Magic Tides

7

The Emerald Wave was an enormous ship. The sheer size of it was insane. It had to be about 1,000 feet long, and from my spot on Siren Call Road, I could see nine decks still rising above water. The windows of the third and fourth deck glowed with pale feylantern light from within. The massive cruise ship had run aground about twelve hundred feet offshore. A long rickety-looking pier connected her to the beach, and the whole thing looked absurd, like a whale, caught on a tiny fishing line, being pulled out of the ocean against her will.

According to Thomas, the Emerald Wave had gone off course during a particularly nasty storm decades ago and become lodged in a sand bank. The Coast Guard had tried to pry it lose with tugboats and gotten nowhere. In addition, something had attacked the ship during the magic wave that had killed all its instruments, and two of its compartments had filled with water, flooding the engine room.

Refloating the ship was a complicated process involving draining the fuel tanks while simultaneously pumping in salt water to keep it upright, and the cost of getting the Emerald Wave up and running again would have been astronomical, so the cruise line had left it where it was. It had been looted, stripped, and finally abandoned, and now it supposedly housed a cult.

“Look at that evil lair, Cuddles. No ziggurats, no ritualistic poles with skulls on them, no giant faces carved anywhere or big metal fire braziers. These modern evil god followers just don’t care to put in the work.”

Cuddles remained unimpressed. But then again, a big derelict ship was scary enough. I certainly didn’t want to go in there.

I nudged Cuddles, and she reluctantly walked to the pier.

Aaron didn’t seem to be doing any of the usual things people connected to gods did. But Onyx was well trained and educated. He would’ve recognized divinity, so there was some sort of deity attached to all this. How and in what capacity remained to be seen.

Water gods and their followers were never fun. Gods in general weren’t fun. They were fed by faith and shaped by the beliefs of their followers. If a god was poorly known or too obscure, they couldn’t scrape together enough power to manifest. The leading theory said that they didn’t even exist until their followers’ belief achieved a certain critical mass. One of the articles I’d read recently had somehow brought quantum physics into it, which went right over my head.

If a god was too well known, they couldn’t manifest either. Everyone’s Jesus and Buddha looked different, and the conflicting ideas canceled each other out. The holy people of the larger religions packed a lot of power, however.

That left a lot of mid-sized gods, who were famous enough but not worshipped too widely. Specificity helped, and “functional” gods got the first dibs on followers. Few neopagans prayed to Zeus aside from the annual rites. A lot more people prayed to Eileithyia and with a greater passion, even though some of them had no idea who she was until they were about to become parents. Chances of being struck by lightning were low, but dying in childbirth or losing a baby to some sickness was a real possibility.

If a water god appeared, they were likely in charge of a specific body of water, like a river or a lake, or performing a specific function like Satet, who oversaw the Nile’s floods. Yet here we were, heading toward the ocean. Encountering someone like Poseidon should have been highly unlikely, but it wasn’t impossible.

It might not even be a water god. It could be an animal god that lived in the ocean, although animal gods had yet to demonstrate the ability to speak. I’d run across a few—and Curran had eaten several of them—and all of them were more on the level of abnormally powerful magic animals rather than true deities.

It was pointless to try to figure it out. I simply didn’t have enough data.

We reached the pier. I looped Cuddles’ reins on the rail and tied a run-away knot. If things got scary, and she jerked her head, the reins would come free. Having a horse or a mammoth jenny wander about with several feet of reins dangling over them would be a recipe for a broken leg or some other disaster, but it was still better than getting eaten outright.

“If shit hits the fan, take off like a rocket.”

Cuddles ignored me.

I stepped onto the pier. It held against all expectations, and I started walking. The ocean spread on both sides of me, teeming with life. A lot of that life glowed softly with a rainbow of colors.

Too much glowing. Especially around the ship. In fact, entirely too much marine life altogether. The waters by our fort weren’t nearly so crowded. Not a good sign.

I cleared the pier. A metal gangway, slightly rusted and crusty with salt, was attached to the side of the ship, leading up to the first intact deck at a sharp angle. It was barely wide enough for one person. Okay.

I climbed the gangway. It didn’t collapse. Thank Fate for small favors.

A school of fish, pulsing with green, darted below me through the water, narrowly avoiding a jellyfish as big as a tire shimmering lemon-yellow and sparkling with magenta. Yep, definitely not a normal ocean. The ship was a magical nexus of some sort.

I climbed to the deck and almost collided with a heavy-set man carrying a big club.

“What do you want?”

“I’m here to see Aaron.”

“The fuck you are!”

He swung the club. I swept his legs out from under him and shoved him left. He made a lovely splash.

Ahead a wooden double door stood open. It seemed out of place on the ship. They must’ve retrofitted it. I went through it, into a short, arched hallway, and came out into a large space.

I wasn’t sure what I expected, but this wasn’t it. It looked like the inside of a mall. Exactly like the inside of a mall. A long passageway stretched to both sides, with a curved storefront with golden letters spelling out GUEST SERVICES directly in front of me. Shops and cafés lined the walls. A Starbucks, a karaoke bar, some kind of Italian restaurant. Most of it had been abandoned and stripped down to the bone. The air smelled of salt and bacon.

On the right the passage was dark. On the left, feylanterns illuminated what looked like a plaza. Left it is.

I strolled along the storefronts. The plaza lay ahead, a well-lit round space with ten tables, a restaurant manned by a woman who was cooking bacon, and a bathroom at the opposite end. Six of the tables were occupied. Fourteen people total, some eating, some playing cards, wearing normal street clothes. It was close to midnight. The acolytes of Aaron were night owls.

One of the benefits of being married to a shapeshifter and having a shapeshifter son was that I’d learned to move very quietly. I was right on top of the nearest occupied table before a young woman sitting at it looked up and jerked back.

Everyone looked at me. None of them seemed to be packing a lot of magic power. Most of them didn’t look well fed, and there was a lot of apprehension in their eyes. Small fry followers. Followers were good at taking orders.

“One of you is supposed to take me to Aaron,” I told them.

“Umm,” an older man said. “Why?”

I gave him a hard stare. “Who are you that you’re asking me about my private business?”

“Nobody,” the woman next to him said. “He’s a nobody. I’ll take you.”

She got up. “This way.”

We left the plaza, walked along the mall hallway some more, and then took stairs down. One deck, two, three…We had to be below sea level or close to it.

“So is it true that Aaron is a god?” I asked.

“He isn’t a god,” the older woman said quietly. “But he has god powers.”

“How did he get them?”

The older woman didn’t respond.

There were only three ways to get god powers. You were born with them, which made you an avatar or some variation thereof, you were granted them as a reward, or you bargained for them. Technically, you could merge with them or devour them, but that almost never happened. Almost.

An avatar wouldn’t have to rely on gangs to steal people for him. He would be powerful enough to take what he wanted. The reward was equally unlikely. There were no signs of any gods around us. A god who was rewarding a follower would want their name glorified and their symbols displayed. That left only the third possibility. A bargain had been struck. Probably under duress of some sort.

