Chapter 17: : Chapter 16

IT WAS a tail. A fish tail. A tail on Nora. Who was a merfolk? Human? Was this something to do with the Blood Tide, or—

“Nora, so help me, you can have a tantrum later, but we’re getting out of here now, and I will haul you onto this ship no matter how many limbs you’ve got,” screamed Sauer.

“Tantrum?” She thrashed and smacked her tail against the ocean’s surface, soaking Sauer, who was halfway down the hull. “Tantrum!”

Nora twisted in the water. Her tail was the same deep blue of the ocean or evening skies, its scales shimmering like stars. It looked longer than her legs had been, and the wide fins were hemmed in an opalescent membrane that trailed through the water like a train. She stayed afloat without even trying, and the waves seemed to lift her instead of ram into her as they did Gabriella. She touched the tip of her tail with a shaking hand.

Vanni walked away from the rail, hands on his head, and flinched away from an eel, muttering about witches and magic under his breath. Around them, crew members were peering down at Nora with shock and interest.

“See?” one was saying to the barrelman who’d climbed down to get a better look. “This is why storms never hit us. King Triton’s blessing.”

“That’s the cats,” said another.

“No, no, no. I’ve seen that girl swim. Two legs the whole time.”

“But that was in a lake, not the sea.”

Eric shook his head and looked back down at Nora and Gabriella. Nora was still turning in the water, her fingers inspecting the sides of her neck.

“Do I have gills?” she asked Gabriella, rounding on the other girl with a frown.

Gabriella was slowly regaining her composure, and she cupped Nora’s neck with her hands. They exchanged a few quiet words. Nora’s tail cut through the water behind her, glittering with each ripple of water. Gabriella drifted slightly back from her. Nora nodded.

“Sauer?” she asked. “What if I can’t get on the ship?”

“If you can’t climb, I’ll carry you,” they said, reaching down to her. “Come here. If you need to stay submerged, I’ll rig a net behind the boat or fill a barrel with seawater. We’ll figure it out. Let’s just get out of here.”

Eric crawled back to his feet and looked down at them. “Maybe whatever’s happened will end once we’re away from the Isle.”

Nora groaned.

Gabriella floated closer to Nora and studied her tail. “Nothing hurts, right?”

“No,” said Nora, “but it feels weird. Different.”

“First time in the sea since you died, and that man who raised you said you shouldn’t ever return.” Gabriella swam behind Nora and nudged her toward the ropes. “Maybe once you’re out, you’ll change back.”

Nora nodded unhappily and moved to Sauer.

“Hey, Nora!” one of the crew called over the rail. “Can I have your green boots?”

“Over my dead body,” she shouted.

Sauer whipped their head around and glared up at the deck. “Shouldn’t you all be getting us ready to leave?”

The crew on the deck scattered.

Nora covered her face with her hands, her tail flicking nervously beneath her, and nodded. “All right. I’m going to climb up, and then we can figure out what’s wrong with me.”

A large splash rocked the water around them.

“Nothing is wrong with you,” said a deep voice.

Nora spun around so quickly, she smacked Gabriella’s legs with her tail. Eric peered down the side of the ship, and Ariel let out a surprised little squeak. It was a man floating upright in the water a few feet away. A long tail of emerald green undulated in the ocean beneath him.

“This is perfectly normal,” he said. “Children of both worlds possess the ability to live in both worlds.”

“Children of what?” Nora asked, voice breaking. “Who are you?”

“My name is Malek,” the man said, considering her. “Your parents—one was human and one merfolk.”

“No offense, but I don’t know you,” said Nora, and she started moving toward Sauer with Gabriella. “Forgive me if I don’t take you at your word.”

The man tilted his head to the side. His deep black skin was salt flecked and cool toned, bring out the teal sheen in the scales running along his green tail. His dark braids were neatly gathered into a bun at the top of his head, small shells decorating the strands. A blue glass bead dangled from his left ear. He squinted his black eyes up at them as if unused to the sun, and nodded, laughing slightly.

