Eva
Eva had reached her limit for human interaction.
She could feel the climbing tension in her muscles, the sharp stab of irritation every time another person spoke, the rising desire to pluck one of the hairpins out of her braids and shove it through someone’s throat.
The audience chamber echoed with the wind-chime tinkle of messenger spells. Words carried on small spiraling winds sent from the city. Grievances. Complaints. There were stories of a wild storm brewing—the one she and Lina had glimpsed. Accusations and reports of further flooding, of looting on the evacuated North Shore, a hard thing to fathom in such an enchanted place as Caldella. The islanders were demanding restitution, money and magic, for the damage their broom boats had taken from her sea serpent in the chaos of the regatta. They were demanding to know what was happening, demanding that she return Lina, and also that she give Lina to the tide now, that she perform this year’s sacrifice early.
As if the ritual itself were unimportant, as if Eva could afford not to wait for the full moon.
As if she were ready to let Lina Kirk go.
She could feel everyone in the audience chamber judging her, these well-dressed witches weighing her with their eyes, thinking her a poor substitute for the sister they had loved, the queen they had lost.
Because of her.
Because she had not been strong enough to break the dark tide’s curse, not strong enough to find another way to save her sister.
“But you don’t have to be Natalia?” Yara had told her once in that husky, questioning voice. “They would love you just as much if you let them know you. If you let them in.”
But Eva didn’t know how, didn’t think she could, and didn’t want to. She was not that type of person.
“You’ll have to find another way to rule them, then.”
She was trying. She raked her bitten-down nails over the arms of her throne and leaned back into the black velvet cushions. She did not sit here often, preferring to do what Natalia had jokingly referred to as “the housekeeping” from a small salon in the Queen’s Tower. Natalia’s ghost had a habit of poking its head over Eva’s shoulder in here, whispering in her ear that it was undignified to rest a foot on her knee, to sit sideways, to smoke, to look bored and snap at stupid questions.
There were some things she did not miss about her sister, although she would never admit it aloud.
More tinkling, this time from the bells woven into Cyla’s silver locks. The woman tossed her hair back over her shoulder, shooting a pointed look at Eva as she squabbled loudly with Jun, who took a frustrated drag on his cigarette and blew smoke that became a creature prowling the air. Omar scratched his stubbled chin and adjusted the bandages he used to bind his chest. His voice boomed out above the bickering.
“The islanders are angry. They don’t like that we’re taking their daughters now. They sound like mainlanders, the things they’re saying about witches. Won’t be long before they band together against us. The men are scared.”
Because that was an acceptable excuse.
Marcin smiled at Eva’s souring expression, ignoring Jun, who was trying to get his attention.
“Marcin, I think we need to consider…”
Eva crossed her ankles. Recrossed them. Crossed her legs at the knee instead.
I have to get out of here, or I will murder someone.
But no, she was queen. Why should she be the one to leave?
“Enough.” She raised a hand before they could go on. “Everyone out. All of you.”
Heads turned.
Eva inclined her own toward a small round table on the dais beside the throne. Seashells were scattered across its dark wood surface. “I’ve seen what’s coming, and I want to listen. The sea always has answers.”
Of the nine witches present, three read her mood instantly and retreated, and three hesitated, swapping frowns as they packed up deliberately slowly, waiting for her to change her mind. The seventh and eighth of her siblings had the gall to look to Marcin.
He waved them off and remained after the rest withdrew, the grating click-click-click of their heels cutting abruptly to quiet as the audience chamber’s doors groaned closed.
Silence was such a gift.
Eva rose from her throne, from Natalia’s throne, and trailed her fingers through the shells scattered across the table. Cockles and periwinkles. Cuttlebones and small spotted cowries. Abalone glowing with the brilliant rainbow iridescence of mother-of-pearl. White snail-curled moon shells.
She pressed the pad of her thumb to a conch’s needle-sharp spire, relishing the pain. Its outside was buttercream, its inside a soft salmon pink. If she lifted it to her ear, what truths would the sea whisper? What secrets, what dark fortunes? The day and manner of her death? The name of her true love or that of the person who would one day betray her?
Marcin came to stand by her side, red hair and the jet buttons on his black wool vest burning bright beneath the amber lights. He gave the fat braid slinking down her back a playful tug, like he used to when she was but a witchling. “You should be in bed, sweet thing. Resting. Your pet took a great bite out of your thigh, if you recall. And how much magic did you spend attempting to tame it? You need to be more careful. You’re making us all worry.”
“If I wanted a lecture, I would have asked for one.” She was beyond tired of people telling her what to do. She did not need to rest. What she needed was for everyone to stop second-guessing her every choice, to stop undermining her. What she needed was to know who might make trouble if she punished Marcin for throwing fire at her sea serpent.
