Page 23

23

Claira

H e really left me. “Freaking sea wizard,” I muttered, glaring at the closed door as if he might magically reappear through it.

He didn’t, of course.

So, the cecaelia were planning a party in my honor? Ugh . Just the thought of it made my skin crawl. Not only would I be thrust into the spotlight, but it also solidified that I would be seeing more of my grandmother.

Queen Sagari—now there was a woman with a flair for the dramatic. If she was calling the shots, there was no telling what she might expect me to do for the party.

Ever since tucking me away in the Undersea, she’d been mostly ignoring my existence, which was fine with me. To me, the queen wasn’t family. Not like Dad and Gram were.

If Gram knew how Queen Sagari allowed her pawns to treat me, she’d have brandished her pirate pistol and shot the crown right off my grandmother’s tangled head.

I chuckled, picturing it in my mind.

Okay, maybe Gram was a bit dramatic herself. But that was one of the things I loved most about her. Gram always meant business, especially when that business was fiercely protecting those that she cared about.

Queen Sagari’s only business was her luxury condominiums and ‘playing’ with her pawns. I supposed she was also serious about her hatred of merfolk, but that was a common sentiment among all the cecaelia, I’d learned.

Maybe it was good that they were planning to have the party on land. I couldn’t imagine being surrounded by hundreds of glaring eyes all fixed on my tail. Hari and the sea wizard didn’t seem to mind it, but everyone else? I wrapped my arms around my middle, shuddering as I glanced around the empty office.

Completely empty .

A thought struck me. When was the last time I’d been left alone?

Pushing the chair away, I steadied myself with a hand on the sea wizard’s desk. The vinyl flooring felt tacky and well-worn beneath my bare feet, but I didn’t mind. Any land was better than the Undersea.

Feeling slightly giddy, I strolled across the office, my legs moving with the same instinctive ease my hands had when mending nets. My legs were more pale than I remembered, but I was beyond happy to see them again.

I stood before the sea wizard’s wardrobe, a smirk spreading as I opened it up to confirm my latest suspicion. Yep —he only owned one type of suit. Classically black and impeccably pressed.

The man was dedicated to his fashion choices, although I couldn’t deny that it suited him.

I shook my head as I stole a neatly rolled pair of black socks. I swore the only time that man ever had any color on him was when he was bleeding. Balancing on one foot at a time, I pulled the socks onto my feet before shutting the wardrobe.

What exactly had he expected me to do for four hours?

Moving on to the bookshelves, I trailed a finger over the first row of spines I came to. Interesting . His collection was all over the place. There was a mix of literary classics by human authors, books on topography and sea charts, and a few less exciting volumes on business and financial management. I supposed even wizards needed to be well-rounded.

My stomach dipped as I noticed a book titled Knots and Ropes. The sea wizard was interested in boating? Seriously? I swore, if he could tie a double fisherman’s knot while I couldn’t...

I wouldn’t ever dare ask him because my gut was telling me that he could. Dammit . It wasn’t fair for one man to be so good at so many things.

The lower shelves were filled with old tomes that looked like they belonged with the ones he kept in the Undersea. Some of the glyphs on their spines were familiar, but I resisted the temptation to touch them. Their leather bindings looked delicate enough for them to crumble away if I dared to pick one up and read it.

My fingers brushed against a book about seashells, and I paused. “Typical sea wizard.” I slid it out and cracked it open, grinning as I thought back to all of his hermit crab siblings and the bag of shells he’d collected for them.

Either he’d bought this book used, or he’d spent a lot of time reading through it. Each page looked well-loved, with an occasional scrap of parchment stuck between them to mark specific shells.

The thought of writing in one of my books would have never crossed my mind, but the sea wizard didn’t seem to have any reservations about it. He’d marked up nearly every page with underlines, circled highlights, and quick notes written in both glyphs and English text.

Interestingly, his English notes were nowhere near as tidy as the text he wrote for our lessons. When he wrote in a hurry, the strokes were far too long in some places and oddly curved in others. Strange .

I returned the book to the shelf and picked out another. Flora of the Deep: Sea Plants of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans . It was an odd choice for a man who lived in the depths of the Indian Ocean. While I flipped through the pages, a slip of parchment fell out, flittering to the floor. “Whoops.”

Bending down to pick it up, I noticed the page it had been marking— Halophila engelmannii.

“Star grass?” I muttered, my stomach immediately rumbling. The sudden stab of hunger prompted Cyre to give my mind a reassuring nudge. It was star grass. As I slid my thumb over the illustration, I noticed a note scrawled beside it.

Her favorite

The rumbling in my stomach turned into fluttering, my cheeks flushing hot. That’s right—he’d brought me a bundle of star grass on my first day trapped in the Undersea.

