Thomas had come after her. Thomas had tried to help her. He wouldn’t have set foot in St. Casimir’s Square or joined the revel if not for her. She’d dragged him into this. She’d asked him to help her brother and lost him instead, lost the boy she loved. Lost the boy who loved her.
Lina bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted copper. She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream. She’d ignored his fears, had thrown them in his face. Every inch of her was on fire with shame.
Finley overtook her, broad shoulders scraping the brick as he squeezed past, blocking her path. The alley sloped and ended at the city’s edge, crumbling and opening out onto slippery black rocks and glowing green moss.
Behind her brother rose the gray spires of the Witch Queen’s home, jagged teeth jutting out of the ink-black sea. You could see the half-sunken palace no matter where you stood on the island. Lina didn’t know if it was magic or clever architecture. She’d never paid the place much attention. The Water Palace lost its wow factor when you passed it every day on the way to class. The wicked towers and turrets seemed unimportant when your cousin’s bike was jolting from side to side and you were trying desperately to fill in the answers to last night’s homework while leaning against their back. Now neither she nor Finley could stop their eyes from darting toward it.
“Lina, if she’s chosen him, there’s nothing you can do.” Finley was trying to keep his voice even, his tone gentle. “You need to let him go. For the city’s sake, for everyone’s sake. It was always going to end like this, I told you. Look around.” He gestured toward the water puddled by their feet, at the ugly stains on the walls from flooding at high tide. “The last sacrifice didn’t work. He broke the magic. The new queen must have realized. She’s trying to save the island.”
“That’s not why she took him.” Lina’s eyes had gone glassy. “I saw her. That, that thing, that girl, that witch, she looked like me. She wore my face. Finley, she wore my face.”
“Why would she be wearing your—” Finley’s expression darkened.
Lina tried to edge past him.
He blocked her with his body, palms up and out but very deliberately not touching her, not grabbing for her. “Think about this.” He delved into his jacket pocket and held up a cork-stoppered bottle. The clouded green glass glowed with soft golden heat. He inched closer, carefully, as if she were something wild that might startle. “Here, for your ankle. This’ll help it heal up, good as new. Stop the pain, that throbbing you complained about.” He forced the bottled spell into her gloved hand. “Let’s go home now, and you can try it.”
“I don’t want your stupid bottle, Finley!”
Glass shattered against the cobbles. Gold liquid left a splatter on the wall.
An awful sinking dread pulled Lina’s stomach toward the ground. She shouldn’t have done that.
Finley blinked once, then slammed a fist into the wall, knuckles bursting red against the brick.
Lina flinched.
“I risked my life for that bloody spell! I’ve been out here risking my life for you.”
“I didn’t ask you to!”
“I’m trying to make things right, here. I’m trying to fix things.”
“For who? To make yourself feel better? None of this is for me. You don’t need to fix me. I told you I didn’t want you to go.”
“You said your ankle was hurting! I heard you talking to Ula about those strands of hair you wanted for a charm. How else am I supposed to—” Finley’s voice was almost a roar.
Lina cowered, curling in on herself, shoulders hunching, and Finley’s words cut off abruptly. His temper was a quick thing. Fast to flare and fade. A brief righteous high followed by the deepest of self-loathing lows. A look of utter devastation crumpled his features. He sucked on a bloody knuckle, breathed out through his nose. A long breath, forcing down the anger that came so easily. His voice cracked. “I just want to make things right with us.”
Lina shut her eyes, willing her heart to stop pounding, pounding, pounding. “If you want that, if you truly want that, and you want me to ever forgive you for everything, you’ll help me get him back.” Guilt churned inside her stomach. A part of her knew she shouldn’t throw her forgiveness around like a bribe when, deep down, she also knew he’d never truly meant to hurt her. She knew how he struggled to control his temper, knew how much he hated himself when he lost that fight. She knew that their fight and her broken ankle had been half her fault.
But the rest of her was still furious with him and felt that he owed her. If she hadn’t been injured, Thomas wouldn’t have felt the need to join the revel to help her. And if Finley hadn’t been so thickheaded and run off tonight in the first place.
“He was helping me to find you. And if you try and stop me, I’ll never speak to you again.” Lina soldiered past him, aiming for the line of boats bobbing beside the mossy rocks. Fancy crescent-shaped broom boats with red velvet seats and blankets to guard against the cold. Their curving hulls painted to a shine with black lacquer.
Her heel skidded in the moss and she staggered.
Finley rushed to steady her. “Let’s talk about this.”
“Oh, like we talked about it when you ran off?”
“Most of them are still partying in the square.”
“That’s why we need to go now. Fewer witches to worry about.”
“There’s the queen to worry about.”
Lina reached into Finley’s suit pocket, pinching the little sailor’s knife he always kept on his person.
“Aye, you’re going to fight her with a toothpick.”
“You don’t have to come.” Lina shoved the knife down the front of her dress and into her brassiere, staggering again as she reached the first boat. The wind picked up, and gooseflesh rose on her arms. She clambered aboard, landing hard on a red velvet bench seat amidst a nest of woolen blankets.
Finley cursed, glancing back at the alley, at the city, at safety.
He half fell across her lap as he hauled himself after her. Lina’s elbow nearly took out his eye. He let out a yelp as the boat pitched and bobbed out into the current.
7
Lina
The broom boat cleaved through black water roiling like a witch’s brew. Salt spray stung Lina’s cheeks and soaked her dress. She squeezed her gloved hands tight between her thighs. The night was a blanket of cold, growing colder as they sailed farther and farther from the bonfires, from the light and warmth of the city. The Witch Queen’s palace loomed ahead, glowing with the flickering light of a flame in the dark. Its wavery reflection stretched out over the waves, which bled white where they broke against the hull.