Eva pressed a cold moon shell to the curve of her ear. She shut her eyes, chin angling toward the ceiling as if she were tipping her head back underwater, soaking in the sensation of the universe muffling, the world going quiet.
Eva listened.
For the secrets the sea sang to those who would hear.
For the scurrying footsteps and anxious murmurs creeping through her palace.
For everything they were saying about her. Her siblings’ hidden thoughts and fears, their doubts and whispered desires, the weaknesses they admitted to only in the dark.
There was the deep pulsing rush of the ocean, a familiar drumming beneath her feet, a ravenous heartbeat rising up from the levels of the palace that had been swallowed by the sea. The tide whispered:
You can have the city or the person you love, but you cannot have both.
Eva’s eyes flew open.
Marcin circled the table to stand opposite her. Maybe she should punish him now, quickly, while they were alone with no one to see.
He drew a map from his vest pocket and unfolded it.
Natalia had taken tithes from the other witches when they made trouble, like the queen before her had done. Snipped off their hair or the tips of their fingers. She could use this magic instead of her own, so she didn’t use herself up.
Just the thought of it sent a chill snaking down Eva’s spine. Because that was what the mainlanders did: cut witches into pieces and stole their power. Boiled them down and carved their bones into charms. Made amulets of their teeth, used their hair to cast curses.
It was the only way to have magic if you didn’t buy it and it didn’t grow within you.
Marcin brushed the seashells aside and spread his map over the table, businesslike. The craggy coastline of the mainland and Caldella’s sharp crescent were etched in charcoal.
Eva’s gaze strayed to the last two fingers on his left hand. Or the space where two fingers should be. Fingers he’d lost to hungry mainlanders when he was thirteen, before he and Natalia and Eva had been rescued by the reigning Witch Queen.
They’d always been inseparable, Marcin and Natalia. Fire and smoke. Neither complete without the other.
If it had been anyone else, Eva would have punished them already, but Natalia’s death had broken Marcin as much it had broken her. They were different people now. Colder. Crueller. It had been two years, and Eva could barely remember the person she’d been before. It was all of this and the fact that he would never forgive her if she stole pieces of his magic the way the mainlanders had.
And if she took more of his magic, how much would he have left? He was already so much older than her, had spent so much already and always used it sparingly. When she was younger, he used to trick her into casting spells for him. He did it still to some of the witchlings, said it was good practice for them. Eva didn’t know if she could bear the thought of him fading out of existence.
In her head she could hear Lina call her a hypocrite, and in her mind’s eye she could see Marcin, panicked and stupid and shouting at her from the deck to do something about the sea serpent. After he’d made it angry. He hadn’t even bothered spending magic to control it. He’d put everyone in danger. And now her pet wouldn’t even come to her.
“We need to start evacuating.”
Eva blinked twice. “Evacuating?”
Marcin tapped a star on the map. “Seldoma. The closest mainland city. I’ve dreamed of a ring around the moon—a wild storm is coming. It might break in another day or two or three, or even tomorrow. Jun says he can already smell it. We’ll go there.”
“We’re not leaving.”
“The island is lost, Eva. You heard the reports. The East Tower’s completely flooded. The tide’s stealing back the levels below us. We can’t stay here. We need to sail before the storm breaks.” Marcin smoothed the map. “We need to get our family to safety.”
“And the islanders?”
Marcin shrugged. “They can come with us if they wish, if they’ll work for us. We’ll rebuild, take over Seldoma first.”
“You want to start a war with the mainlanders.”
“I want to lead us home. We were born on the mainland. I want to take us away from this cursed place. The mainlanders may even offer to help us.”
“And if they don’t? If they still hurt people like us? If they don’t want us there?”
Marcin had this frustratingly mercurial attitude toward the mainland, one day hating it and everyone who lived there, the next longing insatiably for home. Other witches who had fled from there refused to talk about it at all.
Eva placed the moon shell she still held on the table atop the map, grimacing at the sight of the three nails she’d bitten bloody. Natalia would have known how best to respond. Marcin would never have pushed her like this. A wave of longing filled the hollow inside Eva’s chest. The confession slipped out before she could seal her lips.
“I miss her.”
She wanted to snatch the words back. But it was, in fact, the cleverest move she could have made. The soft words went in like a blade through butter. The fire banked in Marcin’s eyes, leaving only shadows swirling through his hazel irises.
Strange how even weakness could sometimes be wielded as a weapon.
Marcin massaged the scar tissue on his left hand. He looked suddenly older. Creases pinched the corners of his eyes, fading into blue veins peeking through the soft skin at his temples. He was a creature made from porcelain, riddled with cracks.
