Eva
Eva threw her arms around Lina’s waist, hauling her back, keeping her from plunging over the rail and following her brother overboard.
Lina thrashed and shrieked, flinging herself forward, hand still outstretched, fingers still grasping, clutching air. “Finley!”
“Stop! You can’t help him, it’s too late.”
Lina twisted, the crown of her head smacking the underside of Eva’s chin, the impact jarring through her skull in a brutal flash of red. Eva stumbled, hip knocking the ship’s boom, vision exploding into shards of fractured light.
Too late.
Just like she had been too late to save Natalia. She knew that yawning emptiness, that absolute refusal to accept that the person you loved was gone, had been ripped right out of your arms.
And nothing you do will ever bring them back.
Fury sang through Eva. She kept her grip vise-tight on Lina’s waist. Her sea serpent was vicious when it was angry. And Marcin had made it very angry, throwing fire, making it strike out at Lina. Eva could still taste the magic on the air.
Shouts shivered the salt breeze. The water was roiling, frothing, foaming. But no sign of boy or serpent. Her pet had disappeared below the surface.
Violent sobs racked Lina’s body, traveling through her to Eva. “No. No, no, no no no.”
Would they find parts of Lina’s brother washed up days later? A torso. An arm. A leg. Flesh pale and bloated. Blue. Tangled with seaweed. Nibbled by crabs.
A life ring whistled past Eva’s ear.
Finley Kirk broke through the surface with a gasp.
So did the serpent.
It shot up from the depths, water flinging from its scaly coils, from its wicked triangular head, fangs bared. A whip-thin tongue flicked out.
What a beautiful thing her monster was.
In Eva’s arms, Lina went deathly still. Eva’s grip slackened. The ship creaked and groaned, then seemed to hold its breath. The whole world held its breath as the boy flailed hopelessly for the life ring, as the serpent’s jaws gaped wide, wider, saliva dripping from serrated teeth.
The moment was shattered by a great splash and a crescendo of throat-scraping screams. An elderly man had leapt from a red-and-gold broom boat to help and was floundering in the water.
Why in hell had he jumped in if he couldn’t swim?
Lina tore free of Eva’s embrace, staggering forward, reaching down the front of her dress and drawing out a small knife. She was shouting. No, singing.
Loudly. And badly. Voice shaky and painfully off tune. Eva wanted to clap her hands over her ears. Had Lina Kirk gone mad? Did she have a death wish? Did she think her singing so terrible it could send even monsters away?
Did she think she could fight the serpent with her tiny knife?
Eva ripped a bracelet of black hair and red string from her wrist, ready to tie into knots, to trade parts of herself for the power to reshape the world.
Lina waved her arms, raised the knife, and slashed a deep gash across her forearm.
Eva froze, string floating free of her fingers, glowing red like sunset, like the lit end of a cigarette just before it went out.
Blood oozed from the line of the cut Lina had carved, dripped onto the wooden deck in thick crimson splashes.
Something in Eva recoiled. The serpent swiveled toward Lina, slit nostrils flaring.
Lina rose onto one foot, staring straight ahead at the serpent, at the sea. Eye to eye with Eva’s monster. Her expression smoothing into something that was almost peaceful. She placed both fists on her waist and bowed deeply. Then her hand swept out, palm rotating to face the sky, pinching the air, sweeping up above her head. She sprang onto the ball of her foot, and her other leg lifted and flicked out.
She spun on the blood-streaked deck of the ravaged ship, dress flaring, one arm lifting and then the other. The movements flowed from her, building to a rhythm only she could hear: A heel drummed wood. A fist pressed to a heart. A sweeping flourish of sun-kissed arms. An elegant spin and an impossibly high kick.
Swift, audacious motions, full of defiance, full of daring. A fling meant to be danced upon a shield, beside a sword. The waves jumped and surged as if they were applauding, as if the sea itself longed to move with Lina, the turn of her body contagious. Magical.
The serpent swayed slightly, caught in the dance’s thrall. The silent melody chained it, held it captive, held it mesmerized.
As Eva was mesmerized.
Something stirred in the hollow inside her chest. She knew Lina was dancing for her brother. For that old man who had leapt into the sea. To buy them time, to aid them, save them. And she wanted suddenly, selfishly, for someone to dance that way for her. The scorching, soul-deep ache for it crept up her throat.
Drums beat across the waves, musicians on the floating stage spying what was happening, raising pipes and violins.
