kiss on the cheek, his beard both soft and rough against my skin.
“Take care of Hansa, my dear.”
I hug him to my chest, the cloying scent of pipe tobacco catching in my lungs.
“If only she’d allow such a thing, I would.”
He releases me with a single squeeze of my forearm. I turn for the gangplank, one last look at both him and my first stab at whaling innovation. When I’m back on the sun-ruined wood of the dock, Father yells for his men to hoist up the gangplank and anchor.
Before he’s gone, and with the sailors distracted by departure duties, I take my chance and press my little stone to the ship, right under my mother’s name, painted in block letters across the stern. My eyes flutter to a close, and I whisper my spell into the breeze coming in off the �resund Strait.
6 (#ulink_112e47ae-1b5d-51aa-8846-3f9e9adaab38)
IT’S A PERFECT NIGHT FOR BURNING WITCHES.
That’s what Sankt Hans Aften is, after all. A celebration in the name of ridding people like me from this earth through flames, drowning, banishment—whatever seemed right at the time.
Today, thankfully, witches are only burned in effigy. It’s the traditional opening of Havnestad’s version of Lithasblot. Ours is the earliest in the �resund Strait, but we’re also the longest festival, five whole days, drawing people from all around to watch the games, sing songs in celebration of Urda, and taste plates of tvøst og spik: black whale meat, pink blubber, and sunny potatoes. Even through the Tørhed, the people of Havnestad have always been willing to sacrifice their limited food supply to honor the goddess.
As the bonfire grows hot, shooting tendrils of flames high into the salmon-toned sky, the festival is ready to begin. First is King Asger’s speech of love and gamesmanship.
Now Nik’s speech of love and gamesmanship.
For on the night of that treacherous storm, Nik, thankfully, still came of age. And as tradition demands, he must take the reins of the festival—near-drowning is not an excuse.
Thus, since regaining most of his strength, he’s been shut away, pacing the halls of the palace with his father’s words on his lips. I’ve heard him run through it twice—before his birthday and after, and both times he was excellent, if not a hair too fast. Still, that’s just because this is new to him. I know he’ll be amazing.
But Crown Prince Asger Niklas Bryniulf Г?ldenburg III, first in line to the throne of the sovereign kingdom of Havnestad, does not share my assessment.
Nik is nearly white with nerves. His long fingers shake as he tugs his hair flat. This day is already hard for the both of us—the fourth anniversary of Anna’s drowning—and with the pressure of the speech added atop that, Nik looks as if he might keel over.
I don’t hesitate to snag a hand and press my fingers around his. Somehow, seeing him so nervous calms my own reservations—about my innovation’s trial run with Father, about the fact Iker has yet to arrive. I squeeze Nik’s fingers. “You’ve done nothing but practice for the past week. You’ll be just fine.”
“But I’m not cut out for this, Evie.”
“Of course you are! You’re cut from the �ldenburg cloth. Kings for a thousand years.” I lean in, my face consuming his vision. “This speech is in your blood.”
Nik turns red and averts his gaze. “I think that particular blood spilled out of me when I bashed my leg on that rock at ten.”
I nearly laugh, thinking of Nik passing out at the sight of his own blood. Right in the middle of a trail leading up Lille Bjerg Pass. Anna and I stripped off our stockings and tied them tightly above the gash across his shin before bracing him between us and hobbling down the mountain.
“Think of your birthday. You didn’t seem at all nervous while you sang on a bench with lemons in your hair.”
“That wasn’t the whole kingdom. This is.”
“So? What’s a few more faces?”
He lets out a very royal snort. “Since when does a �few’ mean a hundred times more? And maybe my disastrous birthday is not the best image to calm my nerves.”
“Oh, don’t be dramatic.”
Nik cocks a brow. “Oh, but you’re not plenty dramatic when you make moon eyes at the harbor, scouting for a certain sailor from Rigeby Bay?”
I say nothing, my wit tied to a stone in the pit of my stomach. Despite myself, I squint out at the water, my heart willing Iker’s boat to appear. But the sea beyond the harbor is clear, all the visiting ships and off-duty whalers already in port.
Nik sighs, and I know he’s beating himself up for such a quip—and again I’m thankful he knows nothing of the kisses Iker and I shared. He squeezes me close again, the nervous tremble subdued. “He’ll be here. Iker makes his own rules, but he never breaks his word.”
