Iker would pay later.
The little mermaid stole a trunk. She spared the ship’s captain, for the moment. Then she set out to find Evie’s father.
29
IFOLLOWANNEMETTE OUT ONTO THE BALCONY ANDpull her around to face me. She looks as though she’s about to melt into tearless sobs. I squeeze her hands. We are close enough now that our pearl necklaces catch the same lantern’s glow, and they light up like twin beacons in the night.
“Please, Evie. Go. Let me have this peace.”
I won’t. She knows I won’t.
The distance and whispers won’t guarantee us privacy, but they’re the best I can do. I keep my voice quiet yet confident. “Remember, I have a plan.”
Annemette rips her hands from mine and presses them to her face. “It’s useless! Neither you nor I have magic powerful enough to stave off what is to come. Just go!”
My words are barely audible. “I’m powerful enough,” Isay, the words coming out strong and clear. “Please believe me.”
She sob-laughs. “You are so ridiculously stubborn.” Annemette swipes at her eyes, but doesn’t go on. I take her silence as an invitation.
“You know magic is barter—despite how different we are, we both know this. Magic with the sea is no different. We give to the sea, it returns you to land in kind.” Annemette doesn’t say anything, her features closing tight—trying to make sense of this. I quietly hurry into more of an explanation. “I’ve tested this. I know my magic is rigid and book-learned, but it’s right. And tonight, on the last night of Urda’s festival, our magic is strong. Stronger than any night of the year. Don’t you feel it?” I touch my pearl necklace, whose throbbing has grown as the days have gone by. “We are at one with Urda; we are balanced, and that is what magic is all about—balancing our inner power with the forces around us, giving and taking. It’s Urda’s way, and she and the sea both require like for like. They took Anna—”
“I am not Anna,” Annemette says plainly, clearly annoyed. “If you keep believing that, whatever you have planned won’t work!”
I shake my head. “I know you don’t remember. Maybe you never will, but this is something I can feel. I can feel Anna inside of you. But it doesn’t matter, Annemette—Icare for you just as you are. Our friendship can be so much more than mine with Anna’s ever was. You and I are the same!
“Look,” I go on, trying to keep my voice as steady as possible, “the sea took Anna from me four years ago. And even if that girl only lives on as a memory in you, the sea took her soul. You did not keep it.” At this Annemette flinches. “And that’s what you need to survive. Anna’s soul is one portion of the exchange. The sea took from us and now it owes me—you—a soul in return.”
But she doesn’t consider a word I say. She only turns and raises her voice, and I realize both princes have followed us out—what they’ve heard, I don’t know.
“I must leave tonight, Nik,” she says.
Nik glances at me, but then returns his attention to Annemette, taking a step toward her. “Now? But the ball isn’t over yet,” Nik says, sadness in his voice. Behind him, Iker cocks a brow.
“I have to go. I’m sorry.”
Nik is about to say more, but Iker barges into the conversation, taking a few steps until he’s towering above both of us. “I wasn’t aware of a midnight train to Odense, and no carriage will take you that far. Surely you aren’t going to walk.”
Nik shoots Iker a look of warning but doesn’t say a word. Instead, he takes both Annemette’s hands. “If youneed to go, then go. I understand.”
“So, you’re going to vanish in the middle of the night? What a plan!” Iker’s eyes flash and he steps away from the wall. “Break his heart but not his spirit, return again in a few months and he’ll be so happy, he’ll just throw himself at you—title and all? Too bad you failed at the first step—”
“Enough, Iker! If she needs to leave, she needs to leave,” Nik shouts. I don’t know why Nik isn’t suspicious too, but I have a feeling it’s because he trusts me. And I trust Annemette.
“I really have to go,” Annemette says, rushing to Nik’s side. “I’m so sorry.” She moves to kiss him on the cheek, when Iker grabs her by the arm.
“Witches are creatures of the night. That’s it, isn’t it? Is your cauldron about to boil over? Do you have toads that need simmering? Brew to bottle?”
“Iker!” Nik shouts, and pushes him off her.
But Iker keeps going, turning more and more into a monster than the man I love. “Or is it simply that your broom has arrived and you mustn’t leave your favorite mode of transportation waiting?”
Annemette’s calm cracks wide open, her teeth bared in the moonlight. “I am not a witch, you ox!”
“Then what are you? A fairy? A ghost? Or maybe just a con artist, like Evie once suggested. Foreign trash finding an easy mark in our Nik.” Iker’s teeth are gritted in thatferal grin as he twists the knife.
I latch onto Iker’s forearm, and Nik moves protectively in front of Annemette, but neither of us can stop Iker’s momentum.
“How many lonely boys have fallen for your tricks? Five? Ten? Twenty? Whatever the number, I’m sure this one here would make quite the feather in your pointy little hat. He’s definitely got enough gold to retire on.”