One slip. One misstep…
Eva tore her eyes away from Lina. Nodded curtly to Yara and Omar, to the witches struggling with the chaos that was the Carterhaugh’s sails, the tangled rigging and shattered foremast. She held a hand up as Marcin ran forward.
Eva vaulted from the deck to the surface of the water with impossible grace, landing like a cat upon the cresting waves. Her shoes were charmed as the Conservatoire dancers’ shoes were, spelled to cross the sea as if it were solid.
The tide licked at the points of her boots. Eager. Hungry. A thousand eyes weighed heavy on her, islanders watching with frantic hearts from broom boats and balconies. A thousand candles glimmering as true darkness fell and the scene turned blue-violet with shadow.
Eva’s steps were quick. Light as smoke. The air hummed with magic as she tied knots in another red string bracelet, calling up a wave that swept Lina’s brother and the elderly man into a red-and-gold broom boat. A group of women frantically hauled them in.
The dancing figure flashed in the corner of her eye, a whirl of pale blue and gold. The serpent’s head followed Lina, keening as it swayed, a hair-raising sound between a hiss and a wail.
Lina did not falter.
Neither did Eva as she approached it, taking advantage of its trance, reaching out a tentative palm. Her monster. Her beautiful, vicious pet. The reek of rotting flesh and fish was almost overpowering. She wanted to gag.
But a queen did not gag.
Eva stroked the undulating gray scales and sinuous muscle, smooth and slick and shockingly hot. Whispered quietly, soothingly. A tremor ran through the serpent as she brushed the seaweed snared around its long neck, the seared flesh from the fire Marcin had thrown.
Blood blackened her fingertips, stained dark crescents beneath bitten-down nails. Molten fury blazed through her.
Then with a sharp cry, Lina slipped.
Fell.
Her body slapped the deck, a deafening wet smack that seemed to echo, that made the planks of the ship shudder.
The serpent reared back.
Fangs flashed toward Eva. Jaws slammed closed inches from her chest. She felt the serpent’s rancid breath as she barreled to the left, sprawling onto her stomach, undignified, losing a shoe. Scrambling to get up, gasping, cursing. A knee and then her hand stabbed holes through the surface of the water, plunging into icy, empty nothingness. With only one charmed shoe, she lost control of the magic holding the sea solid beneath her.
She choked on a mouthful of spray and was blinded as salt burned her eyes. Jaws snapped at her heels, her legs, curved teeth catching, tearing through the hem of her trousers. She kicked back, clawed at the water. Crawled.
With a thousand eyes watching. A humiliation worse than the terror of death itself.
The serpent whipped its head back and lashed it down. Eva rolled sideways fast, but not fast enough. Fangs shredded fabric, skin, flesh.
An explosion of fire overhead. Heat and agony ripping through her right thigh. The serpent shrieked, enraged, and Eva wanted to shriek too at Marcin to stop throwing fire.
She twisted onto her back, looked up as that gaping maw streaked down.
Was this death, then? This moment, impossibly suspended? This mad second when she felt so impossibly, infinitely alive, aware of every shuddering breath, the thud-thud-thud of blood in her ears, the arctic chill of the water?
Was this how her sister had felt? Was this how she would go down in history, a failed queen eaten alive by her own monster?
The sea heaved. Black eyes looked into black.
Don’t you dare.
The waves trembled. The serpent swerved abruptly, unnerved. Zigzagging, neck uncoiling, striking instead for easier prey, for the golden-haired dancer struggling to stand on the deck.
Eva felt the air catch in her throat.
She slammed a fist down on the surface of the blood-thick water. Summoned waves that swelled in a great curving arc, forming a wall between ship and monster.
An inelegant kind of magic. Brutal. Enchantment worked with blood.
The serpent reeled, body stretching up out of the water.
The tide swept Eva to her feet. She ripped off her last remaining red string bracelet, using the magic within it to shape the sea to her will. She lashed a dark wave at the serpent as if it were a whip.
There was a crack as loud as thunder.
She felt the blow as if she’d struck herself. A pain that set every nerve end screaming.
The serpent gnashed its great fangs. Writhed. A line of fire was carved across its scales.
Eva lashed it again, driving it into the depths of the sunken harbor.
A pained keening split the air. Fathomless oil-slick eyes turned on her, bewildered. Wounded.
Piercing her more sharply than any weapon ever could.
Her monster writhed, but weakly now, sinking its bleeding, blackened coils into the water. Spearing her with one last stricken glance before it slipped into the deep.