Lina
Lina paused on the threshold of the balcony, amidst the fluttering black drapes.
Lightning laced the heavens, lit the low clouds from underneath, leaving the sky glowing like the pale underbelly of some gigantic beast. Eva’s hair flew out from her head like a flame, streaming behind her in the howling wind. Yet the rain itself dared not to touch her. No raindrops glittered on her olive skin, kissed the stark line of her neck, pooled in the dark dip and curve of her collarbones. Her black dress stayed dry as she leaned back against the hip-high balustrade, untying a knot in the witch’s ladder, features shadowed and sharp with sudden mischief.
Lina could feel the ebb and flow of magic rolling off of her, a steady pulse that set the pace of her own heart, that thrummed through her fingers where she clutched the mother-of-pearl comb wound with loops of red string.
“What are you waiting for?” Eva’s voice was half drowned by thunder. “A spell of transformation, wasn’t it? Shape a net. And this time, try not to get tangled in it.”
Lightning cracked.
Lina took a tentative step forward. An icy pitter-patter drummed the top of her skull, plastering her gold hair to her cheeks. She skittered back beneath the balcony’s awning.
A wicked smile tugged at Eva’s lips, the same smile she’d worn on St. Walpurga’s Eve just before she vanished in a vicious howl of smoke. “Are you scared?”
“No!” A little. And I don’t understand you. What did Eva mean by “You assume you know my feelings?”
“I just don’t want to get wet.” It was more self-consciousness now than fear. Her fingers felt suddenly clumsy, clammy, overly large and all thumbs with Eva staring so intently. Lina wanted to snap at her not to look as she freed a loop of red string twisted with strands of black hair, tucking the comb down the front of her dress and into her brassiere.
“A net.”
“I know.” A flush crawled up Lina’s neck. The strands of Eva’s hair were slippery as silk, the red string far more delicate than fishing line, a thousand times finer than rope. Together they were as much a tangle as her thoughts, as the emotions twisting and twining through her head. It was like trying to play cat’s cradle with cobweb.
Lina cursed as the strings slipped and snarled. The witches made it look so damn easy.
“Don’t rush.” Eva’s tone was surprisingly patient. She unstoppered one of the bottled spells, placing the bottle on the floor and stepping back as curls of pale smoke spiralled up from it to feed the clouds, in the hope that it would satiate them.
Some of the tension leeched from Lina’s shoulders. Something like excitement crept in. What charm was Eva having her work? If she proved she could do it, would Eva help her with the spell in the diary? She started again, brow furrowed with concentration. Keeping the long strings parallel, weaving one of the simpler shapes in the Witches’ Game, the fisherman’s net. “Why red string?” She’d always wanted to know why some witches worked magic one way and others another. “Why hair?”
“I have a lot of it,” said Eva with such a straight face that it took Lina a second to register it.
“Did you just make a joke?” She almost dropped the loops of string.
Another tiny smile tugged at Eva’s mouth, but a real smile this time, not taunting or spiteful or wicked, the kind of smile that appeared no matter how hard you fought to hide it.
Lina’s stomach flipped with a strange, uneasy kind of pride.
“It’s personal preference. There are even foreign witches who dance their magic. They slit the balls of their feet open with knives. Some like to say there’s more power in blood and spit and bone, but it’s a risk spending so much magic at once. And it’s messy. Strands of hair mix well with Caldella’s traditional knot magic, and the red string is… Good. You’ll need to form the fish next, and then the tower.”
Lina pulled the loops taut, hating the helpless, intoxicating thrill that shot through her from head to toe as the strands glowed hot.
“Now the tower,” said Eva, “for change and transformation.”
“What are we transforming?”
“The rain, seeing as you are so concerned about it.”
And afterward, the tide, Lina promised silently.
So much power at the tips of her fingers. She couldn’t quite believe she was working magic. Like a witch. With a witch. In a tempest at the top of a tower, alone but for the vengeful sea crashing far, far below and the Witch Queen watching her with eyes that glinted like the moon on dark water.
“Do you have to stare like that?”
“Like what?”
Like you’re planning to eat me.
Lina ducked her head and focused solely on forming the final shape. She and Finley had always lingered at the markets when the witches sold the wind to Ma in twists of string and hair, had tried to memorize the movements of their fingers.
Her brother would love this. If Eva let her keep the comb, she’d save some of the remaining loops of string for him. She half wished he were here now, even if got angry and frowned and called her a fool for enjoying working magic with Eva. She couldn’t remember a time without Finley. Couldn’t imagine a future where they weren’t close.
The wind picked up, plucking at her dress, fanning the black drapes behind her.
“Are you going to hide in the curtains forever?”
Lina shot a glare at Eva. The tower she’d shaped between her fingers glowed bright as burning coals, as the lit ends of cigarettes. Her ears filled with a roar, a new kind of thunder coming from everywhere at once. Her skin tingled. Her heart raged. But it was a rush. A fever and thrill that set her alight. Pure magic.
And then the light winked out, the strands of hair and red string burning away to ash, to nothing.
Lina looked from her empty, tingling fingers to the sky.
But it hadn’t changed. Lightning still danced coquettishly through desolate clouds. Thunder still rumbled.
Her stomach sank. She’d failed.
Eva held out a hand. Lina reached forlornly to take it, joining her at the balustrade, hunching, braced for the wind, for the icy chill of rain.
Something hot landed on her bare shoulder. She flinched, but the heat merely melted into her skin, sending out little ripples of warmth. Something blindingly bright struck the tip of her nose. Fire greeted her when she flung her head back, eyes going wide. Tiny teardrop flames dripped from the sky, tiny sparks in place of rain, winking out as soon as they hit skin or balcony stone.