Another formerly luxurious hallway. Doors stood open on both sides. They looked like luxury dining rooms or maybe casino rooms converted into kitchens or possibly laboratories. Long metal tables everywhere.

A hint of magic pulled on me. I went through the doorway on the right, following it.

A large tank sat against the wall, glowing bright enough to light up the whole room and emanating faint magic. An assortment of feylantern glass lay on the tables next to it: globes, tubes, and bunches of small spheres. Some sort of bioluminescent algae, but magically charged. I was wondering why the feylanterns here were so bright. Normally they were glass vessels filled with magically charged air, but here they were filled with water and that algae.

“How long do they last?” I asked.

The woman had stopped in the doorway of the lab. “About a year.”

“You sell these?”

She nodded. “Garvey does.”

“Who is Garvey?”

“The CFO.”

Interesting cult they had.

I moved to the next table. A big plastic bin filled with pearls of all sizes and colors. Golden, white, pink, purple, black…They came in a variety of shapes. Some were oval, some were round, others had ridges. A few were teardrops. A small fortune.

I glanced at her.

“The kids get these,” she said. “When Garvey can convince Aaron to let a couple of them forage on the ocean floor. Aaron hates it, but Garvey says we need the money.”

She didn’t sound happy about it. Her eyes were haunted, too.

I moved to the next table. Slow cookers. Four of them. Wrapped in chains, padlocked, and secured to metal rings bolted to the floor. And warded. Good wards, too. Hmm.

“What’s in these?”

The woman’s face jerked.

“Who set these wards?”

“Aaron,” she said barely above a whisper.

Aaron clearly knew what he was doing.

I walked over to the large trashcan with a sealed lid, unlocked the latch, and looked inside. Chunks of a glass sponge, bright yellow when it was in the water, and now dull.

Oh.

“Who has Huntington’s?” I asked.

She took a deep breath. “My daughter. She’s only 16.”

Back when Curran and I had run the Mercenary Guild in Atlanta, one of the mercs, a veteran, had a son who had developed the symptoms of Huntington’s disease. Certain types of glass sponges contained magically potent bacteria that slowed the progression of disease and sometimes stopped it completely. The extraction process was complex and incredibly expensive. These sponges only grew in cold, deep water. We had gotten ours from Canada.

The slow cookers were bacteria vats, fed and protected by the wards.

“Is this why you’re here?”

She started crying. I let her sob. There was nothing to be said. She was here for her daughter, she knew it was wrong, it ripped her apart, but still she stayed because she couldn’t let her daughter die. She was desperate and trapped. That didn’t excuse anything she had done.

“And the others?” I asked.

“It’s just four families,” she managed. “Us, the Allens, the Lipnicks, and the Rios. Rodney Allens’ wife has MS, Denis Lipnick has Huntington’s, and…”

“I get it,” I told her.

“They give us medicine every month. Just enough.”

Cults exploited people, and those who got sucked in, especially on the bottom layer of the hierarchy, weren’t usually bad people. They were looking for something better, a little bit of hope, or a way to deal with overwhelming things in their life. Instead, they ended up as free labor, brainwashed and used, their vulnerabilities and fears molded into a leash that held them in place.

There was no better leash than saving the life of someone you loved. It made people do terrible things.

“Let’s go,” I told her.

We crossed the length of the hallway and came to a metal bulkhead door that looked newer than the walls around it. The woman cranked the wheel, strained, and swung the door open. In front of us a narrow metal bridge spanned a flooded space four feet above the sea. The water glowed with blues and yellows, lit up by a school of tiny jellyfish. Under the jellyfish, about six or seven feet down, something slithered. It was long and sinuous, thicker than me and butter-yellow. I couldn’t tell if it was a mass of tentacles, some prehistoric marine worm, or a knot of giant underwater snakes. It had no eyes or mouth. Just length.

The woman swallowed and started across the metal bridge, taking tiny little steps.

The thing under the water kept sliding, moving and twisting slowly. It filled the entire floor of the chamber, wall to wall.

Another hesitant step. Another.

“Stop,” I told her.

She froze, clutching at the rails.

“How much further?”

“Through that door and straight down that hallway. We are not allowed to go past the red archway.”

“Come back.”

She backed up, covering the three feet of bridge separating her from me in a flash.

“If I were you, I would go and get the other families and then I would look for something I could use to cut metal chains.”

She stared at me, her face blank.

“The wards on those vats are direct-line wards. They will disappear when Aaron dies. I would get those cutters ready and wait by the vats until the wards disappeared.”

Her eyes went wide.

“Then I would take these vats and hop a leyline to Atlanta. I would take them to Biohazard and give them to Luther Dillon, and I would tell him that Kate sent me.”

She stared at me.

“It’s not for you. You know what you are. It’s for your daughter. Deputy Director Luther Dillon. Go.”

She took off back the way we came at a near run.

I once had done a horrible thing to save Julie’s life. It had gone against everything I stood for, and I’d still done it. I had watched her in a coma as she had lain there, dying second by second. Fading. It had been a kind of madness where nothing except saving her mattered.

I started across the metal bridge, moving lightly on my toes. The slithering thing shifted slowly below. To come all this way and then get eaten by an overgrown ocean tapeworm wasn’t part of the plan.

Where did they get cold water sponges? You had to get them fresh.

The bridge ended. I stepped onto the metal platform at the end, opened another bulkhead door, and stepped into a hallway. It was long, with an eighteen-foot ceiling. Above me hundreds of glass or crystal planks hung from the ceiling like a constellation of icicles, reflecting the bluish light coming from the clusters of feylanterns on the walls. The effect was a bit eerie.

Ahead a red arch cut the hallway in half. It was shiny and thick, and while it might have fit in with the décor before, now it felt jarring and ominous.

I came within two feet of it and stopped. A ward. And a good one, too.

Wards served two purposes, to protect and contain, and they operated by changing the balance of the elements in the environment. Each ward was a magic field, defined by anchors. The sets of anchors were nearly infinite. There were the classic 4 elements: fire, water, earth, and air, or the equally classic 5 elements: wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. You could use chemical substances, fires burning different fuels, light sources in a specific pattern, or bodily fluids. If I really needed an impenetrable ward, I would use my blood as an anchor. Precision and balance were key.

This ward felt even and solid as a wall. Expertly set, with the anchor placement perfectly calculated. This took training, math, geometry, and deep understanding of the environment. I couldn’t see the anchors, which probably meant the ward mage had embedded them in the arch on the other side. Smart.

I could try to break it, but the backlash could be severe, and shooting myself in the foot just before the fight wasn’t the best strategy. Neither was announcing my power level this early or spending that much magic.

We were in an aquatic environment. Water was notoriously difficult to work with when it came to wards, because it never stayed the same. It flowed, it evaporated, it absorbed things. Sometimes things grew in it. Wards depended on the consistency of the anchors.

The best ward here would be either fire-based, because it was a drastic change, or element-neutral, something like runes. It was tried, true, and reliable, with a precise power value. Chemical substances or botanicals would degrade in the damp environment, and fire would be hard to maintain.

No, it would be runes. Probably Elder Futhark, the oldest available.