“Of course you shouldn’t,” he said. “I’m sorry. I’ve gotten ahead of myself.”

He looked real enough, and he sounded real enough. They were dealing with a witch who routinely tricked people, though.

“Where did you come from?” Eric asked. “How do we know you’re not working with the witch?”

“With her?” Malek practically spat the words. “She has kept me hostage here for years!”

“The cave,” Gabriella muttered.

Malek nodded. “Yes, when she left me alone in the island, she kept me in a cave beneath the lagoon. I am assuming one of you broke something or fiddled with her things? Disrupting her magic set off the island’s defenses and allowed me to escape.”

Sauer glanced up at Eric. “Do we have time to consider this?”

“Not really,” Eric said. “Unless you know any test to determine if someone’s a sea witch.”

“How about I come aboard?” offered the merfolk. “I would be at your mercy, essentially.”

“Unless you’re magical,” said Sauer.

“I assure you, I am not, or else I would’ve gotten free of that cave much sooner.” His voice was the low rasp of grains of sand tumbling over each other in the tide. “I will tell you everything I know about the witch if you help me escape from this cursed place.”

Sauer nodded. “Nora, let’s get you up first.”

She looked back at Malek, asking in a whisper, “Are you sure I’ll go back to being human?”

“You will,” said Malek. “You should’ve been taught how to control the transformation so that it became as natural as breathing. Most children part human and part merfolk transform every time they leave or enter the sea, but it can very much be controlled. It is supposed to be a choice. Simply leave the water. You’ll see.”

No one could get away from the Isle of Serein fast enough. Eric and Vanni helped Gabriella climb back onto the ship while Nora watched anxiously from the bottom of the rope. She circled in the ocean until Sauer straightened out the ladder, lowering themself into the water so that she could hold onto their shoulders, and a nervous hush fell over the ship once Nora’s tail was on full display. It wasn’t some trick of the sea or a tangle of colorful eels. Malek kept nervously glancing back at the island. Ariel threw down another rope for him.

“I was in trousers,” muttered Nora as Gabriella pulled her from Sauer’s back and over the rail. “Where’d my clothes go?”

Sauer chuckled. “Someone grab a blanket for Nora, please.”

Nora curled her tail up and touched the tip, running her fingers along the thin webbing.

“Well, you’re set if we wreck,” said Eric. “And it’s quite lovely. Don’t you think, Gabriella?”

“Graceful.” Gabriella sunk to her knees next to Nora and wrapped a large blanket around her. She gave her a soft smile. There was a look in her eyes that Eric hadn’t seen before. “Thank you for diving in to save me, but please don’t do it again.”

Nora hummed and pulled the green scarf from Gabriella’s neck. “I haven’t decided if it was worth it yet, anyway.”

True to Malek’s words, Nora’s legs returned once the last drops of seawater fell from her body. They could see the tip of her tail that peeked out from below her blanket. The scales molted off like feathers from a bird and revealed her bare feet beneath. She shook her legs out, running her hands up and down them. Ariel watched, transfixed by the transformation.

Sauer checked on Nora one last time and went back to the rail. “You’re Malek, yes?”

“I am.”

“We could lower a boat and let it take on water,” said Sauer. “Or you are welcome to come up.”

“Thank you. I will come up, but unlike Nora, I will not possess legs. It will be ungainly.” Malek grabbed the ladder and began to climb. “Your concern, though, is kind.”

The crew steered clear of Malek, everyone caught between awe and fear, and soon enough, Sauer had the ship heading back into the fog. Sauer brought Nora a change of clothes and ushered her into the captain’s quarters, and after a few minutes, they herded Ariel, Vanni, Gabriella, and Malek inside. Eric hesitated, damp and confused, and took a few breaths to clear his head.

“Can’t tell if this voyage was cursed or blessed,” muttered the barrelman, throwing himself back against the rigging.

“Nora will put in a good word for us with the sea,” another replied. “Get up there. I’m done with this place.”

