Page 13

13

Claira

T he center of the sea stacks opened up to a spacious chamber, nearly as packed as the back room of Mr. Terance’s bait shop back home.

It immediately felt like we’d entered the living room of an underwater hoarder’s home. Except, instead of trash, it was corals and crystals sitting in huge, dedicated piles. And instead of an army of cats, a colony of hermit crabs overran it, climbing on every available surface.

The sea wizard tapped us down to the sandy floor, letting the crabs he’d collected loose to join their companions as Lady Desmona eagerly dove into the bag of shells.

“Take a peek, children,” she sang in off-key glee. “Look at the treasures your brother has brought for you!”

Their brother? I shot the sea wizard a look, struggling to suppress a laugh. His only response was a nonchalant shrug, feigning indifference, which made me grin wider.

It was the classic big-brother act. Tough exterior, but soft-hearted underneath.

Lady Desmona began scattering handfuls, the spiral shells falling like colorful rain onto the sand as the crabs scuttled eagerly toward the new offerings.

It brought back memories of painting shells for the hermit crabs at the surf shop back home. Unlike those crabs who took their sweet time inspecting their new shells, these ones wasted no time choosing their favorites. Before the sand had even settled, they were abandoning their old shells and backing into new ones.

A soft brush against my back caught my attention as the sea wizard leaned in to murmur, “They’re her familiars.”

“Makes sense,” I replied, pushing aside the tingling sensation where his fingers grazed my spine.

A hermit with hermit crab familiars.

It was strangely adorable how the harsh white of the sea wizard’s eyes softened with fondness for the tiny creatures as they accepted his gift. He was a soft-hearted older brother, for sure.

A few even paused in front of us, turning circles to show off their new appearance before scurrying off to drag their old shells outside.

“Lovely, just lovely,” Lady Desmona sang. “Bah—not you!” she spat, stuffing the hermit crab in her eye socket back into her face. With a sudden sigh, she gave up the fight. “Oh, very well.”

The crab wasted no time abandoning its bony cave to scurry between her fingers. It dropped to the sand to join the others still exploring the shells and hurried to claim one for itself.

Lady Desmona swung over to a pile of coral, muttering under her breath. She blindly felt out the crabs on top of it, picking them up to try out as new replacements for her face.

While she was preoccupied, the sea wizard seized the opportunity to explain. “My lady’s mother took her eyes when she was merely a spawnling,” he murmured. “As you can see, she’s learned to adapt.”

“Took her eyes? ” Yikes . I couldn’t fathom how a mother could do such a thing. Sure, mermaids weren’t very motherly by nature, but were cecaelian moms somehow worse, blinding their own children?

There was a look of pity in the sea wizard’s eyes as he leaned back, studying my face. “You should consider yourself fortunate that your mother didn’t take yours.”

“ Why would…?” My voice trailed until everything clicked. I felt immediately sick, a wave of nausea building up in my throat.

White eyes—the mark of a sea witch.

Lady Desmona’s mother hadn’t blinded her out of malice. No. It had been an act of desperation.

“Her mother was trying to save her?” I whispered back. “So no one could see her eyes and know what she was?”

He nodded solemnly. “It was centuries ago, but I assume she hoped to spare my lady from the fate of a sea witch, even if it meant rendering her sightless. Usually, once a sea witch’s magic awakens and their eyes turn white, they are abandoned by those who once cared for them. Discarded, left to face a tragic end alone.”

There was a hint of bitterness in his voice that I knew all too well—the pain that came from recalling one’s own abandonment.

“I may have a few wrinkles and gray hairs, boy, but my ears are still sharp as ever,” Lady Desmona chimed in. She swung back around, already settling a new crab into her wrinkled face.

The new crab’s eye stalks stretched like two antennas, focusing on us. “Ah, there we are,” she said before the crab’s eyes landed solely on me. “Stop giving me those pitying looks, girl! I have everything I need. Hermit crabs have remarkable vision, you know.”

“O-oh,” I stammered. “Sorry.”

