Chapter Twenty-One
Kiela decided to bury herself in research. She’d promised Halio, her customer with the whispery voice, that she’d find a remedy for her waterless spring, but between the cloud bears, the storm, and the merbaby . . . Well, she had work to do, and the rescued woman—Radane, she reminded herself—was fine, as was Larran.
She flipped the sign on her shop door to “Open” and asked Caz to watch for customers, while she barricaded herself in the back room. Sitting on the bed, she began with the index they’d created to identify the relevant tomes.
But she kept thinking about Larran.
And Radane.
And Larran again.
And about the way she’d run out of the bakery, after offering to help Bryn, and hadn’t given any kind of reason. How was she going to explain that?
Usually, when she sank into research mode, she blocked out the rest of the world. It faded away until all that existed was books. Sequestered within the library, she’d lose track of time and would work through meals, through sleep, with little awareness of whether it was day or night. But this time it was near impossible to focus. Maybe it was because the heavy scent of sea left behind by the mermaid still lingered in the air, which made her think of fleeing to Larran’s house as the rain fell. Or maybe it was because the soft cotton of the quilt reminded her of the feel of Larran’s shirt after she’d changed out of her wet clothes. She thought of how close he’d been as they gazed out at the storm, how she’d almost kissed him. And then how everything had changed in an instant.
She was sorting haphazardly through books on water magic when she discovered a slim book with cramped and faded writing inside, simply titled On Storms. Setting aside the problem of Halio’s waterless spring and the dry town fountain, Kiela picked up a notebook and began studying the work of a master sorcerer who had made it her life’s mission to understand the taming of storms.
It was only after reading the book three times that Kiela conceded that it was impossible. One lone librarian-turned-shopkeeper couldn’t tame a storm. It required a wind-speaker, a sorcerer who was specially trained in weather magic. Wind spells were so carefully guarded that only wind-speakers knew them. In other words, the spell wasn’t written down. The book only alluded to it.
And even if she was a wind-speaker, she couldn’t cast it. It was a feat that could only be accomplished by a group of sorcerers, executing the spell in unison. Even if Caz joined her, even if the cactus learned to speak, it wouldn’t be enough. Such magic required a chorus.
Regretfully, Kiela set the storm book aside and returned to the smaller, more possible task of causing water to flow again. Two hours later, she’d made significant progress. She was copying the syllables for the spell, as well as a list of ingredients, into her notebook when she heard voices from the shop. Concentrating on her penmanship, she ignored them. Caz could handle this sale without her.
And then the voices came closer to the bedroom door.
Springing off the bed, she covered her books and notes with a quilt before she realized she knew the voices: Caz, of course, and Larran. She froze for only a second before rushing out the door and closing it quickly behind her.
Larran was inches in front of her, his hand already raised to knock on the bedroom door. Her speedy appearance had clearly startled him—his eyes were wide, and he forgot to lower his hand. She looked up at him and said eloquently, “Hi.”
“Uh, hi? Sorry to interrupt your nap? Caz said you could help.”
She glanced at Caz, and he waved his leaves. She wasn’t certain what he was trying to say, but he ducked out into the garden. Perhaps to give them privacy? Or to check on Meep? Looking up at Larran again, she blurted out, “Sure, yes, maybe, probably? With what?” Kiela winced at herself for that mess of words. “Oh! I still have your shirt!” She hadn’t washed it yet, but she also hadn’t worn it long. Crossing to the kitchen chair where she’d left it draped over the back, she picked it up and sniffed it. It smelled a lot like Larran.
“Caz said you helped a merbaby with storm sickness.”
Caz really needs to watch what he says. “Old family remedy.” She immediately wished she’d thought of another excuse, since Larran had actually known her family. She didn’t think either of her parents had ever dabbled in healing, nor had any contact with merfolk. Until the mermaid spoke, she didn’t even know merfolk could speak to land people—according to everything she’d read, they communicated with one another in trills and songs, like whales and dolphins. “Why? Is Radane all right? Are you?”
“It’s Sian. She hasn’t been herself since the storm. I thought her favorite treat, tomatoes, would help. That’s why I came, to see if you had more ripened tomatoes. But then Caz said—”
A whole day had passed since the storm. If Sian had been sick all this time . . . Kiela thought of the merbaby and how close he had come to dying. “Do you think she has storm sickness?”
Larran spread his hands. “I don’t know. Maybe? I haven’t encountered it before with one of my merhorses. Usually they dive beneath the waves for the duration of the storm, but Sian . . .”
He’d ridden her out to rescue the woman on the boat, and she’d been directly exposed to the storm. Kiela burst into motion. I need the spell. She could take just the page to hide the fact that it came from a spellbook, though everything in her quailed at the idea of damaging a book. I’ll copy it onto a fresh sheet. But what about the ingredients, especially the verisad leaves? She’d used all of them for the mermaid. How was she going to find more—
Caz tumbled back in through the garden. He had a wad of leaves pressed between his tendrils. What a brilliant plant. She’d just need the lightning bark and soil. As she scurried back and forth assembling the ingredients, she realized Larran was watching her.
How was she going to explain all of this to him? It looked like a spell. It sounded like a spell. She didn’t have time to figure out how to modify it so that it didn’t. “Can Sian swim to my cove? It’ll be easier to treat her there.”
He shook his head. “She’s on the rocks. I don’t dare try to move her.”
Fine. She’d have to hope that Larran was too worried to notice exactly what she was doing. “You go back to her, try to keep her comfortable. Caz and I will gather what we need and meet you there.”
He agreed to that and headed for the door.
