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Nerissa and Edonia are grappling with each other, their hands around each other’s necks as they roll along the sand, plumes of silt rising up around them. Barracudas dive and peck at Edonia, drawing blood and pulling at the eels in her hair, while the Kraken has a tentacle wrapped around Nerissa’s legs, trying to yank her away.

“I still want my vengeance,” Ramsay says with a growl. He picks up his broadsword, turning it over in his hand, and stalks over to the battling witches.

“Step aside, Nerissa,” he commands, sword raised. “Edonia’s death is mine.”

Nerissa cries out and with a final burst of strength she manages to flip Edonia over on her back and then lets go of her, allowing the Kraken pull her backward through the water, the bottle necklace still in her grasp, while another tentacle is holding onto the notorious book.

Nerissa and the Kraken disappear from sight, swallowed by the deep blue, and I want to swim after her, to help keep her from being torn limb from limb by the tentacled beast but Ramsay is my only focus now.

Ramsay who takes the broadsword and holds it above Edonia’s heart as she screams beneath him.

“You will never not be a monster!” she yells, teeth bared, ugliness personified.

Before she can duck out of the way, Ramsay pushes the sword down, piercing it through her heart.

“Then so be it,” he says, twisting the sword with emphasis.

Edonia’s scream makes the water ripple, flowing outward, all the fish and creatures swimming away from her in a hurry. She keeps screaming, blood filling the water, until the last pearlescent eel on her head stops writhing.

All is still.

The witch is dead.

Ramsay pushes the sword in further with a grunt, until she’s impaled even deeper into the sand.

Now she’s exceptionally dead.

Then he’s throwing the sword to the side and swimming over to me.

“Maren,” he whispers, pulling me right into his arms again. “It’s over, my luv. It’s over.”

But I can only shake my head, my whole body starting to tremble. “It’s not over, Ramsay,” I say, my voice broken. “Look at me.Lookat me.”

He lets go and steps back, his gaze raking over me and I don’t think I’ve ever felt so worshipped and adored. “I’m looking at you, Maren. And I’m in love with what I see.”

“I’m aSyren,” I cry out softly. “Don’t you know what this means? I can’t be turned back to a human again. The spell was reversed. I’m stuck like this.”

He frowns, his eyes sliding over me again, taking in the width and length of my tail. “Is this not what you wanted?”

I shake my head. “I didn’t choose this, Ramsay. Edonia pulled me down here.”

“I saw,” he says grimly.

“I told her I didn’t want my fins back but she did it anyway. She reversed the spell and then said my soul belonged to her forever.”

“The last part isn’t true,” he says, taking my hand and holding it tight. “Your soul is yours. You are free.”

“But not if I’m like this,” I cry out softly. “I spent so long wanting this and then I realized what I had wanted all along wasyou. It was always you, Ramsay. From the very beginning I wanted to be heard and understood and seen, and youseeme. You see me for all that I am, princess, pirate, monster, Syren, whatever I am, it doesn’t matter. You see me and somehow, no matter what…you actually love me.”

“Of course I love you,” he says, his dusky eyes searching mine intently. “You’re bloody impossible not to love.”

His words break me, shattering like glass. I close my eyes and try to wrestle with the hopelessness of the situation. “Except now I’m doomed to live my life in the water, never to go on land, never to be on theNightwindat your side.”

“It doesn’t matter, cearban. I will live down here with you.”

I blink at him, my chin jerking inward. “You can’t be serious. You can’t give up a life on land for this one. I don’t care that you don’t need to breathe much, this isn’t your world.”

“I will make it my world,” he says gruffly, hand at my face now, fingertips pressing into my cheekbone. “Aye? I will make it my world for you.”