He’s so serious, but I nearly laugh because he’s summed up exactly what Alia and I have done. Instead, I look him in the eye. “It won’t make you feel better, but I think your instincts are right. Rebellious or not.”
The grief in the dark blue of his eyes shifts, that sad little smile curving into something real. We’re standinginches apart, his hand still tangled around mine, and yet somehow, though I’m not sure I’ve physically moved, we’re closer.
He brushes my hair back behind my ears and brings his mouth a breath away. I lean in, but before I can meet his lips, something catches my ear.
Singing.
The wind carries a song I know as well as any in my heart. Will hears it, too, as I pull away. “What—”
“Stay here—please. I’ll be right back. Just stay.”
Heart in my throat, I sprint toward the sound. The wind off the Øresund Strait beats against my progress, pressing back on each step. My legs creak like a rusted door, but I dip my head and push through, feet aching with the stretch and contact of each step.
I crest the top of a low hill, and there it is—the shore, sand twinkling in the moonlight. The surf whips and breaks heavily, agitated in the coming storm. Between the whitecaps and waves are three bobbing heads, the song they sing undeniable.
My sisters.
I sprint toward them, joy and shock working together as a balm for my exhaustion, the pain in my legs, the cooling of my skin where Will’s hand once was. I hit the shoreline and keep going, my legs not stopping until the sand beneath my feet is far enough away that only my head remains above. Idon’t know how to swim, but I can’t stay away. I have to be as close as I can.
Eydis, Ola, and Signy greet me with open arms, and I collapse into them.
My sisters, oh my sisters.
“Alia’s dead. I’m so sorry. I failed. I tried and I failed and I’m sorry,” I sputter into the crook of Eydis’s neck. My legs nearly give out, too, but my sisters hold me up. “I should’ve told you what I was going to do. I’m sorry. I knew Alia wouldn’t go through with it on her own, and I had to try. I had to.”
“We know, Ru, we know,” my oldest sister assures me. “You’ve always been so very stubborn.”
“And unable to accept reality,” Signy says, droll as usual.
“And a know-it-all,” Ola adds.
I laugh sadly. “And look where it got me.” I glance down, and though my legs are barely visible under the roiling tide, the meaning is clear. Still, I hug them closer. “I missed you girls. Hey, wait, your hair—”
“The witch returned it on the condition that we deliver a message,” Signy says.
“Wha... what does she want?”
“She knows what happened to Alia, and that you failed your mission too.”
I nod. “Alia lost the knife in a tussle with the king’sbride. Who’s a witch, actually—go figure.”
“Does the bride have it?” Ola asks, hopeful.
I shake my head. “No, it fell off the balcony...” And then I realize where it would’ve ended up. “Into the sea.”
Eydis’s eyes light up with understanding. “Wait. If it’s in the sea, we could get it. Or she could retrieve it maybe, with some magic. Either way, if it came back to her, and we brought her the ring, do you think that would be enough to satisfy the spell and bring you back?”
“I don’t know.... It all went wrong. The Øldenburg king is dead, but I killed him, not Alia.”
“That’s still a sacrifice,” Eydis says. “Maybe Urda will oblige.”
It’s just like my eldest sister to give me hope. “Well, I have the ring, and if the knife makes its way back to the sea witch, the only thing missing from the spell is the Øldenburg blood on my feet.”
“I suppose there’s no way to get our hands on that,” sighs Ola.
Wait. My mind pages back to those early minutes in Katrine’s home, when Sofie stepped out of the shadows in her nightgown.
“I actually might have access to some.”