The patch of sky directly overhead was ablaze, a single storm cloud weeped orange and crimson and gold. Lina opened her mouth, catching falling fire with her lips, on the tip of her tongue, hot and peppery.
Eva brushed against her side, a different kind of heat, leaning in to be heard above the rumbling thunder, hair wild in the wind. “A little more exciting than braiding each other’s hair, no?” Her tone was so smug that Lina wanted to shove her off the balcony.
But she couldn’t stop playing with the fiery rain tumbling over them like falling stars. She cupped her hands together and tiny tongues of flame pooled between her palms.
“There’s no reason we couldn’t do both. Couldn’t we do this with the tide, change it into something else? What if we worked together like this? I can help you. Let me help you.”
Fire was pooling between Eva’s palms too, little orange teardrops dancing. “You never give up, do you?” Her tone was both exasperated and something else. “Don’t you ever rest?”
“No.” Fear doesn’t let me.
And she had to hold onto her fears, to stay focused, because it was so easy to get distracted here, by all of this, by all her unanswered questions.
Why did you say the sacrifice couldn’t be anyone but me?
Eva shaped the flames she’d caught into a band, a shifting, dancing circlet of fire that she set on Lina’s head. A crown of light to match her dark one. “For a would-be witch.” There was something so solemn, so deliberately grand about the gesture that Lina almost laughed.
Instead, her stomach turned over. They were standing too close. Eva’s hands on the circlet, grazing her temples, framing her face. Eva’s chin angled down, her own tilted up. Almost as if…as if they were about to… Eva’s breath hitched as if she too had just realized…
“Why did you have to come here?” She sounded angry.
“What did you mean when you—” said Lina.
A mouth pressed to hers. Soft. Firm. Insistent.
Oh.
Eva’s hands tangled in Lina’s hair. Lina’s lips parted in surprise. Heat swooped through her center. Her heart was pounding so hard she could feel it through her entire body.
She sucked Eva’s bottom lip into her mouth, blood coursing through her like flames when Eva inhaled sharply. Something dark and violent curled low in her stomach. A thrill, vicious and shocking as victory. Her hands gripped Eva’s hips hard enough to leave bruises. Fingers clenched and knotted in Lina’s hair, almost painful, pulling her impossibly closer. And something inside of her broke free, the lock wrenched off a door she hadn’t known existed, endless possibilities spilling out. Why hadn’t she ever thought of this? She was the rain—transformed. Floating and burning and falling, falling, falling.
The scrape of nails sent tingles racing across her scalp. Their noses bumped. Flames were raining down all around them. Lina couldn’t catch her breath. She didn’t know if she was doing this right or if she—
Eva nipped her lip, and a jolt snaked through Lina like lightning. The soft, curving pieces of her seemed to slot and fit and press into the soft, curving pieces of Eva as if that’s what they were made for. She was on fire, dizzy with the sensation of Eva’s mouth closing over her own, the climbing need. She needed to get closer, she needed—
Lina pulled back for breath. Eva stared down at her. Lips swollen. Eyes wide. Black hair a wild tangle, swept back to expose her shocked face. She stared at Lina like she was something astounding, something strange, like nothing she had ever seen before.
Lina’s lips throbbed. Her heart beat a painful rhythm.
What are you doing?
What are you doing what are you doing what are you doing?
She was almost grateful for the scream.
It made them both jump. A faint, piercing cry from somewhere inside the Water Palace.
Lina tore away from Eva’s touch, racing inside, stumbling through the thick drapes and across the hazy, smoke-sweet salon, speeding past the desk, the low lounge, unsure if she was running toward the sound or away from Eva. Her heart thudded against her rib cage.
What are you doing what are you doing what are you doing?
Oh God.
She didn’t want this. She didn’t want to feel like this. This was all Eva’s fault.
The scuff of her stockings on the carpet became a squelch.
Lina halted, looked down.
The carpet was wine-red, deepening to the color of old blood as water oozed through the crack between the floor and the salon’s shimmering, glyph-engraved door, a great half moon bleeding outward.
Eva rushed past, the silver dancing shoes she was still wearing stepping lightly, sparkling with diamond fire as she flung open the door. It didn’t misbehave for her. A wall of cold horror and sound hit them as they burst through, bodies colliding with a flock of shrieking witches and witchlings fleeing down a murky corridor as towering ink-black waves crashed round a bend.
The dark tide had come to reap what it was owed, to take what it was promised, what it had been denied for two long years.
Blood drained from Lina’s face. The water moved like a living, breathing thing. Serpentine and ravenous. Pouring itself down the corridor with deliberate intent, gushing eagerly over the floor, reaching, touching, tasting. Liquid darkness clawed forward on wet black fingers. Teeth of froth and foam raked along the walls, cresting white and biting down.
Lina didn’t move fast enough. Waves smashed into her head-on with strength enough to sweep her off her feet, to drag her under, to swallow her whole. She tumbled into a ball, saltwater flooding her nose, her mouth, her ears. She sloshed and slapped against other screaming, squirming, drowning bodies.
Rough hands seized her by the hair, tearing at her scalp, hauling her up. She gasped as she burst from the water’s hold. She gripped Eva for dear life.
“Marcin!” Eva was shouting as red hair flashed past. The water seethed, hissing its hunger, roiling and swirling around their knees, their waists. Light rippling off its pitch-dark skin, webbing over the ceiling.
Marcin was struggling to stay upright against the swell, fighting the fierce push and pull of the waves. He fished a witchling out of the flow, hauled the small boy over his shoulder.
Eva’s grip loosened on Lina’s hair. She shoved Lina roughly back through the door they’d just come from, a small wave going with her, spewing into the salon, soaking more of the wine-red carpet.
Lina stumbled, catching herself against the back of the low lounge.
Eva grasped the edge of the door, face grim as she heaved it shut. “Stay here.”