Eric leaned against the door to the captain’s quarters. Done. What a good concept.

He joined the others in the cabin. Malek had settled down next to the little half balcony off the back of the ship, the spray of the sea at his back. Nora sat half reclining on the bed and staring at her legs. Vanni, too, was gaping at them.

“None of us could be secretly merfolk, right?” he asked.

Eric shook his head.

Sauer pulled a chair close to her and sat backward on it. “What can you tell us about the Isle of Serein and the witch who lives there?”

“Quite a bit,” said Malek. “I’ve been trapped there for the last seven years.”

“Seven?” Gabriella sat on the table and planted her feet in the chair. “Why?”

“I was—am, until the contract runs out or she dies—retribution for a bargain my sister, Miriam, and her partner, Andrea, broke with the witch.” He laced his fingers in his lap and squared his shoulders, a pose Eric saw constantly in Grimsby. “He was human and she was not, but they loved each other. He sailed out to see her every day for twenty years, and then one day, he decided he wanted to join her beneath the waves. To do so, he had to make a deal with a witch—he would become one of the merfolk, and her price was a single soul, a debt which she would call in at a later date.”

One of Ariel’s hands fluttered to her heart. Eric understood that. It was such a romantic story, a desperate deal made for love. It was the sort of story Eric used to cling to.

“And the soul was you?” Nora asked, confused.

Malek shook his head. “It was my niece, their firstborn, but Miriam and Andrea ran away with her. All magic comes with a price, and that price must always be paid. When it’s not, magic will take its price. Andrea was a clever man, and he thought that since he could read and write, unlike most merfolk, he would be able to make sure his contract with the witch would be in his favor. All of her deals are written contracts, you see. He was wrong, and he was killed while helping Miriam escape. Miriam, from what the witch told me later, was captured near land. The witch decided to teach Miriam a lesson by killing her daughter instead of taking her soul.”

Eric swallowed. And what a show of force it was—her soul meant so much to Miriam and so little to the witch that she’d go ahead and kill if it meant causing more pain.

Then what was his mother’s ghost if this witch worked with souls?

“If the witch couldn’t have my niece, no one could,” said Malek. “But Miriam broke free long enough to get my niece ashore, where the witch couldn’t touch her. Miriam was killed for that. I was regaled with the story often after I was trapped when I stumbled upon the witch years later while looking for my sister.”

Sauer stared at Nora, their face inscrutable. “That’s quite the story.”

“I didn’t realize the witch could transform people like she did Andrea,” said Eric. “Is that common? Making human into merfolk?”

“Common enough,” said Malek. “Less so now that most of us have left for deeper waters. Transformation is a costly magic, from what I’ve learned these last years, and does require a level of skill most witches do not have. She is arrogant, but it is not entirely unearned confidence.”

Ariel snorted and waved off the odd looks she got. The sour expression on her face was enough for Eric to guess that she reluctantly agreed with Malek’s assessment of the witch. Malek stared at Ariel.

“You look familiar,” he said, and Ariel stiffened.

“I’m sorry.” Sauer held up a hand and took a deep breath. “This witch could transform people into whatever they want, but instead she’s not doing that for money for some reason? You know how many people would take her up on that?”

“Yes, but she doesn’t want to help people,” drawled Malek. “I would not say kindness is one of her strengths. The prices she charges are generally things out of her reach and far more than what anyone could or would reasonably pay, and she takes a great deal of pleasure in using souls, given how that horrifies others. For someone who hates how society stifles her, she loves trapping peo-ple in a deal. Curses, too, she’s very fond of. They’re rare, though, since they allow the cursed a chance to escape. She mostly saves them for nobility so that she can extract a better payment from them later when they break down and beg her to remove the curse. There’s only been about five of those.”

Ariel winced.

“How do you know all of this?” Vanni asked. “Does she sit around chatting like some villain in a play?”

“Yes, regularly,” said Malek flatly. “I suspect she’s lonely, and a person incapable of disagreeing with you is very good company. The only other people on the Isle are the souls she’s trapped there, but they cannot communicate. She keeps them in the form of polyps and only releases them as ghosts when she needs more souls. Pret-tier that way, she says.”

