The thought shredded me from the inside out.
“Where has she been?”
“It doesn’t matter. Marin doesn’t want to see you. You need to leave.”
My hands clenched around the back of the chair. “Like hell I’m leaving without answers. If she didn’t want me to come find her, she wouldn’t have left a note.”
“Ha! Trust me, that note was athreat.”
“Yeah. I know. But I’m still here. So give me something, Cass. Please.”
Cass curled her lip and jabbed a finger in my face. “Fine. But hear this, if I learn what I’m about to tell you is true, I vow on my life I will bury half of your body under my rose bushes, and use the other half as fertilizer for my daffodils.”
“Geez, Cass. Understood.” I scraped a hand over my jaw. “You don’t need to be so morbid.”
She sniffed. “There’s nothing morbid about fertilizer. It’s a perfectly natural process. And it needed to be said. You better prove, to both of us, that you don’t deserve to spend eternity as plant food.”
“Prove what?”
Cass filled me in on the details, and my mind struggled to keep up. Mermaids? Sea witches? It all sounded straight out of a twisted fairy tale, except this wasn't a story. And truthfully, itwasn't even far-fetched. I'd spent my life chasing legends and dodging creatures most would claim to be myths. Magic and curses? That made sense.
But what didn't was what she said next.
“Marin believes you conspired with the witch who painted our map, that you were rewarded for giving her the cursed comb from the treasure chamber. Now, she has three weeks to serve as the sea queen’s treasure hunter… or die.”
“I never did that,” I rasped. “The witch is lying.”
Cass let out a sharp curse of her own. “I don’t know what to believe anymore. Someone betrayed Marin.”
“So why are you trusting me with this?” I demanded. “It’s true, I was there when Marin found the comb. Hell, I told her to take it.”
Cass stared at me, her features unreadable, until they crumbled. She exhaled, her voice low.
“Yeah. You were there. But I was there during those dark days after we lost her. I saw you, Gavin. And I don’t think anyone can fake that. It wasn’t exactly a secret how you felt about her. At least not to me.”
I rubbed the back of my neck. “You knew?”
“Suspected. Even hoped. You were both my friends. I was rooting for you.”
She glanced down, picking at the edge of her nail.
“But besides that, I don’t think it was one of us. The witch manipulated Marin for years, inflicted pain, and twisted facts. Accusing you was just another weapon. I think it was one of the marauders. They were on our heels the whole time. The witch could’ve paid one of them to plant the comb.”
She hesitated, then looked up and met my gaze.
“But more importantly, Marin’s back. And she needs usnow. More than she realizes.”
“You said she needed to find a treasure?”
My gaze slid to the papers scattered across the table. An invitation to a masked ball. Notes on some kind of seeds. A detailed plan on how to steal them.
Worse, not just any seeds. Magic seeds.
My mind raced. A few years ago, I’d whispered that story aloud while Marin slept against my shoulder. The story itself was the least memorable part of that night, but the details had stuck with me.
A magic shard taken from the sea and hidden in the realm of the sky.
Cass pushed out of her chair and walked toward the door. I stood slowly, trying to fit the pieces together, then followed her.
