“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
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 tv?st og spik: black whale meat, pink blubber, and sunny potatoes. Even through the T?rhed, 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 ?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.