Eric took a steadying breath and let it out slowly. This was a lot, and none of it was good. The witch was worse than he’d thought, charging people exorbitant prices for things she knew would be life changing and saving. She could’ve gotten rich if she had accepted normal payments, but she seemed to be after a different sort of power. He was right to want to stop her.

He was wrong for thinking it would be easy.

“The witch,” said Eric. “She’s one of the merfolk, isn’t she?”

It seemed obvious now. The Blood Tide, the Isle, and her obsession with gaining power on land.

“Yes, she is,” Malek said in the same tone Carlotta used for Max. “So far as I can tell by her constant reminiscing, she was quite fond of the human world growing up and learned to read and write. It’s not a skill merfolk have and is why she is so successful.”

“I got some questions still.” Nora cleared her throat and wiggled her toes. “So one of my parents was one of the merfolk?”

“Yes, they must have been,” said Malek. “Do you not know them?”

“No, I don’t,” she said, avoiding his gaze. “My mother and I drowned in the Blood Tide, you see, when I was young, but I was pulled ashore and revived.”

Malek stared at her. “You don’t know either of your parents, and you drowned in the Blood Tide.”

“I’m twenty-four years old, I think,” said Nora. “If that helps.”

Malek took a shallow breath and covered his face with his hands. “Did a woman save you? Breathe for you and refuse to return you to the witch, getting cursed for her good deed?”

“Oh, no.” Nora shook her head. “I mean, yes, a woman saved me—I’m named for her, even—but I don’t know if the witch was there or if anyone was cursed. I was just told I couldn’t go back into the sea or the Blood Tide would kill me for escaping.”

Eric looked up as she finished her words. It felt like having the breath knocked out of him or his chest hollowed out. He couldn’t believe how narrow-minded he had been. The answer had been in front of him the whole time, and he had been too focused on the witch to see it. Nora wasn’t even a common name in Vellona or Riva, but was.

“Kill you?” Malek laughed into his hands. “No, the witch was saying she would come for you if you ever entered her domain. The Blood Tide can’t kill you. It’s just a path.” He lifted his head and wiped the tears from his cheeks. “You might not be my niece, though. She’s ended and ruined so many lives. I’m getting ahead of myself.”

“You’re not,” said Eric. “Right before I was born, my mother saved a child’s life up north, and a witch cursed her child.”

Eric had… what was it Grimsby always said? He had missed the ocean for the waves. If he had stopped to think, he might have noticed that Nora was one part of the puzzle he wanted so desperately to solve.

“Your mother what?” Nora nearly screamed.

“Saved a child from a witch, and the witch cursed her unborn child as revenge.” Eric took a deep breath and said, “‘If that thing in your belly ever kisses some-one without a voice as pure as their spotless soul, someone who isn’t its true love, then’—”

“‘Then it will die, and I will drag its soul to the bottom of the sea,’” finished Malek, staring at Eric. “The witch is quite proud of that curse. Said it was her first foray into land politics. She never explained why.”

Deep in his stomach, beneath the fluttering panic and disappointment, was hope. He had found the Isle. He knew where the witch would be.

“My mother dragged you from the sea, gave you the kiss of life, and refused to return you to the witch who wanted you,” said Eric.

And for once, the fact that others knew he was cursed didn’t terrify him. He wasn’t alone in the witch’s terrible schemes.

“Oh.” Nora leaned back, fidgeting with her hair. “That’s why you did all of this. That’s what you were doing when we found you the first time. You were looking for the witch who—”

She stopped, and Eric could see the fact that he was cursed hitting her. Beside him, Ariel let out a soft whine.

“I’m cursed,” said Eric. It wasn’t the ideal way to tell Ariel, but it was best she learn now. “Only a few people know. My mother vanished while looking for the Isle of Serein, and when I found her notes about it, I went looking for it, too. She was always overprotective. If the witch told my mother she’d be after you if you went in the sea, I bet my mother told Edo to keep you out of it completely.”

