“Where’s Evie? There was a wave and—” His eyes broke from hers, scanning the water.
“Niklas, what are you doing? Step away from her!” The queen—the little mermaid almost smiled again. The queen and her piety. The king and his nobility wouldn’t be far behind. “What are you waiting for, cowards?” she yelled at the guards, porcelain features cracking in fury. “You have guns, use them.”
The guards advanced—but Nik was prepared. “Stay back. That’s an order.” He turned to his mother, looking over the little mermaid’s head. Holding her tight. “You too, Mother.”
“Overruled,” the king answered, his voice stern. “You are of age, my son, but as long as I am alive, your orders will still be those of a child.” He faced the guards who were left. “Seize the prince and kill the girl.”
This time, the guards didn’t hesitate to advance, their bayonetted rifles pointed squarely toward the little mermaid. The prince stepped in front of the little mermaid, shielding her from the guards. From view.
The time was finally right. And with not a moment to spare.
The little mermaid pressed into his back as if cowering. Then she swept a single hand through her hair. Her fingers wrapped around her comb, the point glistening with seawater.
“Nik!” That voice. Evie—she’d survived, the little witch.
The prince turned toward the water. Looked toward his true love.
The little mermaid smiled then—the prince had yet again made the wrong choice.
It would be his final one.
With all the strength remaining in her body, the little mermaid plunged the knife straight through the prince’s back and into his heart.
31
MY EYES OPEN TO DARKNESS. EVERYTHING ABOUT ME IS midnight. Sad and colorless. Time does not exist.
So this is the sea.
The true sea.
The only light from above is the moon. As my eyes adjust, it gives the blackness a little color—a hint of blue in so much dark as I sink beneath the waves onto cool sands. My father lies next to me, his eyes sunken and gone. The hole in his middle—it’s the size of a harpoon. From my dart gun, surely. I want to scream as my heart aches. The cove’s octopus sweeps into view, even larger than I’d thought.
Thought. Thoughts. I have thoughts.
I’m alive.
My lungs scream.
Wait.
I’m alive, and I need air.
I test my arms. My feet. Anna’s magic has somehow gone—I can move.
Suddenly, my feet are kicking and my hands are clawing at the water in an upward stroke. Pain radiates up my arm from where blood seeps into the water.
I was shot. Yes, I was shot by the king’s men. And I survived.
I survived what Anna had planned, too.
And now I must warn Nik. Anna isn’t our friend anymore—she’s something else entirely.
She is rage.
My heart quickens, pounding harder with each foot gained toward the surface. Blood clouds every stroke, my shoulder threatening to fail.
My vision breaks the surface, and with a heaving breath I’m already moving forward, swimming and then lunging toward the beach once my feet gain purchase on the submerged sand. I try to breathe in deeply, but my necklace is too tight, the pearl still throbbing. With every ounce of energy I have left, I tear at the magic thread until the pearl bursts free, landing with a plunk in the water below.
I am free now too. I can feel my connection to the old Annemette fade away with the waves. She must have had a spell on me this whole time, or perhaps I put the spell on myself.
Water streams from my hair into my eyes. Nik. I have to find him.
He’s standing tall and regal on the beach—protecting Anna from advancing guards. My heart beats fast. He’s alive. But not for long. I know now his is the life she plans to take.
He’s standing too close.
“Nik!” I scream.
I get his attention. But then I also get Anna’s. And the guards’.
Shots ring out, and a sudden burst of pain rockets through my chest. I flail back but manage to keep my momentum. I bring my fingers to the wound along my ribs and wince. It’s hot and wet, and my breathing grows shallow, each intake bringing a fresh stab of pain. But I have to keep moving, slogging through the water, now almost waist-high.
Nik is stunned still, but Anna is not. Her hand reaches for her hair.
A knife is in that hand, the blade moving straight at Nik, who is watching me.
“NO!” You will not take him! You will not!
Now Iker is yelling—running. He sees it too.
Despite the blood. Despite the pain. Despite the distance, I surge ahead as fast as I can, water just above my knees. Wet, my gown weighs more than the rest of me, but that won’t keep me from him. Nothing will.
Five yards away. Four. Three.
But it is too late. Annemette’s blade is already in a downward arc. The sharp coral pierces Nik’s back just as Iker grabs him, wrenching him onto the sand.
Nik’s blood is on the beach.
Spilling in a trail from where he was to where he fell, staining the sand.
Oh, Urda. No. Not Nik.
Even after everything, I can’t believe Anna has done it, but I have no pity for her. If she thinks she’s the only one who will get her revenge, she’ll be sorely wrong.
“Niklas!” the queen wails, and dashes forward. The king runs too, finally coming to their only son’s aid.
The onlookers go still—recognition, terror, and fear frozen upon faces I’ve known my whole life. Malvina. Ruyven. Every member of the castle kitchen staff.
Anna’s beautiful features twist as she dips her toes in Nik’s spilled blood, laughing. Laughing. “You ruined my life, and I’ve ruined yours, my prince.”
I dive for her feet, knocking her to the sand. I move on top of her, pinning her hand that still holds the knife, red with Nik’s blood. I scream for my tante. “Hansa! Nik—you must heal him!” But two guards hold Hansa back, my magic enough to condemn her, too. I reach out to the only person with the power to change their minds. “Iker, let her do her work. Please! She can save him!”
My heart stutters as Iker immediately does as I say—family over everything. “Let the old woman go!” he commands.
The guards comply. But I can’t watch her act. My heart can’t take it if she fails. She’s known as the Healer of Kings, but tonight she’ll have to save my prince.
As Hansa works, Anna’s magic tugs at the edges of my strength. Overhead, storm clouds gather. Pinned beneath my body, Anna’s suddenly laughing again. I want to slap her, but I don’t want to lose my grip. “Shut up!” I scream. “How could you? He loved you! I loved you!”
She spits in my face. This person I no longer know. This person I don’t recognize. This person who tried to take Nik. This person who took my father.
The wind picks up, and lightning sizzles in my peripheral vision. Thunder crashes. Her magic rolls over us, and I do everything I can do to keep her down, my magic sparking in spurts as I bleed.
Now she’s laughing so hard that she’s crying. Actual tears.
They flee down her blood-splattered cheeks, wet and real. Terror claws at my heart as it struggles to work under the weight of the blood streaming out of my shoulder and chest.
No, she can’t be human. This person doesn’t deserve a soul. She can’t have won. Nik isn’t dead.
He can’t be.
Yet her tears are there. And with them, her eyes roll dramatically up to where I have her hands pinned to the sand. Where the knife is pinned—no.
No.
Screams sound from the sea lane. A mass of bodies rushes forth. The guards, too. All to a single body, prone on the beach. Knife sticking out from a strike dead center to the throat—the last of Annemette’s mermaid magic used to hit its target.
Not Nik.
His father. The king, dead on the sand.
It must only be royal blood that matters to the magic—?ldenburg blood, passed down from the witch-hunter king—because before him is Iker, pulling himself up from a crouch. He’d been just low enough that Anna’s blade missed. It was meant for him—the final player on the day Anna drowned, but the king would do.