Every Elder Futhark ward would contain Elhaz, the rune of defense. Everything else reinforced it. Number 9, thrice three, was sacred to Old Germanic people, and the best rune wards included 9 runes.

I’d stick Elhaz in the middle of that arch and follow it with a pair of Eihwaz, the Yew Tree, on each side for magic amplification. Then, I’d put Inguz, a Fertility rune, on each side. It protected one’s household. This was his house; he’d be a fool not to use it.

That gave me 5 runes. The other four would be there for pure power. A pair of Thurisaz, Thorn, runes was a safe bet, defense against unexpected attacks and adversaries, a good magic generator. But he would need to channel all that magic toward Elhaz, which meant he had to use something with a drive.

Let’s see, Ehwaz, Horse, Fehu, Cattle, or Uruz, Wild Ox, would all give him the flow he needed. Uruz was too unpredictable and mostly used for explosive power. Horses were okay, but Cattle would give me steady flow without any surprises. I’d put them on the very bottom of the arch to create two currents of magic that would surge upward through all the runes, getting stronger and more refined until they met in Elhaz at the top of the arch.

I pulled a vial of sulfuric acid from a pouch on my belt. I only had enough acid for a couple of runes. Here was to hoping it worked.

I drip-drew Raidho, Wagon, which looked like a clunky R on the metal floor, right at the point where the invisible wall of the ward blocked the hallway. I followed it with a simple I, Isa for Ice. The metal smoked with toxic fumes. Ugh.

I dripped the last few drops onto the bottom of the R and waited.

The acid ate at the floor, creeping toward the ward. Three, two…

Magic popped like a firecracker. The runes on the floor sparked white, the ward flashed silver, and for a second a solid wall of magic, like a thin barrier of translucent ice, formed within the arch.

The wall cracked and broke, melting into nothing.

Ha-ha. I’d hitched his cattle to a wagon and froze it. Right now the owner of the ward would be doubled over with one hell of a headache.

Magic swirled around, a mix of thick, potent currents, flowing from the hallway ahead. The ward had blocked them, but now they splashed all around me, volatile, chaotic, twisting into eddies and whirlpools.

This was a nexus, a hole in the fabric of the world that bled magic. Atlanta had one too, a lot larger than this one. They called it Unicorn Lane, a place where metal rubble sprouted fangs, corrosive moss grew on power lines, and everything tried to eat you.

This explained the abnormal concentration of marine life.

I stepped through the arch and turned around. Yep, Elder Futhark runes, embedded in the arch. He’d used Horses instead of Cattle, but my frozen wagon still worked. The runes themselves had been etched into the bone and stained with metal. Not silver—the hue was wrong, and it wasn’t smooth, it was geometric and soldered on there. An osmium alloy of some sort. Very expensive. Very rare.

Damn it.

Well, it changed nothing.

Thomas should’ve gone to the Order with his petition. If I survived this little adventure, the next time we met, I’d tell Claudia all about it.

I turned and marched down the hallway toward the light.

I went through another red arch—unwarded this time—and paused in its shadow, just before the doorway. The hallway opened into a large room, lit up with clusters of feylanterns arranged into eight-rayed, layered snowflakes on the ceiling. The light was so bright, it looked like the middle of the day, and I stayed just on the edge of it.

This must’ve been a nightclub or some sort of concert venue with a dance floor and a raised stage at the far end of the room. The dance floor was now in front of me, the floor itself made of plastic or glass tiles, transparent and shimmering with embedded glitter. The ocean had flooded the section of the ship below this room. I could see the salt water under my feet.

On the left, a stairway led to a balcony that curved along the room, filled with tables and padded chairs. On the right, a massive, ragged hole gaped in the hull, big enough to drive a semi through sideways. It had carved off a chunk of the ship all the way to the bottom. The sea was just below the floor, and whatever lay on the other side of that hole wasn’t the Figure Eight beach. In fact, it wasn’t even America’s Atlantic coast.

Huge crags jutted from the waters in the distance. The same rocky boulders continued under water, stretching to the ship in stone reefs. Jewel-colored anemones sheathed the stone, glowing with yellow-green, orange, electric blue, and neon pink among patches of dark mussels. Mollusks, sea slugs in every color of the rainbow, and ringed jellyfish flashing with bright lights swam and hovered among the reefs. A huge brown skate glided by, slipped under the glass tiles, backlit by the reef, and floated right under my feet. The magic was so thick, you could cut it with a knife and spread it on bread.

Most of North Carolina’s coastal bottom was sand. There were artificial reefs and oyster sanctuaries, built pre-Shift, but none of them were here, in this spot. And those cliffs in the distance looked like something from Oregon or Washington…Except there were no trees. The Pacific Northwest was heavily wooded along the coast, and I couldn’t see a single tree.

Thomas’ source was right. The Emerald Wave did have a hole that could only be seen from the inside.

This was a tear in the fabric of reality, and I had no idea where it led. A pocket realm, built by some cosmically powerful being? A portal leading somewhere else? None of the options were good.

More importantly, maintaining this hole would require a ton of magic. Usually you saw these junctions in place of wild, very concentrated magic, because their creators used the environmental magic to power them. This didn’t feel like that. It felt like there was a definite focal point, some kind of magic generator right off the ship, that kept this portal going.

I leaned a bit to the right, trying to get a better view of the room.

Nine people sat on the floor by the far end of the hole, huddled together, each of them chained by their ankle. Three adults: a skinny woman in her thirties with scars on her pale arms and defiant eyes; a man about Thomas’ age, gaunt and beaten down, his hair a dark curtain over his bronze face; and a young woman, barely in her twenties, with bright red gills that stood out against the dark brown skin of her throat. The rest were children, all sizes and ages. The youngest looked about ten.

The chains stretched into the hole and vanished into the water.

Okay. Haven’t seen that before.

As I watched, the gaunt man leaned forward, and I saw the boy behind him. Darin. Alive. Wet and looking desperate, but alive.

I looked past the prisoners to the four-foot-high stage, where a big golden throne rose in the center, shaped like some mutant conch shell and gilded. Where did they even find that thing? It looked like a prop pulled out of some over-the-top opera.

A man in his thirties sat on the throne. Tan, with light brown hair, he slumped forward, his elbow on the armrest, his forehead resting on his hand. He wore a blue linen robe, and his feet were bare.

Hello, Aaron. Got you out of bed there, buddy, with my ward breaking? So sorry. No worries, I’m coming to help you with that migraine.

Next to the throne, a much older man hovered, anxiously rubbing his bony, weather-browned hands. His wispy white hair hung limp over the back of his neck. He wore a wrinkled garment that might have been a chasuble with the Catholic embroidery replaced by an appliqué patch with wave symbols on it.

A teenage girl sat on the stage, dangling her feet off it. Thin and dark-haired, with an odd bluish tint to her pale skin, she wore a tank top and a pair of shorts. She couldn’t have been older than 16. Her stomach was bloated. I would’ve guessed she was pregnant, but the shape didn’t look quite right. She looked…lumpy.

Behind the throne, on the wall, a two-foot-long white feather hung off two chains. Brown splashes stained the white barbs. Dried blood.