That was the last thing he said to me before Queen Charlotte pulled him away for his final speech preparations. I sink to the sand and sit, a little doll in my lap dressed in black and white. Ready for the ashes. I can barely force myself to play along. And without Nik by my side, this year I play along alone.
I suppose I could join the castle workers—I’ve known them since I was a small child. But I’m not truly one of them. And the other girls my age? Well, they’re never really an option—they’ve made that much clear over the years.
Maybe banishment wouldn’t be such a bad thing—I could just break out my magic as we burn our little witch dolls and leave this place for good. But then I’d leave Nik for good too. And implicate my entire family.
So, I sit alone—the secret witch, the prince’s friend who doesn’t know her place.
I am well within eyeshot of Nik as he readies to speak—in the event that his courage has retreated up Lille Bjerg Pass—but far enough to the side that I have a clear view of the sea in my periphery.
He will come.
He said he would.
You shouldn’t care anyway.
I turn my attention back to the royal family. And to the flames I must face before Nik’s big moment.
There’s a traditional speech honoring this “celebration” too. And though the king may have ceded his duties to Nik, Queen Charlotte would never give up her chance to speak out against the horrors of witchcraft.
The queen is a beauty by any measure, all fine bone structure and swanlike grace. Her hair is curled and coiled atop her head, a deep blond halo around a crown of sapphires and diamonds. When she steps forward in the sand, she looks every bit a painting in the firelight.
In her hands is her ceremonial first doll—clothed in blood red.
As if the death of every Dane in the past six hundred years was the fault of a witch.
As if the �ldenburgs hadn’t burned hundreds of women with flimsy proof.
As if “the witch hunter king,” King Christian IV, hadn’t been proud of the name he earned and of the lives he ruined.
“Good evening, dear ones.” Queen Charlotte smiles to the crowd, and it’s like ice cracking under pressure. “On this night, we not only celebrate the beginning of Havnestad’s Lithasblot, but we remember the hardships endured by our ancestors.”
In the shadows, my knuckles turn white as I clench the doll in my lap. This part is almost worse than tossing a replica of myself into the fire.
“We live in safety and harmony in the �resund Kingdoms because of the courage of King Christian IV. We live in safety and harmony because of the laws he put in place. Witchcraft has no place except in the depths of hell.”
The queen hoists the red doll above her head so hard its little witch’s hat falls, the fire sucking it into the flames. “Shall there be any devils on our shores, know you do not belong here nor in this world.” I swear her eyes find me in this moment. “The light will win, and you shall be swallowed deep into the flames and returned to your horned maker.”
The crowd erupts, and Queen Charlotte spins on the spot, tossing the witch into the bonfire—royally ousting us because our power is a threat to her own.
We are to form an orderly line circling the fire, but I can’t do that. I won’t do that. Instead, I stand and toss my doll over the heads of those charging forward, eager to murder little wooden models of me. My mother. My aunt. My father’s family.
I look for Nik then, who follows suit with a smile on his face. Somewhere Tante Hansa is laughing, her distinctive cackle hitting my ear. I know it’s a ruse to protect us, but I don’t know how she can pretend to enjoy it so much. She even goes so far as to have the most colorful doll, meddling with pastes and dyes until she can ensure its little outfit will be the brightest on the beach. This year, hers is a stunning orange, thanks to a customer who unknowingly added to her fun by paying her in turmeric.
It’s ironic: the same townspeople who come to her when they burn their skin, grateful for her ancient medicinal treatments, turn little wooden replicas of our ancestors to ash each year on this date. And she just laughs in their faces like it’s nothing. As hundreds rush the fire, I sink back down to the sand and wipe my hands on my skirts. It’s just sweat, but it almost feels like blood.
When every last witch has been tossed, the crowd retreats. Nik has stepped a measure in front of his parents to the most prominent spot on the sand, the bonfire at his back. Even in the ochre light, his skin is unnaturally pale. I make my gaze as heavy and focused as possible, not even so much as blinking until he catches my eye. I give him a smile and a nod.
You’ll be splendid.
His lips curl up, and he clears his throat with a deep breath.
“Good people of Havnestad, welcome to the opening night of Lithasblot, when we honor Urda and give thanks for her blessings and bounty, be it from the sea or from land.”
