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Keri’s lips twitch faintly and she shrugs, making me bristle with irritation that anyone would dare harm my mate’s tender emotions.
“About as well as can be expected. There was some frustrated weeping and denial, but she eventually came around after about an hour or so and strong armed my dad into looking into the matter. Mom is better at foresight, but dad is where the money is at if you need to solve immediate problems. Let’s just say he needed the convincing since he was pretty determined to hold out hope and resistant to me, uh, throwing my gifts away to pursue this.”
I scowl in response. Due to her family living much further inland from the coast than her aunt Katherine, I haven’t yet had the opportunity to meet them and reassure them that I do not seek to steal their daughter away. It is just one more reason that I need for this to work. I do not wish to cause a rift between my mate and her family or her coven any more than she wishes to cause me the anguish of being forcibly parted from the sea. We both need these things that make up who we are.
“And your sire—he was helpful?” I posit hopefully.
A real smile curls her lips, and she nods. “That he was! We brought in Katherine on a three-way conference call and hammered out the details. I have everything I need except where to start. And that’s where you come in. I need to know which of these—or which combination—feels like the energy of the sea.”
I look at the glass container in my hand and the others lined up across the table in front of us and suddenly feel very uneasy. What if I select wrong? I know nothing about this sort of magic.
“I do not know if I am the best one to make this decision, Keri,” I murmur. “I know nothing about this.”
Adiele gives Keri a confused look. “Why can’t we just grab saltwater and make a potion from it?”
Keri shakes her head. “The mineral composition of the sea is incredible, and its balance supports the lifeforms within it, but it doesn’t necessarily compose the magical elements of the sea. That involves a combination of the plants that grow within it, the influence of the lunar tides, its relationship with the shores and the rivers that empty sediment into it. The water carries an imprint of all these things that makes up its magical nature.”
“Fuck,” Adiele breathes, and I can’t agree more with the sentiment.
My mate’s expression softens, and she reaches over to place her hand on mine. “Just relax, Ro. You can do this. This should feel as natural to you as breathing. All you need to do is tell me what feels like home to you.”
I look at her skeptically. “Keri,youare home to me. Wherever you are, it is my home.”
Her smile grows at my words, warmth filling her eyes as she squeezes my hand. “Okay. We’ll be each other’s home from here on out. But you’ve spent all your life in the sea, Ro. You can do this. Just reach out and feel the magic like you felt mine.”
I huff softly and shake my head. “That was merely my lure responding to a compatible mate. I can taste and feel the magic of these, but it is all foreign to me. They don’t taste of the sea.”
She gives me a wry look and nods. “Exactly. And that is what we need to remedy. Water holds the memory of everything, and the sea above all is the most complex. I have everything I could think of, and everything my father and aunt could think of that could hold traces of elements connected to the sea. We don’t need to get it perfect, just to emulate it enough to trick your magic.”
I sigh and twirl the contents in the container in my hand as I observe its soft glow spinning within it. It’s not right. I catch the glimmer of something in the corner of my eye, and my gaze drifts to another glass farther down the table. I set the container in my hand down and reach for it. It brightens in response to my touch, and my fins flare with excitement.
“This.” I hand her the container.
Turning it in her hand so that she can read the characters printed on the label, she looks at it and nods before setting it back down and turning to a large cabinet lining the wall to her right. She pulls out a container filled with familiar plant material. Keri removes several dry ribbons of kelp as I turn and grab another jar with a familiar glow. Another container soon joins it, and then another. Familiar traces weave through my mind as I pluck them from the tables. With each one I give her, I mumble to my mate all the while of just how strong that element needs to be as she measures the portions into a bowl for Adiele to grind. To this a pure alcohol is added and sealed, and then we move onto the next sample. We work together through the day, creating many small batches, each with different amounts until I feel the sun begin to make its final descent and I am forced to leave. I have never hated the condition of my kind more than this moment.
And within my mate’s home are numerous seeds of what could be our salvation. What she calls samples to begin to alchemical mercury are there, and I patiently wait as the days bleed together. I am forced to endure another full moon which tears me away back to the ocean, but by now we are finished with our studies for The Society and there is the small comfort that when I return that our time together will be ours alone completely.
Waiting in the depths of the sea is the hardest part. It eats at me, and I console myself by spending every available moment with my mate once I’m able to climb back out again. I cannot join her when she must complete her duties, but I am there waiting for her and passing every minute with her that she allows me until the sun, moon, and sea steal me away again. By the time the moon begins to wane, I am relieved that it is finally time to begin the next process: the calcination. It is for this purpose that I find myself sitting in front of her flat burner once again as my mate carefully strains the mixture that I selected amongst all of those that we started. This is the right one—I know it.
“Adiele, open the window please,” she instructs.
Adiele gets up and pauses. “Which one?”
Keri’s nose wrinkles thoughtfully as she deposits the strained material in the mortar and pestle. “All of them. Trust me, igniting the dead earth portion is not going to be pleasant.”
I nearly gag on the fumes, my eyes watering despite the ventilation, but when it’s done we have the salt by way of the ash and mercury in the tincture, and then it is all shaken together—and still we must wait. Every day as we shake it, we sing to it the notes of the sea. Keri is not perfect at capturing the right tones, but she understands the movement of magic within the breath and voice and so picks up on it quickly. We sing songs of magic and life as the mixture coagulates, and we inscribe certain sigils upon it and incorporate her human chanting and intonations that differ from day to day.
And on the final day, just minutes before sunset, Keri lifts the container in which our elixir has grown. The magic within it swirls with life and power, and my fins naturally flutter in response to it. I look from it to my mate. Adiele watches us with a hopeful light in her eyes, but it is my mate’s cautious excitement that makes my heart leap as I watch her take a filter and a clean bottle to carefully strain it.
The magic of the elixir brightens and dances as its purest form is revealed, and my breath catches. Yes. This is it.
Keri siphons a small amount into a vial and hands it to me. “This is it. Moment of truth.”
I nod and spare a glance to the setting sun outside the window. My eyes eagerly return to my mate, though as I lift the vial to my lips, she is the only vision that I want to have or need to have in this moment. She is the entirety of my purpose now—Keri and the life that we will live together.
I am about to tip it back but startle when I feel her hand clasp over mine, halting me.
“You don’t have to do this.”