White feather, freaky ocean, cold water sponges that only grew in the depths, cliffs…

Oh, you dumb fuck.

I walked out into the open.

A thin female prisoner saw me first and elbowed the man next to her. The lot of them stared at me. On the left, a boy about Conlan’s age walked through a small doorway, carrying a platter with a pill bottle and a glass of water on it. He noticed me and froze.

The teenage girl saw me. A shiver ran through her. She hopped off the stage and bounced in place, whining in a high-pitched voice, like a toddler on the edge of a tantrum. “Mine, mine, mine, mine…”

The man on the throne waved his hand at her without bothering to look up.

She grinned. Her smile stretched from ear to ear, literally. Her head split, and the top half of it went up, her mouth wet and red, lined with conical teeth. Her thick, pink tongue wiggled in the sea of teeth like some weird worm. She was like a Muppet from an ancient kids’ show, except this wasn’t cute, it was horrifying.

She slammed her jaw shut, her teeth making a loud, bone-scraping click, and charged me.

I unsheathed my sword.

She was hellishly fast.

I dodged, and she swiped at me with her hands, each finger tipped with a sharp, blue claw. I backed away, blocking her swipes with Sarrat. Her claws rang on the metal, like pebbles flicked at the blade. She caught my left forearm and gripped it, throwing her weight into it. Her mouth gaped open, and she tried to pull me forward, toward her snapping teeth.

I rammed the pommel of Sarrat into her temple.

The blow knocked her back. She stumbled to the side, her eyes wild, and I took a step and kicked her in that bulging stomach. The front kick took her off her feet. She flew a couple of yards backward, fell, and vomited up an undigested human forearm, the hand still attached. A very small hand.

“Kill her!” the female prisoner with the angry eyes screeched. “She eats children!”

The thing on the floor grabbed the arm and stuffed it back into her mouth. Her neck expanded, she gulped it down, and then I was on her. She’d managed to come up from the crouch in time to meet me straight-on. Sarrat’s blade slid into her chest with a soft whisper and cut into her heart.

Her pale blue eyes stared at me, shocked.

I twisted the sword in her heart, ripping it, and withdrew.

She whimpered, “Mine…” and collapsed on the floor.

I stabbed her through the left eye, driving Sarrat into her brain in case she decided to regenerate, freed the sword with a sharp tug, and looked at the man on the throne. “Cute opening act. Can’t wait to see the headliner.”

The old man peered at me with watery eyes, anxiously rubbing his hands. The man on the throne looked up, his face slack with annoyance. He looked to be somewhere around 30, maybe 35. He had the worn-out complexion of a naturally pale person who’d gone through too many sunburns, with tired skin creased by premature lines. Stubble hugged his jaw, the result of neglect and apathy. His light brown eyes, however, were sharp.

I glanced at the child with the platter. “What’s your name?”

“Boy,” he said.

Great. “Is that what he calls you?”

The child ducked his head.

“What was your name before you were here?”

“Antonio.”

“Good to meet you, Antonio. I want you to cross the room and sit down with those people over there.” I nodded at the chained-up group. I needed to get all of the people I had to protect into a single clump.

The boy scurried behind me to the group and sat down next to Darin. Thomas’ son was watching me. They were all watching me. I needed to chat Aaron up to confirm exactly what god I was dealing with. The white feather was pretty clear, but verifying never hurt.

“Love what you’ve done with the place, Aaron,” I said. I kept my tone conversational. Having him lash out randomly wasn’t the plan. “And this must be Garvey?”

The old man gave me a startled look.

“You broke my ward,” Aaron said.

“Yes.”

“How?”

“Hitched your cows to an iced wagon.”

He thought about it and grimaced. The mother of all headaches raging in his skull was making it hard to think.

His voice was tired. “Did Claudia send you?”

“No, but I’ll let her know I dropped by the next time I see her.”

“Are you a knight?”

“No. Who was the girl?”

“A pet. What do you want?”

I pointed to the chained-up people. “You’re a slaver and a human trafficker. When you sink that low, you have to expect a reckoning.”

He didn’t say anything.

“I was hoping for a hint of shame or regret,” I said. “This is very disappointing.”

“A mercenary,” he finally said, as if the word was slimy. “How much did they pay you?”

“I’m doing this pro-bono.”

“Why?”

“Because you’ve become a problem I decided to resolve.”

“Did I now?”

“Looks that way.”

“Do you even know who I am?”

“I can make an educated guess. You were a knight-enchanter. Most knights do two years in the Academy. You did four, because wards require advanced training in environmental magic and magic theory. The Order invested in you, and they like to get their money’s worth, so they would have offered you a 20-year contract, which you must’ve agreed to since your runes have osmium in them.”

He gave me a slow golf clap, wincing. His head still hurt. “Congratulations. You put 2 and 2 together.”

“The Order trained you and promised to house and support you for the duration of that 20-year contract, which started when you graduated. The minimum age to enroll in the Order Academy is 18, you finished at 22, and you look to be in your thirties, so you didn’t do your deuce.”

A hint of life sparked in his sallow eyes, then died down. “That’s right.”

“They really don’t like to kick knight-enchanters out. What was it? Incompetence? Couldn’t be, not with the quality of that ward out there. It had to be greed.”

“Some people call it greed. I call it proper compensation.”

“You would’ve been paid as a Class V. That’s over a hundred grand per year.”

He stared at me as if he pitied me. “Is it funny or sad that you think 100K is a decent amount of money? I would figure it out, except I really don’t care.” He made a wrap it up motion with his hand.

“How much did you want?”

“I wanted my due. I gave them all of my twenties. Oh, what a great honor it is to be a knight of the Order of Merciful Aid. So much honor. Such a noble goal. Trudging through shit and blood every day to be wrung dry for the sake of people who won’t even thank you, only to finally end up back home, exhausted, and then have to check if you can afford a bottle of Glenfiddich to drown your sorrows.”

I held my left thumb and index finger apart a little and made a sawing motion with my right hand.

“Are you playing a tiny violin?” he asked.

“Yep. The name of the song is ‘My Heart Bleeds for You.’”

He grimaced. “You’re an annoying little fly, aren’t you?”

“Yes, but you’re still talking to me. How often do you get to talk to someone who understands the Order, Aaron? Tell me, what finally did it?”

“I turned thirty. The night before we’d gone into a sewage treatment plant. There was a small hydra in it, and it threw us around like we were fucking toys. I woke up that morning. My legs hurt. My whole body was black and blue. It hurt to sit up. It hurt to piss. I’d soaked in a tub for an hour the night before, and I could still smell rotting human shit on me. It was in my hair. On my skin. I reeked of it. I looked at myself in the mirror and I decided I was fucking done surviving. It was time to thrive.”

“This doesn’t look like thriving to me.” I indicated the room.

“This came later,” he said.

“Ah. Let me guess. You started to moonlight. The Order doesn’t like that.”

“I was done caring what the Order likes.”

“But still, they really don’t like to kick knight-enchanters out. You guys are a significant investment for them. They would’ve ignored your little side jobs.”

He snorted. “Little?”