The fire crackles happily behind him, the tallest flames licking at the stars. Despite the crush of people, only that crackle and the lapping of the sea fills in the practiced pause in the traditional speech. We all know it by heart—and could join Nik in its recital, if it were appropriate. Most days, he’s one of us. Just Nik. But tonight he’s our crown prince, and our duty as subjects outweighs our familiarity.
So we are quiet.
Nik glances up at his pause and meets my eye again. I nod him forward even though his color has suddenly returned.
“These next four days are a celebration. Games, races, songs, and feasts in our goddess’s name. Let us not forget that it is all for her. It is fun. It is merry. But it has a utility—a reason. Urda.”
There is an audible gasp in the crowd—Nik has gone off script. He’s speaking from the heart, and I couldn’t be prouder.
“Last year, we did the same as we will do this week,” Nik goes on, his voice gathering strength. “We pelted our thinnest with bread. We sang to Urda. We watched as I carried the heaviest rock down the beach.”
At this, he flexes a bicep and flashes a smile—all his nerves replaced with bravado. A few chuckles carry through the crowd, but there is only one heavy guffaw—issued by Tante Hansa, from her corner at the table reserved for the ancients.
Nik rounds on her with a pronounced grin and then pulls his brows together. His tone swings back to serious. “Yes, I am aware my scrawny feats of strength are quite hysterical. But those are on display daily”—he grins again—“and they are not why we do this year after year. We do this for Urda. And some years she teaches us a lesson and reminds us of her power.”
Nik pauses, the air heavy and silent. Not even the bonfire dares to crackle.
“My father stood on this exact spot a year ago and recited the very same speech he has said for thirty years. Which his father before him recited for thirty years before that. Yet we were in the thick of the Tørhed—the third year running. And did it improve when we came together to sing songs about Urda until our voices were rough and fingers bleeding on our guitarens? No. Did it improve when I defeated all you weaklings in the rock carry? No.”
Only Tante Hansa is brave enough to cackle this time. But no one turns her way. All eyes are on our crown prince. Even the king and queen are hanging on his every word.
“Let us remember that though we celebrate her, Urda owes us not a morsel. Just like the tide that laps our shores—her tide, her shores—she can take as swiftly as she can give.”
Nik pauses, his coal-dark eyes on the harbor over our heads. I realize he’s referencing Anna too. Honoring her as something Urda claimed for her own, the sea doing the goddess’s bidding.
“So, let us honor Urda this week, not just celebrate her name, but truly honor her. She is our queen—forgive me, Mother. The land that gives us bounty. The sea that brings us our supper as much as coins in our pocket. She is more than a goddess—she is us. Havnestad. And all the people within it. Without her, we are nothing. No magic can trick her. No words can ply her. No will can sway her. She is queen, and we are simply her subjects.”
He comes to a full stop, eyes on the waves beyond the crowd, posture firm and tall—regal.
Perhaps stunned by his originality and honesty, it takes the whole of Havnestad a few moments to process that he’s finished. I stand and begin to cheer and clap. Nik’s eyes find me, and there’s a wink of relief that brushes across his features before my view of him is blocked—every last person leaping to their feet, hoots at their lips and applause gone wild. And somehow it feels as if he’s leagues away.
7 (#ulink_6157d523-6769-594b-8fb6-96b28750fe3f)
IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO SEE HIM AFTER THAT.
All the people want to shake his hand. Tell him how awed they are by his thoughtfulness. About how poised he was. How kingly he sounded. How impressed they were and are.
Nik is swallowed by their affections.
And though I wait on the beach for him to resurface, he doesn’t. Whisked away for the night in a crowd of his subjects. Every other creature eventually peters out for the night too. A rush and then a trickle in exit until it’s just me, a hot pile of kindling, and a few poor souls who have lost the battle of alertness to free hvidtøl and a patch of soft sand.
I stand, legs stiff in my boots, eyes toward the harbor, breathing in the sharp, salty air. My throat tightens and tears threaten my eyes.
He’s going to be king, Evie.
I want to laugh at my foolishness for thinking I’d always have him. Of course everything is going to change.
The moon is so bright that I can see the length of the beach without any other aid. Too bright for my dark mood, but maybe a walk will do me good. Clear my head. I should be happy for him, after all.
I make my way down the docks first, taking the worn planks in careful steps as ships large and small clank and bump at the sea’s discretion.