“Why?” said Eva. “Why did you throw fire? I had the situation under control. Did you want the sea serpent to attack Lina? Attack me? Never has a queen looked such a fool.”
“Well, that’s not true. What about that year the sacrifice jumped from the ship at the regatta and tried to escape by swimming to shore? I can still see Natalia’s face.”
Eva cut him off. “Yara was almost hurt! I was hurt!”
The air in the audience chamber thickened. They held each other’s gazes. Marcin was the first to break.
“I thought I was helping. It certainly didn’t look like you had it under control. Why did you have to let it out in the first place? You wanted to scare Lina? To show off for her? You seem”—he paused, glancing down, smoothing a crease in the map—“interested in her, in a way you weren’t with the last boy.”
Interested?
Eva stiffened. Heat rose in her cheeks.
“Even now you’re still slinking off to play with her, showering her with gifts and magic.”
Of course she was. She was doing what was expected of her, to please the rest of their family, and to make sure Lina’s final days were filled with as much magic as possible, as the queens had always done. It wasn’t because she was interested. She wasn’t Natalia, falling in love with the boys she took. The very thought was absurd.
But maybe not as absurd as it should have been.
Eva tried to ignore the tiny part of herself that was even now recalling the ache of watching Lina dance for the sea serpent.
She’d known in that moment exactly what Thomas Lin saw in her, had known the reason he’d dared to love again after Natalia. She had always understood Thomas. Deep down, they were alike, both cold and selfish creatures. Both people who would do anything: lie, pretend, sacrifice anyone to ensure their own survival. It was why she hated him with such a passion, because she knew she would have done exactly as he had, had their roles been reversed.
But Lina was different. Fearless. Selfless. Foolish and completely infuriating. Eva now understood Thomas’s urge to warm his hands on that courage, that flame, to try and steal a little of it for himself.
He did not deserve her. And she could just imagine the look on his face if he found out that she and Lina were…
She kind of liked the thought of taking Lina away from him in that way, stealing someone he cared about from him like that. She liked it a lot.
“I couldn’t bear the thought of you starting to care for her too much. I worried you would end up making the same mistake Natalia did. You even let Thomas Lin go free. After he spat in all our faces dancing into the revel with her. After all Natalia did for him.” Marcin’s expression was darkening.
Eva wondered if this was the true reason he’d lashed out, like a child throwing a tantrum because he had lost his favorite toy. Marcin was going to lose his precious chance to watch Thomas Lin drown.
Eva sliced a dismissive hand through the air. “I let him go because I wanted him to know what it felt like to have someone he truly loved stolen from him. But if you hate him so much, I’ll let you feed him to my serpent when this done. Does that make you happy?”
A flash of uncertainty crossed Marcin’s face. It was so very rare that she surprised him.
“I promised I wouldn’t use him as this year’s sacrifice, I promised nothing else.” And really, Lina was a fool for not having considered that, for not even asking. But foolishly good people so often made a habit of thinking everyone was as honest and foolishly good as they were.
Marcin was staring at her hard. Eva kept her emotions in check, not a flicker of feeling on her face. Was he seeing her or merely searching for Natalia in the set of her features?
I am not my sister. I will not make the same mistakes.
The silent vow passed through Eva’s mind as quick as light, but at the same time a bubble of doubt dredged up from the depths of her being. Because she was and always would be a creature of all or nothing. She didn’t care at all, or she cared with everything she was.
Caring like that got you killed.
“And here I’d almost forgotten,” said Marcin slowly, “that you’d thrown away your heart.”
Eva adjusted her collar. She wished Yara were here to back her up. But she’d gone to speak with Lina’s brother, to convince him and the rest of Lina’s family to stop sailing pointlessly round and round the Water Palace.
Yara’s presence would likely have set Marcin even more on edge, anyway. Natalia had spelled him to sleep the night she’d sacrificed herself so he couldn’t stop her. Eva, too. And Yara had tried to talk Natalia out of it but failed.
A deeply buried part of Eva couldn’t forgive Yara for that, just as she couldn’t forgive her own failures, and she knew Marcin never would either.
“I know what I’m doing.” She would care enough, but not too much.
“You wouldn’t have to do any of this if we left.”
Eva’s temper frayed. She peeled the map off the table, scrunched it slowly into a ball. Natalia had made her queen, not him. She had to believe her sister had done so for a reason. “We are not evacuating. We are not going anywhere.” She set the ruined map on the table. “The sacrifice will work this year. Have Jun weave more witch’s ladders so we can send away the storm. Tell the others to strengthen the spells on the lower floors against further flooding. Seal the doors. We will not abandon our sister’s city.”