“You must’ve really fucked up. You warded someone you shouldn’t have warded. The Order came across your ward while pursuing a petition and it must’ve blown up in their faces. What happened? Did someone die?”

His eyes turned dark. Magic tore out of Aaron and splayed around behind him, like a wave ready to crash down and drown. If it could’ve made a sound, it would’ve roared at me like a hurricane.

Wow. Not good. Not good at all.

“Someone did die,” I said. “Wow. Sucks to be you.”

We stared at each other. The real Aaron was awake now and fully focused on me. Whatever bargain he had made, he’d ended up with a shit-ton of power. He was the magical equivalent of a small nuke.

“Impressive,” I said. “But not something you were born with.”

He stared at me, his expression harsh.

“Pagan gods come in different flavors,” I said. “Some are interested in humans, some are amused by them. And then there is the Tuatha Dé Danann. Everyone knows that of all the gods available, they’re the absolute last resort, because they fought us and lost. They didn’t assume godhood because of their deeds, they had to assume it to survive. They hate us and everything we stand for.”

“Personal experience talking?” Aaron asked. His voice sounded unnaturally deep.

“I’ve met Morrigan, and I was there when her Hound died, and a new Hound was chosen.”

“Mhm. That happened two flares ago. How old were you then? Ten?”

“Don’t worry about it,” I told him. “Let’s talk about that feather over there.”

I pointed to the feather above his head.

“That is a swan feather. You’ve got cold water sponges in your little lab, monsters in your ship, and all sorts of bizarre marine critters having a rave outside. Those cliffs over there, that’s probably the coast of Ireland. And then there is the hole itself. There is a nexus of power just through that hole, about twenty or so yards from the ship. That’s what’s generating all of the magic currents and keeping this gap open. I bet it doesn’t close even during tech.”

The magic behind Aaron crested.

“Humor me,” I said. “I came all this way. Here is what I think happened. You got yourself kicked out of the Order and they blacklisted you by letting everyone know that they would consider anyone who hired you their enemy. Standard procedure. The Knights are not forgiving. So here you were, adrift and abandoned”—thanks, Rimush—“and the Night of the Shining Seas happened. Was it pretty?”

“It was beautiful,” he said in his deep, power-saturated voice. “The ocean lit up with blue. The magic was so thick, it made you drunk.”

“And in that beautiful moment a deity manifested as a giant swan. You’ve had a whole semester of Comparative Mythology at the Academy. You know Wilmington’s demographics and you knew exactly who that swan was.”

“There were four of them,” he said. “They were majestic. Breathtaking and glowing with white.”

“Four? Well, that’s a dead giveaway, isn’t it? They must’ve been unforgettable, the Children of Lyr.”

“They were,” he said quietly.

“And you trapped one of them in your ward. It must’ve been a once-in-a-lifetime ward, to catch a god who could both fly and swim. The culmination of all of your training and practice.”

Aaron smiled.

“The god couldn’t escape and when the eclipse ended and tech came, that majestic swan would die. So you bargained with the father of that god for the life of his child.”

“It was Fiachra,” he said. “The swan I trapped.”

“And his father is Manannán, Lord of the Sea, Guardian of the Otherworld, and Over-King of Tuatha Dé, for whom the Isle of Man is named. That Manannán. That’s who you haggled with.”

Aaron smiled wider. “Yes.”

“What did you ask for?”

“Powers and riches.”

“Ah. And here you are, three years later, sitting in this ruin, stealing children and chaining them up. You probably still think you came out on top. You haven’t been blessed. You’ve been cursed, Aaron.” I pointed to the kids. “Was it worth it?”

“Yes.” His deep voice boomed. “I will get what I am owed.”

“On that we agree.”

I sprinted toward him, Sarrat in hand.

Aaron clawed the air. The magic wave above him plunged down and turned into real seawater, speeding toward me in a foamy current. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Darin grab Antonio and hold him up above his head.

The wave smashed into me. Like being hit by a charging bull made of concrete. The current jerked me off my feet. I gulped some air, and then the sea swallowed me. The raging water pushed to the back of the room in less than a second. I tried to curl into a ball, but the current was too strong and ice-cold, as if it had come from a melted glacier.

I hit the wall with my left side. Pain shot through my left shoulder all the way down to my fingertips. The impact reverberated through me, and for a second the world dissolved into soft, fuzzy darkness made of agony. The sea gripped me in a watery fist laced with Aaron’s magic, squeezing, hurting, threatening to cave my chest in. My bones groaned.

I clawed at the glimmer of the light, holding on to it through the agony, through the pressure, fighting through it, pushing past the threshold of pain. The darkness melted a little. I strained, trying to move my arms. Like trying to lift a car. The water pinned me to the wall, trying to crush me. I couldn’t raise my sword. I couldn’t even open my eyes. All I managed was a weak twitch.

Aaron’s magic burned me through the water. I felt it, a net woven from power borrowed from a god saturating the sea.

My body screamed for air. The memory of Darin lifting the smaller boy up flashed before me. He’d known what was about to happen. This is what Aaron did to them. This is how he punished them.

Not today. Not anymore.

I bit the inside of my mouth. The salty taste of my blood coated my tongue, the magic in it nipping at me with electric sparks.

Air! Air, air, air…

I had almost nothing left in my lungs, and I was about to spend it all.

I choked on my blood. It had to be enough. I strained and spat it out into the current with the most basic of power words. “Hesaad.” Mine.

The current convulsed like a living creature, a sea serpent caught between my blood and Aaron’s net. Seawater roiled, breaking into foam. Waves clashed, its grip on me loosened, and I surfaced long enough to suck in a desperate breath.

The sea pulled me under, and I whispered into it, letting it wash my bloody mouth. Amehe, amehe, amehe…Obey.

Something squirmed into my mouth. I tried to bite down on it, but it slipped past my teeth into my throat.

Aaron’s net broke. The sea ripped free. My feet touched the bottom, and I kicked up. My head broke the surface. Air. All the sweet air I could ever want.

The water streamed away, and I stood. It was to my armpits and rapidly receding.

My throat was on fire like someone had poured boiling oil into me. My left arm hurt like hell, and when I tried to move my shoulder, it ground, shooting spikes of pain both ways. I couldn’t lift it properly.

On the stage Aaron snarled. Magic twisted around him, building again.

I opened my mouth. Nothing came out. No voice. No power.

No matter. I still had my sword.

I started toward Aaron, wading through the water. It was barely to my thighs now, and I was moving fast.

Aaron jerked his hands up. A wallop of magic tore out from his hands and sank into the water in front of him. Three dark knots spun in the sea, sucking up the remaining water until it was barely up my ankle. The nearest whirlpool erupted. A big head broke the water. A round snout, bristling, blue fur, and huge tusks ready to gore.

Manannán’s eternal sea swine. Shit.

The whirlpool popped in a fountain of water, and the first pig spilled onto the floor, a walrus-sized monstrosity with porcine front legs armed with 9-inch hooves and tusks the size of carving knives. A forest of bright blue quills rose from its mane. Past its forequarters, the bristles stuck together, transforming into matching scales, and the body flowed seamlessly into a muscular, thick fish tail that coiled behind the beast in a classic Capricorn curve.