Naturally, the royal dock is the largest in the harbor—with room for the king’s giant steamer, my father’s craft, and a dozen other royal ships, boats, schooners, and skiffs. There’s a pole at the end that is empty, though—the spot where the king’s steamship should be.
I stare at the water there for a moment, wishing for the second time tonight that his boat would materialize among the gentle rolling waves. Just suddenly appear with Iker aboard, a shine in his eyes and laughter on his lips. That he’d jump off the bow before anchoring, not able to hold himself back from me a moment longer. That he’d pull me in deeply into his arms for another kiss.
I blink and the thought has vanished.
The pole is still untethered.
There is not a single ship on the horizon.
I step off the dock, my back to the waves that took Anna, my head and heart throbbing with the wish that she would return, too. That I’d have my friend back. That I wouldn’t feel the need to pin my hopes on boys who I should’ve known all along would only care about me until they hit that invisible line in the sand—blood—and then let me down. Though maybe, being highborn, Anna would’ve felt the same way.
I am too restless to run home to bed. To nod and smile at Hansa’s drunken tale of her grand evening with her grand friends—as if those friends didn’t just burn thousands of us. So I walk along the water to the cove side, the moonlight guiding my steps, catching on the shimmering flecks of sand to create a brilliant path along the shoreline.
I don’t have a plan, and I don’t need one. I just need a chance to wear myself out enough that I fall asleep unencumbered by the sadness dragging my heart down to my ankles.
I do have friends who aren’t royal. I do.
I have the kids from school who tolerate me for Nik’s sake, but only really when their prince is around. But for the most part, all I see when I greet their faces is the disapproval reflected in their eyes.
That girl—couldn’t save her mother.
That girl—lived while her best friend drowned.
That girl—thinks her father’s job gives her keys to the castle.
That girl—thinks herself more than a passing fancy for the playboy prince.
I meet the first rocks of the cove and stand there, letting the salt air toss my curls about my face. The wind here always seems so cleansing—like it sweeps away grime both physical and mental with one exhale from the �resund Strait.
Tonight the cove is calm. The waves lap gently about the shore, kissing both the sand and the rock formations with the same delicate precision. There is no one else in sight, and this dress isn’t anything special—nothing I have is special—so I yank off my boots and stockings and place them carefully on a patch of beach not likely to be touched by the tide. The sand sticking to my toes, I hop onto the first footstep island and leap from stone to stone until I make it to Picnic Rock.
Though it’s damp from the recent high tide, the slab isn’t so wet it’s uncomfortable. I gather my skirts, pull my knees to my chest, and sit there with my eyes closed, letting the sea’s charge wash over me.
Finally, my heartbeat slows, and I can feel exhaustion creeping in. But I can’t sleep here. I force myself to stand on stiff legs and grab my things. There’s barely a breeze, but a tingle runs up my spine. I cross my arms over my chest, but I can’t get rid of the cold. I squint into the night, at the shadow where the sea meets the rock formation splitting the cove, when I swear I see a flash of white skin.
“Hello?” I call, my body shivering.
Only the wind answers, gently gaining strength from well past the harbor and deep within the sea.
I am suddenly awake, and I turn my attention again to the rock wall. But there’s nothing to see but shadow and waves.
Maybe it was the octopus who’s made the cove his home, taunting me the same way he taunts Tante Hansa, who would like nothing more than to bottle every last drop of his ink.
But probably not. My eyes are playing tricks on me again.
Just as they must have on Nik’s birthday.
“Perhaps you need to avoid the cove when the moon is strong, Evelyn,” I mutter. The moon can do funny things to a witch.
I can hear it now, another strain in the chorus of pity: That girl—seeing apparitions in the moonlight.
FOUR YEARS BEFORE
The boy heard the splashes, one right after another, and stood,piccolo forgotten, eyes only on the sea. He held his breath, waiting for the first one to surface. They were both strong swimmers, but the raven-curled girl made a habit of winning.
It was a hundred yards to the sandbar. A worthy swim on any day, but as the boy surveyed the sea again, he knew this was not just any sea. These were not just any waves.
The sea was angry.
The boy held his breath and took a step toward the water, careful not to get too close—his mother had often lectured him on the damage salt water could do to his fine leather boots.
