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Finally, they reach the top and shove me onto the deck before they turn and dive back into the sea. I crumple to my hands and knees.
Nerissa walks over to me until her feet stop right in front of my face, her toenails silver and affixed with tiny pearls.
“Princess Maren,” Nerissa says to me and for a moment I’m terrified that she knows who I am, that us Syrens, even former ones, have a certain look or smell to us. “On your feet.”
I know better than to disobey a sea witch. I carefully press myself up until I’m on my feet, artfully arranging my hair over my shoulders. I’m aware that the water has caused John’s shirt to become semi-transparent on me, so I drape my tendrils over my breasts as if I’m being modest, when I’m really covering up the gills that must be visible on the sides of my neck.
“Do you know who I am?” Nerissa asks, a coy smile on her lips. Her cheeks are round and high when she smiles, glinting iridescent pink in dawn’s light. Her eyes glow like burnished copper as she takes me in under her thick lashes.
“A sea witch,” I tell her. “I’ve heard a great deal about you.”
“All good things, I hope,” she says demurely.
“Not if you ask the skeleton crew.”
She laughs. “That is verily true, my girl. Now, do you know why I brought you back on board after you tried to escape?”
I glance at Ramsay, but his eyes give nothing away, his face irritatingly blank.
I look back at her and shake my head. The only reason I can think of is that she heard somehow, perhaps from Ramsay, that I had Syren or witch-like tendencies and that was enough to fetch me.
“Because the crew here has decided to hand you over to me in exchange for one of their own.”
“Sedge,” I whisper, thinking back to what John had said when he came across me and Ramsay, how he had gone missing.
“Yes. The dear Sedge. He is most beloved by the crew of theNightwind, despite not being one of the Brethren. And you, who is also not part of the Brethren, are not.”
“Listen now,” Ramsay speaks up, clearing his throat. “We can come to some sort of deal.”
Nerissa smirks at him. “Is that so? And what deal is that?”
He opens his mouth and I cut him off. Truth is, I might be better off with her. Especially if she does what I ask.
“I’ll go with you,” I say quickly. “But only if you help me with one thing.”
She folds her arms across her ample chest. “And what is that?” she asks, a brow raised.
“I want you to take me to Edonia.”
Nerissa’s other brow raises in surprise. “Edonia?” she asks.
“Why Edonia?” Ramsay says, stepping toward me. He grabs my elbow. “Maren, what are you doing?”
I give him a deadly glare and shrug out of his grasp.
“Stand back until the deal is complete,” Nerissa commands him, the air seeming to sizzle with electricity of her own doing. He lets out a low gruff sound and reluctantly steps away from me. “Now, Maren, what do you know about Edonia, and why do you want to see her?”
“I heard she’s the most powerful sea witch there is.”
Nerissa rolls her red-gold eyes. “Pray, I think you’ve heard wrong. For I am a witch of equal or greater value to Edonia. Whatever you wish to go to her for, you can come to me. So do tell, my ink-haired child, what is it that you seek?”
I rub my lips together, tasting the salt. I have to think fast but carefully. If I lay my cards on the table and tell her what happened with Edonia, then I have nothing left to hide—and no mask I can continue to wear. The crew will know I’m a Syren and they’ll want me for my blood. I’ll end up back in chains, bleeding on demand. I’ll end up like Asherah and I can’t trust that Ramsay will put me out of my mercy. After all, it seems like he needs my blood the most.
Furthermore, if Nerissa is anything like Edonia, she might have qualms with me being a Syren as well. Sea witches are our only real enemy, aside from man, and she may not feel like bargaining with me or granting me any favors. She may wish to flat-out kill me, and I would be completely defenseless.
“I wish to become a mermaid,” I tell her.
She laughs in surprise, as do a few of the crew.