How crazy that he’d remembered. Even more so that he’d actually written down something I’d said so offhandedly, just as a flimsy excuse for sticking my hand into a fish tank.

He’d even circled common places to find it, although I knew it was a notoriously difficult plant to come across.

I pinched my mouth shut, rocking the spine of the book in my hand. I couldn’t even remember what had happened to the star grass he’d given me. I’d been too upset that day to eat it.

Had I even thanked him for the gesture?

I carefully placed the slip of parchment back into the book and closed it, feeling a confusing mix of emotions. While I was pissed at him for abandoning me here without warning, it was hard to ignore the kindness that existed beneath his cold, puppet demeanor.

Despite having to follow his queen’s orders, he always went out of his way for me. Not only had he helped me get a familiar, but he was also teaching me glyphs and how to use magic.

The magic seeping from me stirred, still energized from my first practice session.

I couldn’t wait to learn even more.

Invisible , I thought, closing my eyes and visualizing a shield of magical mist forming around me. The magic obeyed, and once I opened my eyes, I took another turn around the office, practicing keeping the spell with me as I moved.

“Stealth mode activated,” I whispered, grinning from ear to ear a split second before accidentally knocking into a piece of furniture. “Ouch.” Sure, it was difficult to see while surrounded by the barrier, but it was unbelievable to think that I could now be invisible whenever I wanted. With an ability like this, I felt ready to join the CIA.

With a glorious burst of magic, I exploded the spell into pieces and stood there in the center of the office, huffing out breaths. Breaking through the spell last time had been the furthest from useless I’d ever felt. It turned out the feeling carried over to land.

Forget the CIA—with some fighting and self-defense lessons, I could be a freaking ninja.

I decided to use the next hour or so to practice what I’d learned, conjuring an invisibility barrier, only to shatter it apart and start anew.

The sea wizard had told me to unravel the spell in order to break it, but trying to work through the threads seemed to be the fastest way to guarantee a headache. Thankfully, smashing through it seemed to work well enough for now.

When I was satisfied that I had a good handle on moving while keeping the spell around me, I took the shield down one final time and slumped back down into the sea wizard’s chair.

Okay. Now what?

My eyes wandered around the room, searching for something else to occupy my time. As I fidgeted, twisting back and forth in my seat, my knee knocked the side of the desk’s drawers. The top drawer slid forward, inching open. I stared down at it, hesitating.

No . That would be an invasion of privacy, for sure.

As I went to slide the drawer shut, something caught my eye—a red leather-bound book. It was positioned upside down, so I couldn’t help but read the title.

“Riddles?” I chuckled to myself, not at all surprised by the discovery. Now, a book of riddles? That might entertain me.

Well, I was already in one pair of the sea wizard’s drawers, so what was one more? Unable to resist, I gently pulled the drawer open just wide enough to take the book out and turned to the first page.

“Oh?” There was a handwritten note on the back of the front cover.

May this book keep you company whenever I cannot.

All my love, L

I knew the sea wizard’s writing well. So well that whenever I saw his handwriting, I could picture exactly what he’d looked like while he wrote it, down to the careful expression on his face. This wasn’t his writing.

All my love. I read over the line again and again. It was a weird feeling, like I’d stumbled upon a secret that wasn’t meant for my eyes. Because I definitely had .

Who was L?

I stood up. Sat down. Then I gnawed at my lip until it stung.

... Maybe it was a used book. Something he’d picked up from some random bookstore and added to his library because he liked being entertained by riddles.

The tightness in my chest eased, my pulse slowing down as I reasoned with myself. That was probably it. A used book.

I turned the book upside down, slipping it back into the drawer without reading over a single riddle. Only—was that a second book sitting underneath it?

“Dammit!” I pulled the drawer fully open, found Timeless Riddles for Young Minds, and took it out .

I flipped it open, and there it was.

Whenever you need to laugh or smile, I hope this book brings you that joy.

With endless love, L

The writing was elegant. Delicate and airy. Endless love .

I started thumbing through the pages, realizing there was no writing on any of them. If it were the sea wizard’s, he would have treated the pages like the rest of his books.

Unless it was too important to him for him to write in it.

I couldn’t even begin to understand why I was so upset by this. Why my heart was suddenly so?—

“Don’t say it,” I whispered, my voice cracking with emotion. With a trembling hand, I eased the book shut. Don’t you dare even think it , Claira.

But Cyre was already in my head, flooding me with reassurance. Despite their limited interactions, he’d apparently taken a liking to the sea wizard in the .0 seconds that they’d known each other. But were those actually Cyre’s true feelings, or was he just reflecting mine?

I knew the answer, whether or not I wanted to admit it.

I cursed at myself for being so foolish, for allowing myself to let my guard down. This whole time, I’d been so desperate to deny it. I had to ignore the truth. But now, it felt like there was no possible way for me to escape it.

I had fallen for the sea wizard.