The blond girl surfaced first. She pulled in a deep breath and then went back under, the sandbar in her sights, still seventy-five yards away.
The boy scanned the water for dark hair. Took a breath. Squinted right at the spot where she should’ve surfaced. Still nothing.
The blonde bobbed up again. Now ten yards closer to the sandbar and not looking back.
No dark hair to be seen.
He took another step forward. A wave took full advantage and marked his foot. On reflex, he glanced down. Yes, theleather was completely soaked. But he didn’t care. Eyes immediately back on the sea. Heart pounding. The wet boot already coming off.
There. In the distance, thirty yards out. Not the crown of a raven-haired head.
A single hand, reaching for air.
The boy dove in, full breath cinched in his lungs, and opened his eyes. Nothing but the murky deep and the sting of salt.
Thinking of the girls, of the hand, he surfaced early. He would keep his stroke above the waves, his head close to the surface. He was a strong swimmer, and his new height had not diminished his natural strength, but the undertow was fiercer than he’d ever felt, constantly tugging at his pant legs. A force from the deep pulling him toward the harem of mermaids all Havnestad children were told lived at the bottom of the sea.
At the surface, he saw nothing. Not a strand of hair, nor a flash of hand. But he knew where they were. He knew where he must go.
Twenty more yards and he opened his eyes to the sea again. Looked down. Where the undertow had pulled him.
Black hair curled up like a cloud of ink, pale fingers stretched toward him. Her face hidden. He dove, hoping it wasn’t too late.
Lungs burning for air, he surfaced, one arm hooked under her shoulders. The force of the swim had pushed the curls from her face. Her features bordered on blue, and he couldn’t tell if she was breathing.
All he knew was that he had her.
“Come on, Evie. Come on.” He prayed to the old gods as well as the Lutheran one when he had the breath, his body fighting the tow for them both, the shoreline distant but in his sights.
Moving forward, he turned his head as much as the weight and struggle would allow, hoping for a flash of blond safely at the sandbar.
He saw nothing.
On the shore, he called as loud as he could for help. He set Evie on the sand, brushing back her curls, ear to her mouth.
No breath.
He rolled her over and pounded on her back. Salt water streamed from her lips and nose, dribbling onto the beach.
People came then. Men from the docks, women from the sea lane. They crowded around, speaking in whispered tones about the girl. They never had nice things to say about her, even with her this way.
The boy told the men that there was one more. Pointed them toward the sandbar and empty waves. Barked orders of rescue. The men listened. Because of the boy’s name.
The boy blew air into the girl’s lungs and pounded her on the back again, moving her hair out of the way to make more impact. More water came forth, this time in a great gush, along with the rasp of a breath.
Her eyes blinked open, dark and worn.
“Nik?”
“Yes! Evie, yes!”
Smiling briefly, he hugged her close then, even if it was inappropriate, with her bare-shouldered in her petticoat and him a prince. But he didn’t care because she was alive. Evie was alive.
“Anna?” she asked.
They turned their eyes to the sea.
8 (#ulink_4f0abf74-a2c0-50f7-8674-86be0ba217c5)
HAVNESTAD THRUMS WITH ENERGY.
The brightness of summer and the thrill of Urda’s festival combine to create the kind of charge one usually witnesses with a coming storm. It has me up early, feeling light and free after such a black night.
As I walk down to the harbor, amethyst in my pocket, I see Nik’s carriage pass by. I wave my hand, but I can’t tell if he’s seen me. He’s surely headed into the valley to visit the farmers in his father’s stead, a Lithasblot tradition. We give thanks to Urda but also to those who work our fields.
The ships in port are empty, but I run my closed palm along their lengths, spelling them though they won’t be headed anywhere this day or the next. On a morning as glorious as this one, it is not hard to conjure the words for Urda, yet I can’t help but think back to Nik’s speech. No magic can trick her. No words can ply her. No will cansway her. Is my spell a trick? A panic suddenly seizes me. My heart beats fast and my feet feel like lead. The dock begins to spin before my eyes. Is this my punishment? I close my eyes to right my balance. I’m being silly. My magic is not meant to deceive. My words are intended to honor Urda, honor her sea. Bring life. Surely she knows that. My heart rate starts to slow and I leave the docks. I need a distraction.