The first boar tore across the floor, aiming for me. Two others were forming behind it.

Legend said that Mucca Mhannanain, the eternal swine, provided an endless supply of food to the Tuatha Dé. They continuously regenerated, and the myths were fuzzy on how exactly that happened and how long it took. Killing them permanently was probably impossible. But I didn’t have to kill them. I just had to get past them.

The first boar charged, coming at me like a battering ram. Sea, land, it was still a boar, and the club’s dance floor was wet and slippery.

The two other boars scrambled across the floor, each on their chosen trajectory.

The first one was almost on me. Wicked tusks gleamed, the unnaturally pale, wet bone reflecting the feylanterns’ lights.

I twisted out of the way with zero time to spare, spun, turning, dashed left inches in front of the second boar, sliced at its snout in passing, and threw myself right, out of the third boar’s way. The gleaming tusk grazed my thigh in an icy slash, but I kept running.

Behind me the second boar collided with the first and snapped at it, enraged by the bloody gash across its snout. The third boar barreled into them, and they slid across the room in a tangled mass.

Sea hogs weren’t made for dancing.

I cleared the room and vaulted onto the stage.

Aaron raised his hands. Gold coins glittered in his fingers. They were large and yellow, with uneven edges, cold struck and minted by hand.

He smiled and hurled two at me. I dodged, but they turned and streaked toward me. One struck my right arm, the other hit my left. Heavy manacles clamped my wrists and sprouted chains that whipped into the water on the floor, where the sea hogs grunted, trying to follow me. The chain jerked my arms straight, sending a bolt of dizzying agony right into my left shoulder. Cold magic swirled through the metal, sinking into my skin.

Aaron held his coins on his palm and flicked them off one by one with his index finger. Two struck my legs and another hit my waist. Manacles clamped around my body. A web of chains shot out from me, sinking into the water. I wasn’t going anywhere.

Aaron smiled. “I don’t know how you broke out of my net, but I can use you.”

Icy water swirled around me in a crystal-clear column and swallowed me whole. It forced its way into me, into my pores, into my nose, my mouth, and began pulling me apart.

“It’s very difficult to transform a normal human,” Aaron’s magic voice echoed in both my ears despite the water filling them. “They don’t have enough magic to survive the transformation.”

The water pulled on me, trying to reshape me from inside out, and a different version of myself bloomed in my mind, one with gills and a long, glistening tail where my legs used to be.

The sea drew me in. I could feel its currents, sliding just beyond the ship. I heard its song, and it beckoned me. I wanted to swim.

“But you, whoever you are,” Aaron whispered. “You have all the magic in the world.”

I did. I did have all the magic in the world.

I focused inward, beyond the water, beyond Aaron’s magic, to the core of my power. I couldn’t speak the words, but I could think them. If faith had power, then thought had magic, and I wouldn’t permit my body to be polluted. This was my body, my blood, my bone. I owned it.

I thought the words, sinking all my power into them. Estene ared dair.

The magic swelled inside me, thrilled to be unleashed, as if it had been waiting for permission all along. I pushed, directing it to my throat, focusing all of my power on it.

Estene ared dair.

My magic collided with the creature lodged inside me. I strained, pushing hard, harder, through the blinding pain, through the instinctual panic, shaping my magic, wrapping the obstruction in it.

Pushing harder. Harder. Harder…

It came loose. The water around me broke. I gagged and spat out a tiny glowing jellyfish.

The words of a long-forgotten language spilled out on their own, crackling with power.

“ESTENE ARED DAIR.” You have no power over me.

The chains snapped, fracturing into a thousand pieces, and evaporated. Coins slid off me to the floor.

The old man cringed.

Aaron’s mouth gaped open, his face a mask.

“FEAR ME, FOR I AM DEATH WHO COMES TO THE TAKER OF CHILDREN.”

The ship quaked, rocked by the language of power. The sea hogs screamed in panic.

“ARRAT NASU SAR OR.”

Magic jerked Aaron off his feet, into the air, pulling his legs and arms taut.

“ARRAT UR AHU KARSARAN.”

His arms snapped, bones breaking in too many places to count. Aaron screamed. His magic splashed around him, broiling, but it couldn’t counter mine.

“ARRAT UR PIRID KARSARAN.”

His leg bones fractured. It sounded like firecrackers.

“OHIR GAMAR.”

The human bag of shattered bones who used to be Aaron landed on the stage. He howled as I walked to him, as I raised my sword, and as I struck, until Sarrat’s blade finally cut off his scream.

The sea swine melted back into seawater. The ocean streamed back through the gap in the hull, leaving puddles in its stead.

I raised Aaron’s head by its hair and turned to the old man.

He fell to his knees and smashed his forehead onto the stage with a thud.

My voice was hoarse. “Anyone else here who thinks he is a god?”

His voice quaked. “No, mistress.”

“Good.”

I turned to the nine prisoners.

The chains on their ankles had not disappeared. Damn.

“Darin?” I called.

He looked at me, startled.

“I’m a friend of your father.”

Darin blinked at me, clearly shocked. “My dad?”

“Yes. Thomas. I need you to explain what went on here.”

The chest of gold sat on the sea floor, about 20 feet down. The water was crystal-clear, and from my spot on the edge of the hull’s hole, every detail of it was visible. The dumpster-sized wooden box rested among the coral-textured boulders, encrusted with sea stars and urchins. Its carved lid was flung open, showing the gleaming treasure inside—a mound of gold coins, bright yellow like egg yolks, heaped in a small mountain and punctuated by glowing jewels. A god’s ransom. Literally.

Aaron had asked Manannán for powers and riches. He’d shown me his powers. That chest was the promised riches.

“On their first dive, everyone gets a coin,” Darin said. “Just one. The moment you touch the gold, you get chained up.”

Their chains led to that chest, growing from it like roots.

“Once you get that first coin and get chained, you bring it to Aaron, and he sends you back for more. Except you can dive all you want, and it won’t matter. You can touch the chest, you can scoop the coins up, but when you try to take them out of the water, they disappear.”

“And Aaron didn’t get chained when he touched those first coins?” I asked.

“Once you get a coin out of the water, anyone can hold it,” Darin said. “But only Aaron could use them.”

So each of Aaron’s coins came from that chest and cost the freedom of the diver. He didn’t dive for the coins himself. Otherwise, he would’ve been bound like the rest of them. No, he must’ve suspected that Manannán’s ransom came with a catch. He must’ve hired some kind of mer-person to fetch them, and once they got ensnared by the chest, he started kidnapping people.

Each of those coins radiated magic, and it was strong. The more coins, the stronger Aaron’s powers became.

“He would make us dive all the time,” the younger woman said. “Hours and hours. Even though we couldn’t bring anything back, he kept sending us in.”

The treasure really didn’t want me to ignore it. I wanted to keep looking at it. I wanted to dive down and touch those shiny yellow coins. To feel the metal rub against the ridges of my fingertips.

Aaron would’ve stared at it just like this. He could see it, but he couldn’t touch it. Three years of staring. It must’ve slowly driven him mad.

