His eyes flash open. He knows what’s happening. He knows it like I did the day my mother died.
I will see to it that he is safe.
That he lives a long life.
That he can rule his people without fear.
I will see to it.
With the last of my strength, I leave Nik and push my failing body onto Anna’s, tight as a corset. Tighter than the magic Hansa used to paralyze her. My tante steps back, tears in her eyes, and helps Nik to his feet. He’s almost completely healed. He will be fine.
Anna is the only threat left, but I have plans for her.
With my last breath, I take ahold of her—this girl I loved, this girl who came back to me. Used me. Ruined me. Ruined every person who ever loved her so that she could be human again. Ruined for revenge.
I get to my feet and heave her toward the water. My hands burn fingerprints into her skin as she tries to pull away.
“What are you doing?” she shrieks. I can feel her heart beating wildly against her bodice. Against my heart—still in my chest.
The clouds are clearing overhead. The wind has died down. The lightning vanished. Her magic is leaving this world, and soon she will too.
Her blue eyes grow wide. She’s realized that she’d gotten what she wanted. She’s just a girl, like she was before—and it’s made her vulnerable to people like me.
I smile at her, and there’s no pity in it. No joy. Nothing but rage.
“This life is not yours to live.”
With that, I do the only thing I can to reverse Anna’s final magical act. To keep my loved ones safe. To stop her threat cold.
I return Anna to the sea.
BELOW THE SURFACE
The tide claimed the two girls, onewith curls of raven black, theother with waves of butter-blond. Its water was crisp, despite the summer night. All veins of magic swirled under the surface, mixing with the blood and death that bound the girls together.
The raven-curled girl’s heart was failing. Her time was up, spent on the boy above. The one she’d always loved. Always protected—even from herself.
But she would win—the blonde’s lungs were seizing. The raven-curled girl could feel them sputtering and shuttering as she held tight to the girl’s chest, driving them both down, down, down. As deep as the cove would allow. To the bottom, home to that bewitched octopus, her father’s corpse, and the fresh bodies of the guards the blonde had killed with a sweep of her fingers.
So many dead, but the prince was alive. Her boy. Her own borrowed breath in his chest. She‘d sacrificed herself for him again.
As the cool remnants of magic swirled around them, the girls plunged to the sandy bottom. The blonde’s back lodged in the cove floor, the raven-haired girl’s body flushing streams of blood into the water, more of her life fleeing through bullet holes.
Light was failing as fast as their bodies, the strong moon barely reaching these depths. Still, the raven-curled girl wouldn’tgive in to the darkness. Her heart was barely beating, but her eyes were open, watching the blonde struggle and fail to break free.
She wouldn’t die first. She couldn’t.
She had to know her boy would be safe—her family, her home—from the monster beneath her fingertips.
Just before the raven-curled girl’s heart finally stopped, the blonde went still. Her blue eyes stuck wide, blank. Her rosebud lips forever parted, water seeping in.
The girl had really drowned this time. There’d be no coming back.
The raven-curled girl opened her mouth and accepted the ocean. Let it sweep in and claim her along with the magic still singing in her veins. Still skimming over her skin—it would live longer than she.
Then, a darkness fell across the pewter light of her vision. The end, pulling the curtains shut.
No.