Nik isn’t supposed to return from the farms until midafternoon, and while the streets will soon be alive with festival visitors, the real party doesn’t get started until suppertime, when Nik will have to judge the livestock. So I walk down Market Street and gather a late breakfast, paid for on Father’s account—fat strawberries, a stinky half-wedge of samsø, a jar of pickled herring we call slid, and a crusty loaf of rye bread so dense it could pass as a sea stone—and return to the Havnestad Cove.
It’s quiet here, just a few couples trailing along the rocks, none taking any notice of me. I remove my shoes and stockings and place them in the same spot as yesterday, and I hop between the smaller footstep islands to the big one, Picnic Rock earning its name yet again. The strong sun and calm tide has made the rock almost completely dry, so I lie on my back, face to the sky, and shut my eyes.
Though I don’t want it to, my mind shifts to Iker. He still hasn’t returned. I am already anxious, and the same panicky feeling quickly returns.
What if something’s gone wrong?
What if the steam stack exploded?
What if the whale crashed into the ship’s hull upon capture?
Am I at fault?
I know I’m being ridiculous, but worst of all, we would never know. All of us are here, for once our eyes inward instead of turned to the sea.
That sends my mind into a downward spiral about Father, and then suddenly a shadow falls across the backs of my eyelids, the direct sun blotted out by a passing cloud. It’s as if the weather worries too—
“Excuse me, miss?”
That voice.
My eyes pop open, searching for the face of a friend who I know in my heart is long gone.
But there, leaning over me, is the girl.
The girl from the porthole.
The one who rescued Nik.
Yet that can’t be right, either. I really am losing my senses today.
I sit up and rapidly blink my eyes in the sun, but when they refocus, the same girl remains. She shifts back, long blond hair swinging.
Her face is like the singsong of her voice—so much like Anna’s, but more mature. The smattering of freckles around her nose is familiar too. She wears a gown that’s nicer than all of mine put together, and her shoes shine with new leather.
Shoes. Feet. No fin—she can’t be what I saw. My stomach sinks, but I don’t know why.
“This is quite embarrassing, but . . .” The girl’s eyes fall to the strawberry in my hand. “I haven’t eaten in more than a day.”
I’m so stunned, I just hand over the strawberry. She isn’t ready for it and bobbles it in her fingertips before taking a bite. I shove my whole meal toward her.
Anna loved cheese and fruit.
“Oh, no, you don’t have to, I—”
“I insist,” I say, and I’m surprised that’s what comes out because there are so many other words on my tongue. So many questions. But I’m almost terrified to ask them because I know what word will fall out—Anna.
The girl eats, and I try to figure out what to say next.
Did you save Nik?
Were you a mermaid?
Are you Anna?
Don’t you remember me?
All would make me run if I were her. So, as she chews a hunk of rye bread, I open the jar of slid.
“Do you feel better?” I ask.
“Yes, much. Thank you. I’m so sorry. I’m done.”
I shake my head and tilt the open jar toward her, the little herring bobbing in their brine. “Eat, please.”
She sees the fish and recoils, waving her hands in front of her face. I pull out a herring and eat it myself, yanking the bones out by the tail before discarding them into the cove. She looks at me as if I’ve just bitten off her ear.
I used to do the same thing to Anna. She didn’t like slid either. I smile, but on the inside, the sadness is suffocating. I have to stop looking for the dead in the living.
“Are you sure you aren’t still hungry?” I try. “There’s more cheese.”
“No. I’ll be fine.” A sob swallows the word fine. Her brow furrows and the skin under her lashes reddens; there are no tears, but she looks exactly like she should be weeping.
My hand flies to her shoulder to comfort her. When the girl catches her breath, she begins talking again, her voice almost a whisper. She doesn’t seem to mind me touching her. “I ran away from home.”
“Oh, Anna—”
The girl’s eyes fly to mine. “Annemette. How’d you—”
“I didn’t . . . I just . . . you remind me of someone I used to know.”
She coughs out a sob-laugh. “I wish I were that girl.”
“No you don’t,” I say quickly as this girl—Annemette—wipes her nose.
“Was her father a liar? Weaving tales about where he’s been and what he’s done, selling off all our livestock and not bringing a coin home?”
I shake my head because I don’t know what to say.
“I’ve had to sell half our fine things to pay his debt and put food on the table. I couldn’t take it anymore. I took off running over Lille Bjerg a day ago.”
