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I nodded and she approached. Nill started to come in between us but before I could tell him to stay back, a tentacle whipped toward him, grabbing him. Nill cried out, a sharp sound that very few creatures could hear, and the Kraken wrapped itself around his middle, squeezing him tight.

“No, stop!” I cried out. “Don’t hurt him!”

Edonia smirked at me and suddenly all her beauty seemed to vanish. She may have been pretty, but she was cold and ruthless and I immediately knew I couldn’t trust her. “A precautionary measure. Depending on how this goes, I’ll have him set free. Otherwise…”

I understood the threat. I had called her forth for a favor and now she was the one in control.

“Tell me what you want, sweetheart,” she said, sounding bored. “So that we make this deal in haste. I don’t have all night.”

For a moment I had forgotten even why I had called her, what possessed me to do such a reckless thing as conjuring a sea witch. But then I remembered. The longing inside me, that need to belong to someone and someplace, it was too visceral to ignore.

“I saw a man on the shore,” I said as her watchful red eyes narrowed. “His name is Prince Aerik. I want to become a human and I want him to fall in love with me. Can you help?”

She chuckled mirthlessly. “Oh, honey. Yes, I can. But nothing I do comes without a price.”

I looked around at the shiny pieces of the sea I had gathered just as the Kraken’s tentacle came out and swept them all away. All that effort for naught.

“You think that will do?” Edonia laughed. “So naïve you are. Tell me, how old are you?”

“Sixteen,” I managed to say.

“Sixteen. So very young. And you think you know what love is at such an age?”

I didn’t say anything to that.

She studied me for a moment. “But I can see that perhaps it is love that you lack at home that really ails you. A sense of discontent. Of not belonging. Yes?”

I nodded. I looked over at Nill to make sure that the Kraken wasn’t hurting him but suddenly Edonia was at me, her sharp fingernails at my chin and forcing me to meet her eyes.

“I’ll tell you what,” she said. I found myself lost in the swirling red of her eyes, like coral in whirlpool. “I will grant you what you wish for, so as long as I take something of yours in return.”

The fact that she could grant my wish had my heart leaping with joy and possibility, so much so that I didn’t think any price would be too high to pay.

“What do you want?”

“Your voice,” she said simply.

“My voice?”

“It’s beautiful,” she said with an air of contempt. “We all know that Syrens have the ability to lure men into the sea with their song. I would like the chance to do the same. The Kraken are wonderful pets, but they lack the finesse. They know how to kill and maim and destroy, but they don’t know how to lure.”

“But you’re a witch. Surely you can do that to men already.”

“Not all men are created equal,” she said sharply. “Some men are resistant to a witch’s charms. Your voice wouldn’t just be a thing to hear. I will need your tongue.”

“My tongue!” I cried out.

“A mermaid’s tongue is a missing ingredient for my book of magic.”

“Take my tail then if you’re to give me legs,” I protested.

“Oh, I will be taking that too. Now listen here, my sweet, because you only get one chance to decide. With my spell, I will give you legs. I will take away your gills and your claws and your fangs and your strength and make you a beautiful woman. And you will find your prince and make him your own, should you wish. But you won’t be able to become a Syren again. You won’t be able to live under the sea. You will be a human through and through. You won’t live three hundred years, you will live maybe sixty, if you’re lucky.” She paused and dug her nail deeper into my skin. “Are you still interested?”

I should have said no. Why didn’t I say no?

But instead, I said, “And that’s not enough price to pay?”

Her eyes went cold. “You want to become a human and experience that world? You want the love of the prince or whomever you choose? Then you must know that the human world isn’t equal to the Syren’s world below. No, it’s worthmore. The human world is a world where you will control your own destiny. To be the person that you, and only you, decide to become. As a human, you can do what you wish, be who you want. You’ll be a woman, and a woman has all the power up above. The world will be yours for the taking. Everything you desire, you will find the means to have.”