“Aaron stood right here often, didn’t he?” I asked.

“He’d stare at it for hours,” the woman with defiant eyes said. “Watching us as we swam back and forth, trying to bring the gold to him. Bastard.”

I was right. Manannán had cursed Aaron for daring to put his hands on his child, and he’d used gold to do it. It wasn’t surprising. He’d done it before. One time he had tempted Cormac mac Airt, the High King of Ireland, with a silver branch that bore three gold apples, and Cormac had become so obsessed with it that he had given Manannán his daughter, his son, and his wife just to possess it.

It was a hell of a trap. Manannán must’ve ripped a tear in the fabric of the world, connecting this spot to his coast where his powers were the strongest. He had dropped this chest on his side of the portal, fully within his power and in his domain, and then he had told Aaron to go get his treasure.

The golden hoard glittered. This was the source of the magic that was keeping the portal open. And every time anyone looked at it, Manannán got a little boost of power.

Because people didn’t just look at it—they coveted it.

Aaron had wanted to possess it, the captives had wanted to carry it so they could earn their freedom, and all of them had unwittingly worshipped Manannán every time they had swum to it. His own faith generator.

This wasn’t just devious. It was Machiavellian.

He would not want to give it up.

“Can’t you break it?” The defiant woman showed me her chain.

I shook my head.

“But I saw you. We all saw you…”

“Aaron was right. I have a lot of magic,” I said. “I’m very difficult to restrain. Tuatha Dé are cunning and malicious. Nothing they do is ever simple. Cutting through the chains is an obvious solution, and Manannán would’ve accounted for it. If I try to sever your chains, it might kill you.”

Her face twisted.

“So what do we do?” the other woman asked.

It took a bit of effort to turn away from the treasure.

I walked back to the stage and jumped onto it. Five gold coins lay glistening on the floor, where they had fallen when I broke my chains. Five coins but nine divers.

I looked at the old man, still kneeling with his forehead planted on the floor tiles. He hadn’t moved.

“You.”

“Garvey is here!” he proclaimed.

“Bring me the rest of the coins. All of them. I’ve already cut off two heads today. Don’t force me to make it three.”

He climbed to his feet and rushed off.

I went back to Aaron’s body, pulled out my knife, and cut a chunk off his robe, the one with the pocket on it. Using my knife, I nudged the coins into the pocket. I didn’t want to touch them.

The old man returned, huffing, and set a small wooden chest in front of me. I opened it. Seven more coins lying on blue velvet. I turned to the prisoners. “There are nine of you.”

“Kostya, Chandi, and Ari didn’t make it,” the younger woman said. “Aaron raged out sometimes.”

I had to get them free. No matter what it cost.

I emptied the pocket into the chest and handed it to Darin. “Take this down and put them back.”

He leaped into the water, cutting into it without a splash, and streaked to the treasure chest. Didn’t change shape. Like father, like son. Cautious.

“Will this fix it?” the angry woman demanded.

“Probably not, but it’s a good first step.”

The coins tumbled out of the small chest into the big one. The chains remained.

It would’ve been too simple.

Darin swam back and climbed up to stand next to me. “What now?”

I looked at Antonio, the little boy without a chain. “Are there any more kids like you? Without chains?”

He shook his head.

“Any other people who are here against their will?”

“Leslie.”

“Who is Leslie?”

“She is a cook,” Antonio said.

“Okay. Go get Leslie and have her bring whatever fuel she has in the kitchen. Oil, spirits, anything like that. And then you, and Leslie, and Garvey can help me gather wood. We’re going to build a bonfire, and then we’re going to pray.”

Either the cruise ship hadn’t bothered with flame retardant upholstery, or the magic somehow canceled it out, because the tower of chairs we’d gathered into a big pile went up like candles. We’d doused them in cooking oil and kerosene from the kitchen, but we might’ve as well not bothered. They burned like tinder despite the damp.

Hopefully the ceiling wouldn’t cave in on us.

We hadn’t found any more disciples while gathering wood. I had sent Antonio to all the places where they gathered, but he found only empty chairs. The woman who’d led me down to the arch must’ve gotten everyone off the ship. As far as I was concerned, letting them leave was more mercy than they deserved. If someone remained, it was on them.

“I’m not praying to him!” Elaine clenched her fists, making the scars on her arms stand out. “He’s the reason I’m here. Ten months! Ten months I haven’t seen my baby. My husband probably thinks I’m dead. My parents…”

Solina, the younger chained-up woman, hugged her.

Of all of them, Elaine had the most fight left in her, but she was like a knife that had been sharpened too much—dangerous yet brittle. She’d almost attacked the old man. Garvey had served Aaron voluntarily. He hadn’t been a slave or taken against his will; he had witnessed everything Aaron had done, and he’d stayed because Aaron had made it worth his while. Garvey deserved everything she wanted to do to him, but Elaine didn’t deserve having to live with it.

“I know it’s hard,” I told her. “And you’re angry. You have a right to be angry. But we must get these chains off so everyone can go home. If you won’t do it for yourself, do it for the kids.”

Elaine looked around at the clump of chained-up children. Her expression went slack.

“Are we good?” I asked her.

She nodded.

I pulled a small plastic bag out of one of my belt pockets and emptied the mix of herbs into the fire. Blue sparks burst from the fire, filling the air with a thick, smoky aroma. I funneled my magic into the flames, pulled a small vial of my blood out of another pocket, and dripped a few drops into the bonfire.

The flames turned crimson.

The fire pulsed with magic like a giant heart beating.

I didn’t even try to speak Gaelic. I only knew a handful of words, and I’d offend him more than anything. He’d bargained with Aaron so he’d understand me.

“Manannán mac Lir,” I said, sending another splash of magic into the fire.

“Manannán mac Lir,” the chained people intoned behind me.

“Son of the Sea.”

“Son of the Sea.”

“Lord of Emain Ablach…”

“Lord of Emain Ablach…”

“Mag Mell, and Tír Tairngire.” Some of those were technically synonymous, but no god ever wanted less titles. I kept going, echoed by a chorus.

“Over-King of Tuatha Dé Danann, Weaver of Magic Mists Féth Fíada, He who Captains the Self-Guiding Boat Sguaba Tuinne, He who Rides the Steed Aonbharr, your people seek you in their hour of need. We beg you to speak to us.”

They were his people. They might have come from different mythological origins, but all of them were people of the sea.

Nothing. Just ruby-colored flames. I hadn’t expected him to answer right away. It was a very long shot. Most deities refused to manifest, even for the briefest instant. Not only that, but this entire set-up functioned as a faith factory for him. That dumpster of gold was proof of his existence and power. He would know that I was calling to end it, and he’d be reluctant to part with it.

I didn’t share that fact with anyone because Elaine was on edge as it was. I needed them united and committed to begging.

The fire crackled.

I started over. “Manannán mac Lir, Son of the Sea…”

Fire calls were like a ringing phone, annoying and difficult to ignore. And I had a feeling Manannán might have gotten himself an avatar. In the myths, he liked to travel. The fire call would bug him even more than usual.