Her words are off. They seem forced. I can’t help it—I stare at her face. I’ve seen thousands of faces since Anna failed to surface, but I’ve never seen one so similar. Never heard a voice with the same timbre. If I hadn’t touched her, if this girl weren’t clearly made of flesh and bone, I’d think she was a ghost.
She scrubs her face with her hands, nails clean and shaped. Her eyes blink open and then she takes my hands. “I’m terrible. Here I am, barging in on your breakfast, stealing your food, dumping my problems in your lap, and yet I haven’t even asked your name.”
“It’s Evie,” I reply.
“Evie,” she repeats, testing my name out on her tongue. “British?”
“Evelyn, yes. My mother fell in love with the name in Brighton.”
“I can see why.” Annemette smiles, her teeth clean and straight, like that of a princess or a dairymaid.
I tell myself again that she’s not Anna. She’s not even the girl from the porthole or the beach or anywhere else. She’s a farm girl from the other side of the pass. My cheeks grow hot. Annemette squeezes my hands. “Thank you for your generosity, Evie—it’s a gift. Truly.” Her eyes sting red again and her lip trembles. “I doubt I’ll be so lucky again.”
I don’t know what to do with this openness. This odd feeling blooming in my stomach. “You really have nothing and nowhere to go?”
Annemette waves her hands across her body. “Only my clothes and my pride.”
I can’t explain this girl or my feelings or why I have the need to believe her, but I do. And I want to help. “Come with me.”
9 (#ulink_bd219522-a53b-5b24-b759-180e96d535ed)
THE LITTLE HOUSE THAT MY FATHER BUILT ISN’T THAT far from Havnestad Cove—it’s practically waterside itself, the cottage at the end of a lane in the shadow of �ldenburg Castle. It backs up to a thatch of trees that buffer it from a rocky cliff jutting out into the sea.
“It’s so quaint,” Annemette says.
“It’s home,” I answer, and push through the front door. It’s been a long time since I’ve introduced someone to our tiny cottage. When I was little, we’d often take in children while their parents were away at sea. But that stopped after Mother died.
At the hearth, Tante Hansa is stirring something—by the smell of it, most likely the ham-and-pea concoction she brings to every Lithasblot to place beside the roast hog we have on the second day of the festival. Because “there can never be enough swine in this sodden fish market.” Hansa’s back is turned, and I feel the need to announce that we have company—it’s never safe for a witch to have no warning.
“Tante Hansa, I’d like you to meet my new friend.”
Hansa wipes her hands, and I know by the set of her shoulders she was stirring the soup without a spoon. Domestic spells aren’t spectacular, but they’re her favorites because she’d never planned on having a family of her own—and Father and I are more work than she’d like to admit.
When she turns, her face is pulled up in a smile, clear blue eyes flashing with the delight of catching me at something remotely unusual. Hansa is my mother’s older sister by almost two decades, the time between them filled with brothers who lost their lives to the sea’s moods much too young. She is as old as the grief of burying all her siblings suggests. But I have never been able to put anything past her.
Which means her reaction to Annemette is the same as mine. Only she actually says what she’s thinking.
“Why, Anna, returned from the deep, have we?”
Annemette’s mouth drops open as if she’s lost her tongue, her jovial attitude gone as well.
“Annemette, Tante,” I correct. “She’s from the valley. A farm.”
Hansa takes a step forward and raises a brow—quite the feat given the blood-drawing tightness of her hairdo.
“Is that so?” Hansa looks her up and down. “Those hands haven’t seen a day of hard work in all your years. That fair face hasn’t seen the sun. And that dress is worth more than the best cow in the valley.” She takes a step forward and grabs Annemette’s smooth hand. “Who are you really?”
“Tante, please, leave her be, she’s had a rough trip—”
“Hush. You only see what you want to see.” She turns back to Annemette, staring at the girl as if she could bend her will as easily as she tamed the soup. “So, again I ask—who are you really?”
Annemette’s eyes have gone red around the rims again, but she doesn’t cry. If anything, there’s an edge of defiance in the cut of them. Like she’s accepted Hansa’s dare for what it is. But when she speaks, she says the last thing I’d expect.
“Your soup is boiling.”
But the soup is more than boiling. The pea-green liquid hisses as it rolls in violent, unnatural waves over the iron pot’s rim.