“Yes, my children take good care of me,” she continued, a fondness in the tilt of her thin smile as she went back to sprinkling the last of the shells from the bag. “They see what I cannot, guide me where I must go, and collect what I need to work my magic.” She paused abruptly, her bony elbow still buried in the bag, and let out a wistful sigh. “Lately, however, I have no desire to go anywhere at all. Perhaps I’m dying.”

Well, that was a dramatic turn.

“Now, my lady,” the sea wizard interjected, his attention turning to a shimmering pile of crystals tucked in the chamber’s corner. “I didn’t realize you had any intention of letting death win. You have at least a century or two left, surely.”

Lady Desmona’s hair looked even thinner as she threw back her head, cackling her amusement. “Save your flattery for that beauty beside you, boy.”

“Ah,” he replied smoothly, “Thankfully, I have enough flattery for every lovely lady in this chamber.” His mouth slid into a grin, momentarily erasing all the years and hardships that had hardened him.

Gone was the bitter wizard following orders from his queen. At this moment, he was simply a young man returning home to his mentor.

… And hundreds of hermit crab siblings.

“Please excuse me, princess.” The soft murmur in my ear was like a gentle caress as the sea wizard’s arms slid from around me, allowing my body to sink into the sand below. He made his way to one of the towering crystal piles where a hermit crab, larger than any I’d seen before, perched at the summit.

It appeared almost as ancient as its master—er, mother?—with a massive spiral shell worn from the passing of time, covered in countless spots where barnacles had once taken root.

With a careful touch, he lifted it. He cradled the creature in his arms, but the hermit crab seemed almost too tired to react. Its claws chittered weakly even as the sea wizard produced a tendril of seagrass, offering it directly to the crab’s mouth.

“Lovely Davina,” he murmured sweetly to the geriatric crab in his arms, subtly turning away from both me and Lady Desmona. “Tell me, has your master been treating you well?”

The hermit crab clicked its claws.

“Bah!” Lady Desmona tossed the empty mesh bag, perhaps aiming at one or both of them. “Pay no heed to her ramblings. She’s grown senile! As sour as ever, that crab.”

A smoky laugh rolled through the water as the sea wizard carefully placed Davina back on top of the pile of crystals. “Just like her master,” he muttered as he tucked a few more strands of seagrass between her front claws.

“Ah, that reminds me!” Lady Desmona turned, making her way to the back of the chamber. When she returned, an enormous bag dangled from her bony hands. The contents inside rattled around as she tried to hand it off to me.

“Um—” I looked to the wizard for help, but he was busy inspecting the back of Davina’s shell. Even from a distance, it appeared to be in better shape than it had a second ago, polished, with most of the cracks filled in. Magic, perhaps?

The new hermit crab in Lady Desmona’s face tilted its stalks to get a better look at me. “Take it,” she insisted. “I know every one of that boy’s tricks. If I give it to him, he’ll conveniently leave it.”

She dropped it in front of my face, and I looked down just as the top of the bag slipped open.

Holy —

“This is a bag of skulls,” I said matter-of-factly, staring down at my lap. Whether they were human or mer or cecaelian skulls didn’t seem important.

What did seem important was the question of why was there a bag of skulls on my lap?

The sea wizard returned to my side just as I was about to panic. I gawked up at him in horror, trying my best to convey y our-mentor-is-actually-insane with only my eyes.

“They’re for Aracos,” he said coolly, offering nothing more reassuring than a shrug. “He collects them.”

Wha—? No. No, no.

“He… collects them?” I nearly choked on my tongue, trying to get the words out. “Real skulls?”

I’d always thought Aracos had more of the personality of a playful puppy than anything else. A lovable slither puppy who I now knew collected freaking skulls .

“Indeed.” He gave the bag on my lap a look of mild disapproval. “A habit of his I’ve spent years attempting to break, but Lady Desmona insists on indulging him.”

He gave a resigned sigh until a sudden thought seemed to bring a smirk back to his lips. “Does this behavior surprise you?” His eyes narrowed into cunning slits as he leaned closer. “And here I thought the two of you were such dear friends.”

