Guilt tugs at my throat. Her room and things aren’t a sweetshop, and I’m old enough not to presume so. “I would never steal from you, Tante. I’m just trying to do good—touse your knowledge for good.”
“If there’s good to be done, I will do it myself. Pride and ignorance cannot learn a spell and save the world; they can only combine for damage.” Her fingers twist the skin at my wrist as she goes on. “Why are you here? What are you trying to do?”
I can’t tell her. I know she’ll believe me, but that’s the problem. I promised Annemette I’d never tell anyone who she is. “I told you, I’m trying to do good!”
“No.” Tante shakes her head. “This has to do with that girl. The girl who smells more of dark magic than a sailor smells of fish. Annemette, is it?”
I don’t say anything. I don’t even breathe because it would feel like a betrayal.
I try to stand, but she resists. “You are not blind, child, nor idiotic—though I still believe you to be wicked and insolent in plan tonight. And I believe it has much to do with her. Who is she?” Her eyes crinkle at the corners as she self-corrects. “Whatis she?”
“I—”
“You cannot hide much from this old witch, Evelyn.”
No, I can’t. But I can deflect. “I just don’t want her to go.”
“Loneliness is the weakest excuse for magic there is, and it mixes horribly with pride and ignorance.” I wince. She nods at the stone by my side on the floor. The one thatdropped. “Just because you believe you’ve stolen from me before and had success does not make you a witch; it makes you a lucky thief.”
I should be reeling from her knowledge of all the magic I’ve done—and the fact that she knowingly let me do it—but my mind is stuck on a single word in that sentence.
Success.
What I’ve been doing at the docks has actually worked! It was true magic. My magic. Made without anyone’s lessons.
I did that.
And I can do it again.
My heart swells. Confidence zips through my veins. The grimoire burns against my skin.
I can do this.
I can save Annemette. If I can reverse the Tørhed, if I can go invisible, I can do anything. I just need the right means.
I press my lips to Tante Hansa’s dry cheek and place the fallen stone in her hand. “Tante, I’m sorry. I promise I won’t treat your things with such little respect ever again.”
“Oh yes, you will, child. They are familiar. One cannot hold respect with the familiar. We forget our boundaries.” She moves both hands to my face, snatching my cheeks and forcing me to look deeply into her eyes. “We forget our boundaries with familiar people, too.”
I nod. “I am sorry.”
“As am I, child.”
She lets me go, and it’s not until I’m slipping on my boots in the moonlight outside that I realize she didn’t mean only herself when discussing the familiar.
She meant everyone familiar at play—Iker, Nik, and, most especially, Annemette.
FOUR YEARS BEFORE
Deep under the splashes at the surface, where the men came inone after another spurred by the boy’s orders, five girls with golden hair circled ’round a curiosity from above.
A little girl, tall but with no telltale signs of womanhood, floated between them. Eyes closed. She was beautiful. Just like they were.
One of the five, the oldest, had snagged the girl by her foot as the tow brought her under. There was no way to bring her up safely. Not with the men above. Not with the chance of being seen.
She could only bring the girl down.
The commotion rallied her sisters. Soon, their father would follow. And it would take every one of them if they were going to save her.
