Lina hummed. Music. Free magic. Maybe even a kiss?
Outside a firework exploded, a crimson flower blooming bright, its falling petals scattering red light through the window.
The revel had begun.
Her stocking feet slipped on the wrought iron steps as she hurried downstairs, her hip throbbing as it caught the curled edge of the banister. Caldella’s locals made their homes on the second and third floors of their colorful townhouses due to frequent flooding; eerie ink-black water lapped darkly at the bottom three steps.
A shout rang out as Lina delved into the sea of rubber boots and umbrellas crammed onto a shelf set in the wall. A faint cry. And not a curse this time. Finley’s voice. Sounding pained. Panicked.
Followed by a deafening bang.
Lina jumped, swallowed. “Finley?”
A second loud bang. Lina glanced over her shoulder at the ceiling, edging back upstairs, setting one foot on the creaking third-story landing. “Finley?”
The banging came again, growing louder as she neared his door.
Lina cursed and dragged the chair away, cursed again and hurried back to her room for the key she’d left there. She jammed it into the lock, heart pounding, hesitating before she turned it. “Finley?”
What if it was a trick? Some ploy so she’d let him out?
“Finley, are you okay? This isn’t a joke. Tonight isn’t a joke.” Lina pressed her forehead against the wood and bit her cheek. She’d seen the boys the queen had picked as sacrifices. She’d known them. Finley had known them. Handsome Eli with his crooked grin. Aarav, who’d danced duets like a dream. Niko with his million freckles. Thomas Lin.
She banished their faces from her thoughts. Did Finley think she wanted this, that she’d be happy if he risked himself? Did he think she cared more for some charm than she did for his life? Did he think that if he magicked away her injury it would make up for his part in causing it?
Or maybe this wasn’t even about her. Hadn’t he been fretting about the flooding? Muttering about doing anything he could to make it stop? Studying crumpled tide charts and lunar calendars, faded, dust-coated histories of the island and the magic that kept it safe.
Maybe it had been different in the old days. When the dark tide had risen and threatened to sink the city, the islanders had had no choice but to strike a deal with the witch who would become their first queen. They’d fled war on the mainland, fled because of what they believed or didn’t, because of who they loved or didn’t. This was their new home, their haven, and they’d had no time to escape and nowhere to run as the black water rushed in. The first boys had gone to their deaths willingly.
But now…well, now they still had nowhere to go, and yes, the flooding was getting worse, and yes, there was something terribly romantic and brave about saving your home and the people you loved at the cost of your own life, but that didn’t mean the sacrifice had to be her brother. It didn’t mean it had to be Finley.
“Finley, please, please don’t do this.”
Another bang. Wood striking wood. The quaver of glass shivering in the wake of a violent blow.
Lina unlocked the door and peeked inside.
The room was empty. Finley’s bed was shoved up against the wall. His desk chair was stranded atop the mattress, a pile of books and an old scuffed trunk stacked on top of its seat. His violin and bow were gone.
An icy breeze whispered in Lina’s ears. The feather in her headband rustled against her bobbed blond hair.
The tiny window near the ceiling was open, its blue shutters battered back and forth with terrific bangs as the wind picked up. She had forgotten about that window. It was such a tiny thing, never opened, barely wider than her shoulders. How had he even fit through? He was a giant. Two heads taller than her and broad.
Lina climbed the teetering makeshift ladder, white-knuckled fingers gripping the window frame for dear life. She leaned out into the night, peering up, then down, red-hot fury fast replacing her fear. “I hope she does take you!”
The only response was laughter, bubbling up from the flooded street below. Amber lantern light sparked off black water, off shimmering dresses and faces painted with silver and gold.
“You lost someone, love?” a bearded figure called up. “Better find them before somebody else does.”
2
Lina
When Lina was fifteen, she’d watched a queen drown. Watched as dusky water rose through the cracks between cobblestones, as the dark tide sloshed over the side of St. Casimir’s Square that led into the sea. Black waves crowned with sharp white teeth. Stretching, reaching for the tiny, fragile figure chained to the stone pillar in the center. The queen hadn’t flinched, hadn’t broken as the boys before her had done. There were no cries, no whispered prayers. Only the deafening roar of the waves and a witch’s face set as stone.
Lina liked to imagine she would be like that: fearless when it mattered most, unbreakable when it came to protecting the person she loved. She stole courage from the memory often, for small things, like the moment before she stepped out onstage, and big things, like the hours spent waiting while her mothers raced home through a shipwrecking storm. She stole some now as she sailed down the water roads alone in the dark. But it was hard not to picture her brother as that tiny, fragile figure chained in the center of the square.
The wind whipped her hair. Salt spray kissed her lips. She’d stolen her neighbor’s broom boat, and she rapped the hull with her knuckles, sending the magicked skiff surging through the veins of the city, heading for higher ground. These roads were only supposed to flood when High Water hit, but that was most days now. The flooding really was worse than it had ever been.
Lina ducked beneath a line of laundry strung between two townhouses, fingers dusting the brick wall to her left, drumming an anxious staccato on a darkened windowpane.
Once. Twice. Three times. Three was a good number.
Another boat snaked past, an amber lantern swinging sideways from its stern. The islanders collected the amber the sea washed ashore after storms, and the witches made it glow. The boys the boat carried were bickering, taunting one another, taking bets as to who would be brave enough to enter the revel first. Wine sloshed in a bottle tossed between them. One loudly declared that it would be an honor to be chosen tonight, that his family would be proud…
Their voices faded. Lina turned her boat down a narrow alley, wincing as the hull scraped brick. She wanted to get as far as she could by boat, because on foot she would be slow. Too slow. She needed to catch up to Finley and…then what, what was she going to do? Carry him back? Drag him? Hold on to his arm and scream until he was so embarrassed he turned tail and fled?
Murder him herself? That sounded like a decent plan.
The boat’s keel scraped stone. Lina jolted forward on the bench seat. A few blocks later she was forced to abandon the boat entirely, securing it to a red-and-white-striped mooring post. She continued on foot, limping slightly, frustration rising with every step.