Finley dropped his chin to his chest. “It might not have been the queen who took him.”
“Who else disappears in a puff of smoke? Who else kisses someone on St. Walpurga’s Eve wearing someone else’s face?”
“He made it out the last time on his own.”
“Because he made the last queen fall in love with him,” said Lina. “She’s dead.”
“Maybe he’ll make this new one love him too.”
In the dark, her brother’s wintry gray eyes looked almost black, making Lina think of the queen in the square, reminding her of the false version of Thomas she’d thrilled to dance with and the beautiful girl with eyes like midnight-lit waters and smile sharper than a blade. The image of Thomas kissing her was burned into Lina’s vision. She could no longer see the illusion, see the false version of herself kissing him, only the other girl, and Thomas kissing back.
“Hey, now,” said Finley, reading her expression. “I didn’t mean it.”
Lina hugged her arms around herself. “It’s not his fault the sacrifices aren’t working. You’re wrong.”
Finley sighed but didn’t respond, just leaned heavily into her side. Some of her guilt and fear melted under the familiar weight of his shoulder. He might be a weaseling traitor with an unfair height advantage, but he was still her best friend, still her brother. She wasn’t alone out here. He hadn’t let her go alone. She wished she could make herself hate him. There was something terribly wrong with her that she couldn’t.
“It’s my fault Thomas was there.” Her voice sounded shaky and small, and she hated that, too. “And yours.”
Taut silence stretched over the boat, broken only by the slap and slosh of the waves. They sailed past the rusted spire of a clock tower, over sunken rooftops and the submerged copper-green dome of a bygone cathedral, over the swathes of the old city that had been lost to the dark tide when it had first risen two hundred years ago.
Lina moved to sit at the stern, looking back as they glided by the old bell tower, its crumbling cupola and pointed gray hat spearing up out of the waves. When the witches froze parts of the sea in winter, you could skate out to it, if you were brave enough. Lina had ripped the top layer off her tongue when she’d tried licking the ice-crusted bell.
Sea mist whispered and wound around her body, circling her neck like a noose. She found herself making small bargains. If she blinked three times each time they passed a spire, Thomas would be saved. If she held her breath for a count of eight, if she crossed and recrossed her fingers and toes—
The Water Palace rose before them, but they never seemed to draw any closer. Lina ground her teeth together. She crawled to the prow, rapping her knuckles impatiently on the black lacquered wood at the front of the boat, urging it to keep going, to move faster. The tide was fighting their approach now, as if some part of it knew they had come to steal its prize.
The boat bucked, the curved prow shooting almost vertical as a great wave rushed head-on to meet them.
Finley yelped and cursed. Lina gripped the bench seat for dear life, heart shooting into her throat. Neither of them could swim. To learn was to tempt fate. It was just asking the tide to take you, Ma would say.
The boat slammed back down in a great wash of spray.
Finley spat into the water for luck. Lina spat too. Once. Twice. Three times, just to make sure. She wished she had some saint-blessed salt to feed the waves; the kind the fishermen swore helped calm them. “Why is it taking so long? Why aren’t we getting any closer?”
Another wave smashed against the prow. The boat rocked and swerved off course. Lina rapped her knuckles on the starboard edge of the hull. If they approached from a different route, maybe…
“Lina,” said Finley.
“Shut up.”
The mist writhed as if someone were stirring it with a wooden spoon, thickening until it was almost impossible to see. It stuck to their skin, trailing like damp gray cobwebs. The boat skimmed over more sunken houses, shot past an orange buoy where someone had dropped a crab pot, through a crumbling arch crusted with barnacles. The witches had sunk magic like anchors at the edges of the shallows to keep outsiders from reaching the island, to keep storms and sea monsters at bay, save the single sea serpent the queen kept as a pet. Of course they’d have placed a barrier around the palace, too, but there had to be a weak spot somewhere.
It couldn’t end like this.
Hadn’t Lina promised to hold on to him? Hadn’t she just discovered he liked her? Hadn’t she finally worked up the courage to show him she liked him, too?
Violent shivers wracked Lina’s body. Her teeth started to chatter as the adrenaline wore off and doubt crept in. Minutes ticked by, maybe hours. She couldn’t see the night sky through the mist to know if it was lightening, to know how much time had already been lost.
“Well, we tried,” said Finley. “Now let’s go back.”
Lina didn’t even bother to turn and glare at him.
Finley joined her at the prow, a woolen blanket slung over his shoulders. He wrapped another around her gently. Closed her half-frozen fingers around a small rectangular bottle of cobalt-blue glass.
The bottle was hot, even through the fabric of her gloves. Her scalp prickled as her thumb brushed the cork stopper. “Where did you get this?” And then she felt like a fool, because of course he’d gotten it at the revel, another piece of free magic won while playing his violin. “What does it do?”
“It’s a squall, I think. A thunderstorm.”
Hair pricked on Lina’s arms. She felt the phantom patter of raindrops on her skin. Spell bottles weren’t labeled, but each gave off an idea, a sense of what magic lurked inside. An electric crackle settled into her bones. There was something dark and destructive about the bottled storm. Anger sealed behind glass.
Finley’s voice was soft. “Let’s go home, Lina. Please.”
“I can’t.”
“Uncle and everyone will be fretting. This isn’t working. You can see that. They don’t want us here. The queen’s not going to let us reach her palace. We’ll try again tomorrow, maybe. Or the next day. They won’t sacrifice him until the full moon. It’s part of the magic, part of the ritual. There’s the regatta, too, where they’ll bring him out so people can say goodbye.” Finley’s eyes were pleading.
Lina felt herself wavering. Another violent shiver wracked her body. But if she gave up now…
She might lose her nerve. Finley gave her grief sometimes for always rushing into things, but the advantage was that she never had time for second thoughts. Never had a chance to second-guess herself. If you hesitated, if you gave yourself time to think, that was when the fear crept in.