For Annemette to stay, I must give the magic and Mother Urda something in return—words, gifts, or the perfect combination of both. I just need the right knowledge to guide me.
Tante’s trunk is in the corner, ancient moose hide over the top, exactly like it was when I found my amethyst—if she’s noticed the stone missing, she’s kept it to herself. Just as she has since Anna’s death, most likely aware that I’ve tiptoed in nearly every week, borrowing books to educate myself on all she has refused to teach me.
With careful fingers, I lift off the hide and lift open the trunk. The hinges squeak with a yawn, and the snores hiccup off rhythm. I freeze for a moment before slowly turning to check Tante Hansa. She shifts a bit toward the wall, the weak light from the doorway catching the silver strands of hair braided tightly against her crown.
When the correct rhythm returns, I move again, opening the trunk farther until the lid leans against the wall.
The contents are just as I remember them—bottles of potions on the right, gemstones piled high to the left. And below both of them, what I need.
Magical tomes.
I pick out the bottles one by one, placing them on the hide, then the gemstones, too. As the trunk empties slowly, the books come into view.
I’m unsure which one may have the wisdom I need to keep Annemette here permanently, but I have a decent guess—the one Tante Hansa keeps tucked away at the very bottom. I pull out four books on potions—all near the top, given Hansa’s proclivities—before the books with the older, more delicate spines appear. I lean into the trunk from the shoulders on up, my nose a few inches from the covers so that I can read their titles.
The Spliid Grimoire.
I pull the tome onto my lap and I can feel its dense weight on my thighs. It is heavy with pages, but also with power. Inside are hundreds of spells collected through generations. I run my hands along the cover, grazing over the flowers, plants, and symbols that have been etched into its surface. I close my eyes and breathe in deeply, the smell of aged leather, parchment, and ancient inks filling my nose. There’s a rush of white-hot heat up my neck, and it’s the same delicious feeling that pulsed through my veins when Annemette taught me to spell the oysters—líf. The book is pulling me in, calling me, taunting me to open it, when suddenly, I realize the room has gone silent. Tante Hansa’s snoring has quieted.
I steal a glance behind me. Tante Hansa has rolled to her other side but is still sound asleep. I don’t know how long the masking spell will last, but I’m wasting too much time. I tuck the volume down the front of my bodice, right up against the flat of the ribs under my arm. It bulges, but the darkness should hide it if I become visible. Then I return the other books in order and go to work on the bottles and stones.
I’m just replacing the last stone when I feel a warm dampness against my ear.
“You wicked, insolent child. Stealing from me in the middle of the night.”
I pull back, so stunned that my heart is refusing to beat, but Tante Hansa moves her face closer to mine. Her brows are arched down, and her lips are pulled into a sour scowl, the regal lines of her Roman nose and strong jaw made terrifying by an anger I’ve never seen.
“I’m just borrowing. How can you see—”
She grabs my wrist hard, and I drop the stone to the floor. “Borrowing is stealing in the eyes of an owner left in the dark.”
In her aging hands, my skin flashes in and out, visible to invisible, until finally my pale arm and my whole body stand out from the darkness as stark as the moonlight. The spell has lifted.
“A witch can always sense the magic that stems from her own blood.”
Guilt tugs at my throat. Her room and things aren’t a sweetshop, and I’m old enough not to presume so. “I would never steal from you, Tante. I’m just trying to do good—to use your knowledge for good.”
“If there’s good to be done, I will do it myself. Pride and ignorance cannot learn a spell and save the world; they can only combine for damage.” Her fingers twist the skin at my wrist as she goes on. “Why are you here? What are you trying to do?”
I can’t tell her. I know she’ll believe me, but that’s the problem. I promised Annemette I’d never tell anyone who she is. “I told you, I’m trying to do good!”
“No.” Tante shakes her head. “This has to do with that girl. The girl who smells more of dark magic than a sailor smells of fish. Annemette, is it?”
I don’t say anything. I don’t even breathe because it would feel like a betrayal.
I try to stand, but she resists. “You are not blind, child, nor idiotic—though I still believe you to be wicked and insolent in plan tonight. And I believe it has much to do with her. Who is she?” Her eyes crinkle at the corners as she self-corrects. “What is she?”
“I—”
“You cannot hide much from this old witch, Evelyn.”
No, I can’t. But I can deflect. “I just don’t want her to go.”
“Loneliness is the weakest excuse for magic there is, and it mixes horribly with pride and ignorance.” I wince. She nods at the stone by my side on the floor. The one that dropped. “Just because you believe you’ve stolen from me before and had success does not make you a witch; it makes you a lucky thief.”
I should be reeling from her knowledge of all the magic I’ve done—and the fact that she knowingly let me do it—but my mind is stuck on a single word in that sentence.
Success.
What I’ve been doing at the docks has actually worked! It was true magic. My magic. Made without anyone’s lessons.
I did that.
And I can do it again.
My heart swells. Confidence zips through my veins. The grimoire burns against my skin.
I can do this.
I can save Annemette. If I can reverse the T?rhed, if I can go invisible, I can do anything. I just need the right means.
I press my lips to Tante Hansa’s dry cheek and place the fallen stone in her hand. “Tante, I’m sorry. I promise I won’t treat your things with such little respect ever again.”
“Oh yes, you will, child. They are familiar. One cannot hold respect with the familiar. We forget our boundaries.” She moves both hands to my face, snatching my cheeks and forcing me to look deeply into her eyes. “We forget our boundaries with familiar people, too.”
I nod. “I am sorry.”
“As am I, child.”
She lets me go, and it’s not until I’m slipping on my boots in the moonlight outside that I realize she didn’t mean only herself when discussing the familiar.
She meant everyone familiar at play—Iker, Nik, and, most especially, Annemette.
FOUR YEARS BEFORE
Deep under the splashes at the surface, where the men came in one after another spurred by the boy’s orders, five girls with golden hair circled ’round a curiosity from above.
A little girl, tall but with no telltale signs of womanhood, floated between them. Eyes closed. She was beautiful. Just like they were.
One of the five, the oldest, had snagged the girl by her foot as the tow brought her under. There was no way to bring her up safely. Not with the men above. Not with the chance of being seen.
She could only bring the girl down.
The commotion rallied her sisters. Soon, their father would follow. And it would take every one of them if they were going to save her.
“Lida, you must take her back up,” the second oldest said. “The sandbar is just there and—”
“It’s too dangerous.”
The youngest didn’t understand. Mermaids could not shed tears but this one tested the boundary, her small hand wrapped around the girl’s finger. “You brought her here to die?”
The oldest shook her head in her determined way. “She is already gone. I brought her here to live.”
“Oh, Lida,” their father boomed, disappointment in his voice. All the girls turned. “We cannot—”
“We can save this one. Please, Father.” He didn’t approach. “Just look at her face.”