“Enough, Iker! If she needs to leave, she needs to leave,” Nik shouts. I don’t know why Nik isn’t suspicious too, but I have a feeling it’s because he trusts me. And I trust Annemette.
“I really have to go,” Annemette says, rushing to Nik’s side. “I’m so sorry.” She moves to kiss him on the cheek, when Iker grabs her by the arm.
“Witches are creatures of the night. That’s it, isn’t it? Is your cauldron about to boil over? Do you have toads that need simmering? Brew to bottle?”
“Iker!” Nik shouts, and pushes him off her.
But Iker keeps going, turning more and more into a monster than the man I love. “Or is it simply that your broom has arrived and you mustn’t leave your favorite mode of transportation waiting?”
Annemette’s calm cracks wide open, her teeth bared in the moonlight. “I am not a witch, you ox!”
“Then what are you? A fairy? A ghost? Or maybe just a con artist, like Evie once suggested. Foreign trash finding an easy mark in our Nik.” Iker’s teeth are gritted in that feral grin as he twists the knife.
I latch onto Iker’s forearm, and Nik moves protectively in front of Annemette, but neither of us can stop Iker’s momentum.
“How many lonely boys have fallen for your tricks? Five? Ten? Twenty? Whatever the number, I’m sure this one here would make quite the feather in your pointy little hat. He’s definitely got enough gold to retire on.”
“Stop!” Nik shoves Iker away, and though Iker barely budges, I lose my grip on him and stumble into the table.
Iker stands his ground but holds out his hand to haul me up. His eyes flash at Nik. “Look what the witch has made you do.” I push his hand away and get to my feet.
“She isn’t a witch,” I say.
“I am not.” Annemette’s voice is firm. She’s done backing down. “And I must go.”
“Doesn’t he deserve to know why?” Iker says then points a hand toward Nik. “The man you’ve been tossing yourself at out of love for three straight days? If you aren’t leaving in the middle of Havnestad’s biggest ball for nefarious purposes, surely you can tell him the reason. At least give the man that.”
Annemette doesn’t look at Iker. Doesn’t look at me. Or even Nik. She just spins for the door. The boys freeze in shock—the both of them unused to not receiving a reply to their questions—but I whir into motion, running after her, snatching her hand just before she opens the French doors.
“Evie, it’s almost midnight! Let me go. There’s nothing you can do. Nothing Nik can do!”
But I won’t let her die like this, and I hang on to her arm tightly. In her struggle, Annemette gets turned around enough that I can look her in the eye. “If you won’t let me help, then tell him what you did. He’ll understand. Maybe he does love you and just needs a push. Isn’t it worth a shot? Tell him—”
“Tell me what?” Nik asks behind me.
Annemette clamps her lips shut and shakes her head as she tries to buck away from my grip.
He places a hand on my shoulder. “Evie, what is it?”
Annemette catches my eye, pleading.
“I won’t have you leave us, Annemette. I won’t,” I cry. Her breath hitches, but I am strong, and I know this is right. I raise my voice just enough that the boys can hear it but nobody beyond the balcony.
“She’s a mermaid.” I turn to Nik. “She saved you on your birthday—dragged you from the sea.”
Shock registers on his face as his eyes meet Annemette’s.
Iker huffs out a great laugh. “Sure she is. And I’m the ghost of Leif Erikson.”
I hold his smiling eyes. “No, I saw her. Before you scrambled over the rock wall. She was on land with him. She was—”
“Singing.” A smile touches Nik’s lips as he says it. A smile just for Annemette, whose expression only shows a brewing anger. “You were singing. I thought it was Evie, but she doesn’t sing. It was you.”
“I can’t believe you did this,” Annemette growls at me. “We had a deal.”
My stomach sinks, my betrayal tearing at my insides.
“Annemette, don’t!” I shout, but fury flashes in her eyes as she turns to the boys. “I am a mermaid, it’s true. But, Evie . . . Evie is a witch! Her aunt is a witch! Her mother was a witch! She does magic every day right under your proud ?ldenburg noses!”
She wrenches out of my hands with a shove that sends me to the floor.
Nik is staring at me, his face in a complete state of shock. “A witch, Evie?”
But before I can respond, Iker moves in front of me. My Iker. Strong, protective, stubborn, loyal Iker. The look on his face is one I’ve never known. Then, without so much as a pause, he bares his teeth and shouts, “Guards!”
FOUR DAYS BEFORE
The ship belonging to the royal fisherman of the sovereign kingdom of Havnestad was easy enough to find. Just up from ?sterby Havn—far enough from the ?resund Strait to sight the best whales, but close enough to home that the ship’s captain would make it back to Havnestad by the final night of Lithasblot.
The sun was failing, twilight setting in late, as was usual for a summer night this far north. Despite the hour, there was a flurry of activity aboard the Little Greta, the crew cleaning up after a long day. Evie’s father was moving about too, not leaving the work to his crew—on a ship so small, everyone had to carry his own weight, most of all the captain.
In the shadows, the little mermaid considered the best course of action.
She could call a large wave, as she had to claim the chest of clothes now trailing her through the water, kept in tow with a simple spell of binding magic. Or perhaps a storm more powerful than the one she’d used to pull Nik under—wreck the ship and claim the whole crew. But no, she wanted Evie to feel the agony of her father dying when others easily survived. A sharper pain, that.
She knew firsthand.
And then, the little mermaid’s attention snagged on a way to drive in the knife even further. A way to hurt Evie the most.
Without a moment’s hesitation, she reached out through the distance, sending her magic snaking through the Nordic depths.
“Hvalr. Hvalr. Koma hvalr.”
In short order, the edges of her power hit upon success, and her plan began to unfurl, a fat pilot whale steaming toward her like a locomotive on new track.
When the whale arrived, it was glassy-eyed under her command. But the sailors wouldn’t see that. They couldn’t smell magic—they would only smell a chance at another catch for His Majesty.
She looked the great animal in the eye. Her lure. And promised it it’d be safe. Then, she gathered her magic anew.
“Rísa, hvalr. Rísa.”
The whale did as it was commanded, rising to the surface like a gift from the sea king himself.
The little mermaid skipped the whale across the water, dancing it across the surface.
Tantalize. Trick. Catch the big fish.
The commotion above was enough that she could pick up the sounds of men sprinting and shouting from her spot below. Smiling, she surfaced in the shadow of the portside bow, and saw that, yes, the fish had taken the bait.
The men scurried about, readying nets, spears, and, optimistically, a huge knife—a m?nustingari—for severing the spinal cord. Amid it all, Evie’s father did exactly what the little mermaid expected.
He readied the harpoon gun. The innovation Evie had fashioned for a better kill. They’d discussed it that day on the dock. She was clearly so proud. And he of her.
Pride must suffer pain, Evie.
As the whale danced on the edge of her fingertips, the little mermaid called a storm with another tendril of her power. “Ve?r.”
The storm gathered, wind gusting over the crew as they darted about, ignoring the lightning crackling on the horizon, their sights only on the catch.
The little mermaid got in position, watching and waiting as the father worked the dart gun, stuffing the harpoon into the barrel. Hauling it around, so that it might aim at the whale.
Aim right into the storm.
And in that moment, the father shot the dart gun. The harpoon exploded into the rough air, hurtling toward the whale as it crested another leap. A rope trailed the harpoon, attached to the gun stand, so that it might be easier to haul in, whale and all.