Page 100 of Sea Witch Rising

I take a step to run after them, but then my eyes snag on a gift even more amazing, and I freeze on the spot.

Red flowers.

They’re floating a few feet from me in the lagoon, but they are not of this place. They are something only Alia could produce.

Hands shaking, I fish them out of the water. Tendrils of magic bleed off their prickly stems. I can’t believe I’m holding these. A piece of my sister, in my hands, her talent a tangible thing.

Oh, Alia.

I press the two fingers on my right hand together, our sign—one, Alia; two, Runa.

There’s no me without her.

“You aren’t taking flowers from another wizard, are you?” Will asks, his voice a near whisper. He’s trying to joke, but I know it’s only because he can see my face wavering between grief and joy.

“Never.” My voice quivers, my chin wobbles, and then tears—real human tears—stream hot down my face.

The release is both what I need and not entirely enough.

My eyes flash to him as he places his steadying hands on my waist, waiting for what else I may say. He’s patient, and it takes me some time to gather the right words. “Alia. She brought these flowers to the sea witch as payment before she knew the cost would be her voice.” I draw in a long, shaking breath, the meaning of their appearance suddenly thick in my chest. “I think the sea witch returned these to me as a gift.”

Will glances toward the girls, righting the boat and inspecting it for damage. “Why don’t you take a moment?”

I nod, grateful I didn’t have to ask.

Clutching the flowers to my chest, I strike back into the shadows of the cliff above. Between two boulders is the little cave I saw that first day when I came here to change, its doorway beckoning.

The confines are small, dark. But they swell with magic. Near the entrance, I find a stub of a taper and light it.“Kveykva.”

A flame erupts and the space reveals itself—a tinyhaven stuffed full of books, bottles, jars, and a crate of oyster shells, toppled by the lagoon waters that visited during the storm. The magic here has the same signature as the little house above.

The same signature as the flowers.

This place was the sea witch’s. The house too. Before she became what she is. I don’t even know her name, but now I wish I did. Maybe someday I’ll learn it.

“Alia, you would’ve loved this place,” I say both to the flowers and to no one at all. Fingertips drifting over the dusty contents.

Flowers pressed against my chest, I bend over to scoop up the oyster shells and their spilled pearls—it doesn’t do to leave something of the sea witch’s a mess. The sand shifts beneath the crate, and through a crevice in the rock, a book slips out onto the sand.

The candlelight finds the title immediately.The Spliid Grimoire.

The binding is different from the one at Katrine’s—crumbling with love and use. I lift the book and place it on a small table fashioned from rough wood and rocks. The book yawns open to a passage marked with the triton. Father’s symbol. Below it is the passage I’d found at Katrine’s, the one that gave me the chance to go home.

The sea is forever defined by its tide, give and take the measure of its barter. In magic, as in life,the sea does not give its subjects lightly—payment is required, the value equivalent, no matter the ask. A shell, a fish, a pearl of the greatest brilliance—none can be taken without debt to be paid.

We have paid dearly, Alia most of all. Father and Niklas too, despite their motivations.

I set the candle on the table, the flowers, the book. The past, present, and future fuzzy behind my eyes.

It’s then that I realize I can take both Alia and the sea witch with me into this new life. I pluck the petals gently from each flower and lay them along the open page in the grimoire, from spine to edge, Alia’s flowers touching every word.

My sister and the sea witch with me. Encased in a reminder of who I am now—an heiress and keeper of magic as it still lives on this earth.

“I’ll do you proud,” I say, to both of them, pressing the book to my heart as I step out of the cave and into the light—the past at my heels and the future laid out wide as far as the eye can see.

I was a princess. A mermaid. A twin.

Iama witch. A human. A rebel.

And I have only just begun.