“Ah!” Hansa cackles. “I’ve seen your type before.”
I’m stunned. Her type? Is Annemette a witch?
I stare at her.
Another witch. My age. Next to me.
Of all the things I can’t believe about Annemette, this might be the most unfathomable.
Something cracks open in my chest as the secret we’ve held so tightly as a family flies into the soupy air. I stare at this face so familiar and yet so strange, and my mind whirls. Anna was not a witch, but Annemette certainly is.
Annemette nods, and the liquid returns to a gentle simmer.
My aunt’s spotted hands grasp Annemette’s again, but this time there’s a funny light in her eyes, all her skepticism gone. “Evie, child, you’ve made quite an interesting friend indeed.”
It’s a long while before Tante Hansa allows us to escape, having thoroughly quizzed Annemette on her family. In the funny way of things, we both claim lineage to the town of Ribe and Denmark’s most famous witch, Maren Spliid. Tied to a ladder and thrown into a fire by King Christian IV 220 years ago, she became as much a lesson as a legend. Her talent was inspiring, but ultimately her audacity was her undoing. Her death and so many others under the witch-hunter king scattered Denmark’s witches like ashes in the wind. And our kind never recovered—our covens fractured, magic kept to families and never shared.
Given the time and distance, it shouldn’t be a surprise that there’s more than one magical family in Havnestad related to Ribe and Maren, yet I still can’t believe it. We’ve been alone for so long.
After Hansa is finally satisfied with her family tree, Annemette and I head outside. We walk into the woods behind the cottage, where we’re shaded from every angle, including from �ldenburg Castle and its sweeping views, and start to pick our way down toward the sea.
The ground is covered in gnarled roots and branches, a danger for anyone not looking where they’re going. But I know this steep path better than anyone, and I use this moment to steal another glance at Annemette. Her family may be from elsewhere, but her face still belongs here.
Anna did not have any magic in her blood, at least as far as I know. She had two “common” parents and a grandmother who loved her more than the sun. Her parents left shortly after Anna’s funeral. Took their titles and moved to the Jutland—miles and miles from this place and the daughter they lost. Her grandmother is still here, but she’s gone senile with grief, the loss of her family too much for her mind. I see her at the bakeshop sometimes, and she calls every person there Anna. Even me.
“What?” Annemette says, catching me looking as we pass between twin trees, slick with sap.
I can’t tell her what I’m thinking, but I do have questions for her. “It’s just . . . how did you know we were witches? If you’d been wrong, we could’ve reported you. You could’ve been banished.”
She dips her head to avoid a branch. “I could just feel it.”
Like Tante Hansa did.
“I must not be much of a witch,” I say. “I couldn’t tell. I mean, now my blood won’t stop singing, but an hour ago? No.” There’s so much I don’t know about the magic in my bones.
“I’m sure you’re a fine witch, Evie.”
It’s a nice thing to say, I suppose, but not necessarily true. Tante Hansa teaches me only the most mundane of spells. But I read her books and Mother’s books, and I know there is so much more. With a few words and her will, Annemette brought out all that possibility into the open.
“How did you do that? The soup, I mean.”
Annemette just shrugs and hooks a hand on a tree, swinging around it like a maypole ribbon. “It was just an animation spell,” she says as if impressing Tante Hansa was nothing.
The ease, the comfort, the understanding she has about her magic makes my blood tingle with envy. It’s so much of what I want. It took me months of studying and toying to create the spell to combat the Tørhed and even then, I’m not sure it actually works. My evidence is only anecdotal, and Fru Seraphine has taught me better than to use anecdotes as true measures of success.
In a few more steps we reach the sliver of rocky beach blind to Havnestad Cove, my own shortcut to Greta’s Lagoon. I try to calm my heart from beating so loudly, but I’ve never gone to the lagoon in daylight and I’m nervous. I steal a glance up the beach. It’s deserted as far as I can see, everyone off preparing for tonight’s festivities.
“Careful,” I say as we reach the end of the beach and the two large rocks. “The water is deep here.”
I take off my stockings and shoes and wade in. As I reach the sand, I turn around, but she’s still standing by the rocks. “Here,” I say, wading back out and extending my arm. “Take my hand. I’ll help you.”
With tentative steps, she walks forward and grasps my hand tight. I smile at her. “Come on. It’s okay.”
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