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I quickly looked away as my cheeks flushed with something reminiscent of the heat from last night’s fire. Realizing I could show no weakness, I forced myself to look back to her. There was something unreadable in her dark, fathomless eyes.
It almost looked like pity.
That cannot be. She does not feel pity. She… she may look like a mermaid, but she is not one of us. Else, she wouldn’t live out here all alone.
“I see,” she murmured again in a throaty, rich voice.
It wrapped around me like a song—like a snare. Both things all at once, and at that moment I knew she was truly capable of wicked magic. Good. That’s exactly what I need.
“You know why I am here.”
She chuckled. “Oh, yes, child. I know why the proud daughter of the Sea King seeks me.”
I couldn’t help but startle at that, though I tried to cover it quickly. “How… I didn’t…”
She tsked a rather long tongue. “You didn’t have to. No one comes to me lest they need something they can’t get any other way. A girl like you?” She swam around me, and I could feel her eyes taking in every single inch.
Don’t let her see that you’re afraid. Stay strong.
“A girl like you has no needs and wants that are few. A girl like you,” she said every word slowly, in a pointed whisper, “is spoiled. Ungrateful. And that is why you want the one thing you cannot have.”
I flinched from the criticism, and the Sea Witch smiled.
“There is still time to turn back. Go home and think of this no more.”
“But there is not time for me,” I hastened to explain. “My father… he will not understand. He will not forgive. Who knows what he will do to me if…” By way of explaining what I could not find the words for, I brought my tail forward, revealing my injured fin.
“Your father is a reasonable merman, I’m certain. He’s never killed anyone, surely?”
I froze. Mermaids are always moving, just a bit, our tails percolating the water even when the rest of us is completely still. But as her words hung in the air between us, feeling thick, feeling like syllables that might choke the very life out of me, I ceased moving.
The look on her face was triumphant. “Ah, I see. Well, in that case, perhaps you do need what I can offer. But he is your father. Perhaps whoever that other merperson was, perhaps they had it coming, but you?—”
“She never did anything wrong.” The words burst forth, my voice ringing with barely contained fury. “She was never anything but the most wonderful, most caring nurse. If she did anything wrong at all, it was to love me too much.”
“Oh.” Her lips, thin, slight things they were, curved. “I see. Well. If you’re sure, Princess, I can give you what you seek. But I warn you, the cost is great.”
I spluttered. “You don’t even know why I am here.”
Her eyes danced in large sockets, and those hideous lips stretched wider. “Oh, on the contrary, I knew what you were after, the moment you swam into my cave. For what can a mermaid who has every treasure imaginable want?” She tapped her chin mockingly. “As I said before, one only has to look at you to know you seek the one thing you cannot have.”
I felt my insides tremble at not only the way her eyes seemed to peer into my very soul, but the way they gleamed at me. “You… you can do this?”
A low rumble that was part growl and part laughter filled the cave until the very walls shook. When she finished, her eyes were more fiery than amused. “You doubt my talents, child?”
“Forgive me for stating the obvious, but you haven’t done anything.”
The surprise that flashed across her face made me feel a rush of triumph, for there was grudging respect there, too. “All right. We should discuss the rules.”
“I don’t?—”
She silenced me with a terrifying glare. “You will listen. Let it not be said that I do not explain my contracts.”
I dipped my head in silent agreement.
“You will be given legs.”
Legs. Was there a more glorious, wonderful word? I could think of none other, save the prince himself. I had come not truly even understanding myself what I was asking for, and with one word the Sea Witch had revealed the very desire of my heart. It now pounded with it: pumping to the repeated litany in my brain. Legs. Leg. Legs.
