We lock Agnata away in Katrine’s bedroom, and then proceed to work away at the table with mugs of piping tea and open-faced sandwiches that Katrine has prepared. We huddle over the map we used this morning, but a plan is slow to form.
To get the ring, we have to go back to Havnestad, into a tightly packed tavern, with Agnata, who’s already sold us out once. Worse, the man we’re meeting is a king’s guard who will most likely recognize us on the spot. As will literally anyone else in town. A disguise will be essential but tricky—we must blend in long enough to get the ring and get out.
We drag Agnata back into the main room and take turns changing clothes in Katrine’s bedroom, each finding something suitable for a night out. I spell them clean and make them dark so that they look fancier than they are.
Then, I get to work spelling Will’s hair darker and Sofie’s to be much redder.
I reach for a bottle of squid ink Katrine has deemed inert and expired to do my own, when Sofie grabs my hand.
“Why don’t you just do to yourself what you did to me?” she asks, sweeping her hand around her head in a little loop. The dark red looks lovely on her.
“I’ve tried since I came ashore, and it won’t work. The sea witch took my hair as part of our deal, and nothing seems to change it.”
“But have you tried since you became human?”
I blink. “No... I haven’t.”
Sofie arches a brow. “Worth a shot, don’t you think?”
Okay. Yes.
She holds up a small looking glass. “Go ahead.”
My hair hangs just past my chin. I’ve come to like not being bothered by long hair in the past few days, but it is very noticeable.
I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and feel my magic, amethyst pressed against my palm.“Vaxa.”
It starts as a tingle on my scalp, then a burn. When I open my eyes, the girl I was is staring back at me, different but the same, with hair past my shoulders.
“Lovely, Runa,” Sofie says softly.
She means it as a compliment, but suddenly there’s pressure behind my eyes, and a tear slides down my cheek.
“Runa? I—it was lovely before.”
I wave my hand at my long hair, searching hard for words to explain the grief sitting on my chest. “It’s her. It reminds me of Alia.”
Sofie snags my fluttering hand and tucks it into herwarm palm. “You don’t have to explain.” Her words catch and she glances down. The guard’s words about her own departed sister hang between us, a truth.
I draw in a shaky breath. “Can you help me braid it?”
Her rosebud lips press together in something of an actual smile. “Yes.”
33
Runa
THIS MISSION MIGHT BE MORE DANGEROUS THAN SETTINGthe warehouse afire. It’s strange to think of what we’ve accomplished, and yet this last piece could undo it all.
“Now we’re wanted for two crimes,” Will says as he secures his cufflinks. He’s wearing a suit that makes him look very important and expensive, but not regal. “Regicide and destruction of kingdom property.” It sounds so official and stark as he lays it out. “Probably robbery too, considering we still have Freyja in our possession and I’m not planning to give her back.”
“Four crimes,” I correct. “Let’s not forget witchcraft. That’s part of how you sold it to me.”
He grins. “I did.”
Sofie rolls her eyes. “I’m glad you two found each other, but could you just stop making me want to vomit? Because if I vomit, we don’t have time to clean it off thissilk, magically or otherwise.”
I’ve come to learn Sofie’s mechanism for survival is to deflect actual feelings as forcefully as possible. That, or bury them. Which is what she’s done with Niklas—we haven’t spoken his name while planning to snatch the ring, and we won’t.