Nora narrowed her eyes at Eric, opened her mouth to speak, and then shook her head. Ariel stared at Eric in horror, the first look of utter grief he’d ever seen on her.

“She’s not all-powerful,” Malek said, “though she pretends otherwise, and I would say that she has woven this net around far too many fish for her to be able to drag it in.”

She wasn’t all-powerful. She could be outrun and outsmarted. This new knowledge about the witch had sharpened Eric’s focus. The world was bright and clear, like a book seen through newly fitted glasses. It was all connected by one terrible, powerful witch at the center of this monstrous web, and that witch wanted his soul.

“Look, I’ll deal with your part in this mess”—Nora waved at Eric—“in a second, but how did I drown if I’m one of the merfolk?”

“She forced you to change into a human while you were still in the sea.” Malek sighed, his shoulders slumping. “She thought it would hurt Miriam the most to watch you drown and be able to do nothing to help.”

“Well,” mumbled Nora. “I joined Sauer to find my family, and I guess that worked out. Sort of.”

Sauer raised their head and nodded at her. “This witch isn’t leaving Cloud Break alive.”

“If you want a family, I would be happy to be that for you. To show you where your mother was from and our family,” said Malek, going over to Nora and offering her his hands. She hesitated but took them and nodded, and Malek smiled. “Knowing you’re alive is worth these last seven years. To be one of souls is to be little more than livestock or coin—good for fuel or trade. It’s the most depraved sort of magic, the use of souls. But the sea can only offer her so much. She was ostracized after the depths she would go to for power were discovered, and now she has set her sight on drier crowns.”

“She wants to rule the land,” Eric said, taking in Malek’s words. “But if her magic is weaker there, she knew she would need more souls and the sort of power humans exalt. That’s why the ghosts appeared and started manipulating people into giving up their souls, and that’s why she made deals with different kingdoms for land and titles. But how are we supposed to stop her? How do we break her curses?”

Malek shot him a solemn look more befitting a funeral. “My apologies, but there are only three ways to break a curse—do as it demands, die not doing as it demands, or kill the witch responsible.”

Eric had lost his chance to catch her unaware and kill her. He worked a knuckle into his temple, a headache blooming in the back of his eyes. He would have another chance, especially if she was heading for Cloud Break. She would hurt no one else.

A knock on the door startled them all.

“Captain?” the navigator said, poking their head in. “Could you come look at this?”

“I’ll be right there,” said Sauer, and they squeezed Nora’s shoulder as they left.

“I’ve got a lighter question.” Vanni looked at Malek and mouthed the words a few times as if testing them out. “If merfolk can’t read, how do they agree to contracts?”

“By not reading them,” Malek said.

Ariel groaned and covered her face with her hands.

“Desperation makes the details superfluous.” Malek shrugged. “Some days, listening to her stories, I couldn’t blame her for the deals. People signed them far too readily. She is evil, certainly, but she is not irredeemable. This is the only route to power she feels she has, and so far as she is concerned, she has earned that power.”

“I’ll take your word on it, but I won’t be the first in line to offer her redemption.” Eric felt stretched out and thin, as translucent as his mother’s ghost.

“I’m sorry. I can’t let this go,” said Nora. “You were cursed because your mother saved a child’s life from a sea witch, and you didn’t once think it was worth mentioning?”

“I didn’t think it was you!” Eric raised his hands in surrender. “What is the chance of that? I figured it was a coincidence!”

She narrowed her brown eyes at him, the mirth in them glowing like a ship’s deck under the summer sun, and clucked her tongue. “I guess.”

“I have one last question, Malek,” said Eric. “This witch. You’ve never said her name.”

Malek swallowed. “No, I haven’t. She’s a bit of a legend in sea-dwelling circles—exiled for her plot to steal the throne, her use of souls as fuel, and her rather unscrupulous means of acquiring those souls. She’s a cunning one, that Ursula.”