If looks could kill, the one I directed back at him would have won Aracos another skull for his collection. “Yeah, well, he never mentioned it,” I said through gritted teeth.

Lady Desmona turned away from us, going back to her piles. “And you asked my child if I’m treating her well. Hmph! I wonder what Aracos would say about you .”

The sea wizard’s expression soured. “I assure you, my lady, I take exceptional care of my familiar.”

“Of course, of course!” She plucked a piece of vibrant orange coral from a pile before moving on to select a similarly hued crystal from another. “However, I can’t help but worry about the poor dear. Languishing in the dreary depths of the Undersea, deprived of what brings him the most joy.”

Skulls brought Aracos joy? I glanced down at the skulls peeking up at me and shuddered as I twisted the top of the bag shut. Maybe I agreed with the sea wizard on this one.

The sea wizard let out a weary sigh. “Very well, we shall bring him the skulls,” he conceded before lifting a cautionary finger. “But I will not be held accountable for what he may do with them.”

“What would he—?” I stopped myself before I could finish that thought. Maybe I was better off not knowing.

“Ensure that you do,” Lady Desmona said, wrinkling her nose. “It’s a shame he couldn’t accompany you, but I suppose it couldn’t be helped, hm?”

“Indeed. As you’ve likely suspected, we’ve come here to?—”

“I know why you’ve come, boy!” she snapped, her wrinkled hands brandishing the coral and crystal she’d picked up right in front of his face. “Why else would I be fabricating this?”

As soon as the sea wizard took stock of what she held, his jaw fell open. “Ah—” His voice seemed to catch in his throat, rendering him momentarily speechless.

She chuckled as she brought the two objects together. “Yes, I suspect you’ll be needing it soon enough.” With a burst of magic, a plume of smoke released from her hands. The crystal in her grasp absorbed the shadows around it until it dissolved into nothing, releasing a stream of dark magic that enveloped the coral entirely.

Before all the magic had dissipated, she held what was left—a vibrant orange coral—out to me. “Take it, girl. Keep it close. Especially at night.”

I stared, transfixed by the swirling threads of darkness contained within it. The magic seemed to shift and twist, becoming harder to pin down by the second, until the coral sitting in her hand looked almost unchanged as if nothing had happened to it at all.

“Um, th-thank you.” For some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to reach for it. “What did you do to it?”

There was a cryptic smile on her face, one I knew well from spending time with her protégé. “Good, good, I knew you had an eye for magic,” she said, her bony fingers delicately tracing the arms of the coral. “I’ve imbued it with a spell. One of my most potent.”

A spell, huh? I’d also spent enough time with the sea wizard to learn his tricks. Like mentee, like mentor, as they say. “And if I take it, what will it cost me?”

Lady Desmona’s cackling laugh rang out. “Cost you? It’s a gift! Trust me, girl, you’ll be thankful you have it. Survival of our kind is paramount in this world.”

Our kind . My heart nearly stopped.

So, the sea wizard had been right. Lady Desmona had seen right through me. Despite my cursed tail, she knew my true nature. I was a sea witch, just like her.

I reached for the coral with a gulp, just in time for the sea wizard to find his voice.

“No, that—that is, I...” He stumbled and stuttered, trying to intervene, but it was too late because the coral was already in my possession.

It looked even prettier up close, and an odd warmth spread through me as I clutched it. “Beautiful,” I murmured, turning it over in my hands. It was an ornament genuinely fit for royalty. Would I need to carry it around with me at all times? “You said it’s for…?”

“Fertility,” she said, giving me a sage nod.

I dropped it.

“Oh, no. No. Do… do not.” This time, I was the one stuttering. Poseidon help me , I’d touched it. “N-no, thank you.”

Lady Desmona didn’t look pleased by my rejection. “Foolish girl,” she scolded, snatching the coral up from the sand with a tentacle. “Do you realize how long it would take you to conceive otherwise?”

“ Conceive? ” I squeaked the word. My heart was racing a wild, unpredictable beat. “I’m not—I don’t?—”

Oh, no. I’d accepted it from her. Did that mean the spell was already on me? Had my skin absorbed it? Was that how spells worked?

