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Just before I reached the door, it opened slowly, revealing my Katrina, standing in silence, staring straight ahead, her usually tanned, flushed skin pale as I’d ever seen it. I hurried to her. “Are you alright? Did she hurt you?” I swung a protective arm across her shoulder and guided her forward.
“She…” The words barely crept from her lips like a whisper before she shook her head. “Not here. Let’s go home first. To my dorm.”
“Where is she?” I glanced around, looking for any sign of the siren within the building she’d just exited. But there was no one. Not even the undertaker of an old man who’d greeted us.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does. Katrina I—”
“Let’s just go home. Please.” Her voice rose as she looked up at me with desperate eyes.
I nodded, forcing myself to take a breath. “Okay.”
The ride back to her dorm lacked a single word from either of us. Once there, without even bothering to change out of her dress, she slumped to the floor, her head and shoulders hanging low in a defeated position.
I followed her, taking a seat across from her on her rug. “What happened?” I asked as gently as I could.
“Cordelia…” She hugged herself, leaning forward and staring at a spot in the floor. “She knows I broke her curse. She wanted the scale back.” When she stopped and looked at me, I nodded for her to go on. “And when I told her I didn’t have it, she said she’s going to find it. She said she’s going to use a trident to flood the earth.”
I shifted and pressed my lips together, trying to soften my reaction. “She wants the trident.”
“So it’s real?” Her brows tensed.
“It’s a legend. But if it’s real, it’s meant to be somewhere impossible to reach. Otherwise, I’d imagine it would’ve been found by now. After all these centuries.”
Katrina took a piece of her hair and began twirling it between her fingers. “She said it’s beneath the Bermuda Triangle. And that it requires a sacrifice to use. That’s why she wants the scale. She’s going to exchange her power for the trident’s.”
“And she thinks a simple scale would suffice? That hardly seems like a sacrifice to me.”
“But think about it.” She gestured with an open hand. “That scale is all she has. It’s her last bit of magic. What else does she care about in this world?”
I tilted my head in acknowledgement. It was certainly a perspective I hadn’t considered. I brushed a stray hair from my forehead with my thumb and noticed Katrina’s focus settle on me. Her gaze deepened as she spoke with a somberness in her voice I hadn’t expected.
“Milo, do you think Cordelia will find the scale?”
I willed the muscles in my face to remain expressionless. I couldn’t let my concern show. But Katrina had to know what she was up against.
“I know she will,” I uttered. “It’s only a matter of when.”
With a weak shake of her head, Katrina stood to her feet. “Then I guess we have to find it first. We’ll go out tomorrow morning and start looking.”
I could think of nothing more to say. She was right. So I stood up, too, and took a small step toward her.
“Aye aye, Captain.” She turned away, trying to hide the small smile I knew was there. If she only knew how I’d follow her to the depths of the ocean if she asked.
“I’ll see you in the morning at the docks.” She closed the space between us and kissed me lightly on the cheek. I knew she wouldn’t ask me to stay with her. She hadn’t since the day she’d found Cordelia’s note. And I couldn’t blame her. I turned to go.
“I—” As I reached for the doorknob, I looked back over my shoulder. Frail fragments of a word barely escaped my lips before I stopped myself. Instead, the only thing I managed was, “Goodnight, Katrina.”
6
Miss the Boat
Katrina
Icouldn’t sleep that night, so when my alarm went off at 5:45, it was no challenge to get up and face the day. The only thing lingering on my mind was finding that scale, no matter how overwhelmingly daunting it seemed. I didn’t even know where to start. But I knew starting was my only option.
Cordelia had taken so much from my family and left so much damage in her wake. The curses she left behind had more than proven her ruthlessness, but if I needed any further confirmation, the meeting with her had done the job. And I was sure I couldn’t let any more power fall into her hands.