“Manannán mac Lir, Son of the Sea…”

“Manannán mac Lir, Son of the Sea…”

“Manannán mac Lir, Son of the Sea…”

“Manannán mac Lir, Son of the Sea…”

The flames flashed blue. A man rose from the fire. Tall, broad-shouldered, and muscular, he was naked to the waist. A long kilt or a belted robe hung off his hips, merging with the flames. His long hair and beard were the color of sea foam. His eyes were a deep, piercing blue.

“What?” Manannán demanded.

Finally.

I knelt. Everyone behind me knelt as well.

“Aaron is dead. We’ve returned your gold. Please release your people from your chains.”

“Who are you to bargain with me?”

“The killer of Neig.”

The deity pondered me. I kept kneeling. Dropping a dragon’s name should buy me some street cred.

“I meant for him to suffer for eternity. You’ve cut it short. You released him from his penance.”

“He was wrong to ransom your child. But since then, he has taken other children from their families. They suffer the way your child suffered, separated from their parents, denied the warmth and love of their family. They are innocent. We beg you to undo these chains.”

“They should be punished with him. All of you should be punished for allowing him to live and harm my child.”

I was wrong for killing him and also wrong for allowing him to live, and everyone should suffer. Tuatha Dé, ever so consistent and reasonable.

“We’ve corrected our mistake.”

“Too little, too late.”

I made a small motion with my hand. The three smallest children crawled forward, crying and wailing. We’d rehearsed it.

“Please, Father of Fiachra, Father of Niamh…”

The kids cried.

“…Father of Eachdond Mor, Father of…”

He grunted. “Enough! What do you offer?”

Shit. He wanted an offering. I didn’t have anything. Nothing valuable enough.

Think, think, think…

“What do you offer in compensation?” Manannán repeated.

“This ship.”

“This ruin?”

“This ship is a monument to human arrogance. It had cost untold riches to build and been filled with luxurious treasures, and yet it wasn’t used to transport goods or carry people across the waves from one destination to another. It went around in a circle, returning to the same port with all of its passengers still on board. It was built specifically for leisure, so humanity, in its conceit, could spend a few days floating on the ocean and scoffing at its power. It’s the vessel of people who thought they had conquered the sea.”

Manannán considered it. I held my breath.

“Is it yours to give?”

“Yes. I killed Aaron, so everything that was his is now ours. Please accept this vessel as our humble offering.”

“I agree. Remember my mercy.”

“Always, Lord Manannán.”

He disappeared.

The chains fractured and vanished. Someone cried out, as if unable to believe it.

The sea surged through the hole, licked the fire, and put it out in an instant.

Far ahead, at the cliffs, a wall of water rose, dark and menacing, climbing higher and higher. Something moved inside it. Something with very long tentacles.

“We have to go!” I barked.

Solina grabbed Antonio’s hand. “This way!”

Everyone ran after her, and I brought up the rear, keeping the kids in front of me. Garvey followed us, scrambling to keep up. We dashed down the pitch-black hallway, scurrying through the bowels of the ship on feel alone.

Elaine made a sharp right turn ahead. The caravan of kids followed her and so did I. Mark, the gaunt man, scooped the smallest child up and carried her.

Something hit the hull. The colossal ship trembled.

Boom!

Boom! Boom!

My brain helpfully supplied a vision of enormous tentacles wrapping around the vessel.

I burst through the door after the kids, into a stairwell dimly lit by a single feylantern above. The children pounded up the metal stairs. I rushed upward. One turn. Two…

The door behind me burst open. Garvey hauled his bony body through it and started up the stairs.

Round and round, we charged up the stairs.

The door below us snapped open again. Water shot into the stairwell, foaming and rising.

“Faster!” I yelled.

The kids huffed in front of me, slowing down.

The water caught Garvey. A long, buttery creature swirled in its depths, wrapped around the old man, and pulled him under.

The ship groaned, metal screeching, and moved.

I clung to the stairs.

The ship froze again.

“Almost there!” Solina screamed.

The kids stomped up the steps. I chased them.

Ahead a door banged open.

I rounded the stairs and burst through the door onto a deck fifty feet above the sea. I was on the side facing the shore. The beach was a thousand feet away. A gigantic octopus tentacle, ten feet across, gripped the ship next to me.

When that monstrosity pulled the ship into Manannán’s domain, it would take us with it. Even if we jumped down into the sea, when the ship moved, it would generate a current that would suck us in, and Manannán wouldn’t let us go.

We had to make it to solid ground before he took the ship. That was our only hope.

The children leaped off the deck into the water below.

The tentacles squeezed. Metal screamed in protest.

A thousand feet to the shore. And so far down.

Darin grabbed my hand and ran to the deck. I didn’t have time to think about it. The deck ended, the water yawned at me, for a terrified moment I was airborne, and then I plunged into the ocean.

The water swallowed me. I went in deep and kicked randomly, not sure which way was up. In front of me, the dark mass of the cruise ship slid backward, dragged off by something too colossal for a human mind to comprehend. A current gripped me, pulling me back toward the ship.

Darin shifted. His body twisted, and then the human was gone. A merman looked at me with turquoise eyes, his body flowing into a powerful fish tail. Darin spun me around, and we shot away from the Emerald Wave as if dragged by a speed boat.

The sea gripped us, not wanting to let go, trying to pull us back toward the cruise ship.

Darin sped up.

We flew through the ocean depth, trying to fight against the current.

There wasn’t enough air.

Suddenly the pressure vanished. Darin stopped and pulled me up. We surfaced. The sandy beach was only twenty feet away. I dropped my feet and touched the bottom.

The sky above us glowed gently with the promise of sunrise, pink and lavender brightening the deep indigo of the retreating night. The Emerald Wave was gone, and the strange nexus of magic had vanished with it.

I took a deep breath and lay on my back. I was so tired.

Something splashed through the water toward me, but I was too exhausted to react.

Curran’s face appeared above me. “Hey, baby.”

I reached out and touched his face. Real and warm. “Hey.”

“Went swimming without me?”

“I thought you might catch up.”

He wrapped his arms around me. “I was delayed.”

“They showed up?”

“They did.”

The first sliver of sun broke the horizon. The water sparkled. A couple dozen feet away, Antonio and Leslie staggered onto the beach, holding hands. A tan, naked man with red hair paced up and down the surf, looking nervously in our direction.

“Is our son okay?”

“Yes.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” I snuggled against him. “Who is the naked guy on the beach?”

“Troy. He’s a medmage. He says he trained with Doolittle.”

“Oh good. I think my left arm is broken.”

Curran made a low growling noise. I put my good arm around him and kissed him.

A beautiful mermaid slid past us in the water, her dark, curly hair streaming behind her in wet spirals, her eyes bright red, and I realized it was Solina. She was smiling.

“Ready to go home?” Curran asked.

“In a minute.”

In the distance Darin leaped out of the water, his tail a brilliant, heart-breaking blue. Behind him the rest of the kids jumped like a pod of dolphins, their tails, fins, and scales glistening.

We floated in the warm water, while the sun rose and the mer-children from a dozen myths played in the waves.

THE END