“I assure you, my lady, that’s not why we’ve come here,” the sea wizard swooped in, figuring out how to make his tongue work again way too freaking late .

Couldn’t he have said that a minute ago, before I accepted a damned fertility spell?

“Of course, I know why you’ve come here!” She scoffed, brushing the sand from the coral. “After all these years of searching, you’ve finally found your mate. And now you’ve brought her here to show me.”

His what?

“Ah—” The sea wizard’s mouth was once again agape. “Lady Desmona, I…”

“We’re not,” I sputtered, refusing to let his silence linger. “He isn’t.” I glared at him. “Tell her.”

Lady Desmona’s voice was laced with amusement. “There’s no use trying to hide it. The scent of your magic is coursing through his veins.” Even her crab-eye seemed to enjoy watching both of us squirm. “I could smell it as soon as you crossed into my domain, the bond between you, although I had hoped I’d instilled some better manners.”

Her gaze shifted to the sea wizard, a subtle warning in her tone. “Remember, boy, sometimes it’s wiser to give than to receive. Especially if you intend to keep her.”

The sea wizard brushed back his hair, and his teeth clenched in obvious frustration. “You are… gravely mistaken, my lady.” There was a noticeable shake in his voice. “Aracos was the one to take in her blood, not me. And I assure you he has no intention of taking her as his mate.”

The two silver hairs that served as Lady Desmona’s eyebrows lifted so high that the hermit crab almost tumbled out of her face. “Aracos did?”

“Yes, Aracos,” I cut in, the words spilling out of me. “He said he needed it. Trust me, the sea wizard isn’t my mate. I already have three. I’m not looking for more.”

The sea wizard’s lips thinned. “Now that we’ve clarified that matter, let’s move on to the real reason for our visit,” he said stiffly, motioning toward me. “This is Claira, daughter of Princess Leylani and the newly found princess of the Undersea. Queen Sagari sent us here to see what can be done with the curse concealing her tentacles.”

Princess Leylani . It was the first mention of my mother’s name I’d heard since arriving at the Undersea. Papa had called her Leyla, and I… I hadn’t called her anything. I’d never had a reason to speak of her at all.

“A curse, you claim?” Lady Desmona murmured. Her thin limbs pulled her close enough for her crab-eye to scrutinize me. She took a moment, sniffing the water audibly before declaring, “Pah, hardly! There are two spells at work here.”

The sea wizard kept his arms folded. “Yes, I am fully aware.”

A small, knowing smile spread across her face, like a teacher pleased by her student’s understanding. “I thought you might be.”

“Can you break it?” I whispered, knowing that her answer could change everything for me. “Just the one on my tail. Not my eyes.”

“Break it?” She pondered, tapping a knobby finger against her chin.

All the water seemed to freeze in my lungs as I waited. I knew I wasn’t ready. I didn’t want tentacles, even if they were a part of who I truly was. If anything, I’d rather live on land like a human.

I’d already had years of practice pretending.

“How could I break that which is already broken? Your spells are unraveling, girl. Falling apart at every seam they were laid.” She turned to the sea wizard to add, “Though I assume you suspected as much, too, didn’t you?”

The sea wizard’s face soured. “Indeed.”

“Yes, yes.” She nodded, her crab giving my tail another appraising look. “There’s no need for my interference. The magic is so poorly constructed that the longer you stay underwater, the closer your spells will come to breaking on their own.”

“I dare to disagree, my lady.” There was ice in the sea wizard’s tone. “The spell on her eyes is beautifully craft?—”

“Poorly constructed!” Lady Desmona cut in, ending with a wistful sigh. “A disaster of magic I wouldn’t have been able to manage even in my most unskilled youth.”

A smirk crept onto his lips, though perhaps colder than before. “You, unskilled? Lady Desmona, I find it hard to believe you were ever?—”

“Oh, enough of your flattery,” she said, waving him off with a tentacle.

While they were engaging in their banter, my panic was building, lashing at my insides.

“My spells are breaking?” I mumbled in disbelief, lifting my hands to my eyes.

Not spell, singular. Spells .