“Wait,” she called. She darted out to the garden, plucked three tomatoes, and then returned and thrust them at him. “Go. Comfort her until I get there.”
He took the tomatoes, and his hands brushed hers. “Do you really think you can help her?” His eyes were anxious, and she saw every bit of fear and hope he was holding inside.
She knew she should say she’d try. Any decent scholar would couch her response in qualifications. It was inaccurate to claim any kind of certainty. But looking into his eyes, all she could say was “Yes.”
Clutching the concoction and a hastily scrawled copy of the spell, Kiela hurried through the woods, across the field, and down the stairs to the shore. She ran through the list of ingredients in her head, certain she hadn’t forgotten anything but calmed by the repetition of the list, and then the words to the spell, silently practicing the music of the syllables.
Caz galumphed beside her, using his tendrils to catapult his soil ball forward. At the stairs, he simply wrapped his leaves around his roots and rolled from step to step. He reached the bottom before she did.
Up ahead, she spotted Larran out on the jetty with Sian—the horse-fish was slumped over the rocks, and for one horrible moment, Kiela thought they were too late. But then Sian lifted her tail for an instant before lowering it again.
“We need a way to distract Larran,” Kiela said. “He’ll want to hover.”
“Tell him you need one more ingredient,” Caz suggested. “While he’s helping me find it, you can cast the spell.”
“Perfect. It’s a plan.”
“Just make sure it’s an ingredient he’d have in the kitchen, not, like, seaweed.”
“I wasn’t going to say seaweed.”
Caz halted at the end of the jetty, and Kiela stepped onto the first rock. From the house behind them, she heard the door open and turned her head to see Radane step out onto the porch. The rescued woman wore a loose green dress that fluttered in the breeze, her hair was tied back with a white bow, and she looked fully recovered from her ordeal.
Caz asked the question that Kiela wanted to ask: “Why’s she here?”
She supposed the new arrival didn’t have anywhere else to stay, but still . . . It was, at the very least, inconvenient to have her here too. Also, she was certain that Larran only had one bed.
Radane smiled radiantly at them. “Oh, good day! Are you here for the laundry?”
Laundry? Did she think — Never mind. It didn’t matter. “No, we—” Kiela didn’t want to spend the time explaining, not when Larran and Sian needed her. “Caz?” She turned and picked her way along the stones toward Larran, while Caz greeted Radane.
“We’re neighbors,” Caz told her. “We came to help Larran with his merhorse. We have an old island herbal remedy that’s good with colic. Learned it from an old villager years ago.”
Radane boggled at the spider plant. “You talk! What a fascinating revelation.” Kneeling, she began to examine him, lifting up a tendril and peering under his leaves. “I had believed sentient plants only existed on Alyssium.”
Caz recoiled. “No touchy, please.”
Kiela felt prickles on her neck and hoped that Radane’s reaction wasn’t going to be a problem. Sentient plants weren’t common outside the capital city, but there was nothing illegal about Caz existing. Unlike the cactus, Kiela was legitimately not responsible for his creation.
One problem at a time.
“Did this villager also create you?” Radane asked. “I would be honored to meet him or her.”
“Sadly, my creator died in a fire.”
If Radane was interested enough in Caz, it might be sufficient distraction for Kiela to get the job done. She raised her eyebrows at him, and Caz shook a tendril at her— go, it meant.
Kiela hurried down the jetty toward Larran and Sian. “I’ve brought the remedy.” She emphasized the word “remedy.” She wondered if she should repeat Caz’s lie about the old villager.
He didn’t look up. “She’s weakening. Look at her eyes.”
Her eyes were cloudy with flashes of light that swallowed her pupils. Her once-golden scales were a lemon yellow, laced with streaks of purple—faint, but after the merbaby, Kiela knew what to look for. Sian was definitely storm sick. She’s dying. An uneaten tomato lay beside her on the rocks.
“I need pepper,” Kiela said. It was the first kitchen item she thought of. “I didn’t have any, but the remedy will be more effective with it.”
Jumping to his feet, Larran shouted, “Radane, can you get the bottle of pepper? Third shelf to the left of the sink. Please, hurry!” He squatted again and stroked Sian’s mane.
Well, that didn’t work. And now she’d have to wait for Radane to return, or Larran would suspect she’d lied. Worse, the woman would probably come out onto the jetty, and then Kiela would have two witnesses.
“Also, rosebuds. I was in such a hurry that I forgot to gather them.” She pointed to the top of the cliff, where the bushes hugged the edge. “I’ll need six.”
He turned back to the house to call to Radane again, but she had already gone inside. He took a breath to shout to Caz, and she interrupted him. “He doesn’t have thumbs,” Kiela said.
“What?”
“No opposable thumbs. It’s hard for him to pick roses.”
“But I’ve seen—”
“Also, it’s against his ethics to harm other plants.” That wasn’t true. He’d delivered the verisad leaves to her, after all, as well as multiple other ingredients. But it sounded plausible. “He wouldn’t forgive himself if he harmed a rosebush, even to save a life. Could you please—”
“Of course.” He bounded down the jetty.
When he was far enough away, Kiela knelt beside Sian. The merhorse was breathing shakily, each inhalation causing her entire body to ripple. Her tail was flapping weakly against the rocks.
Quickly, Kiela smeared the remedy along Sian’s spine. She hoped they’d made enough. Sian was quite a bit larger than the merbaby, and it had been longer since the storm before treatment—more time for the sickness to spread and worsen.
This has to work. She’d promised Larran.
Taking a deep breath, she unfolded the spell and softly, insistently, read the syllables.
She waited a moment.
Behind her, from the beach, she heard Larran’s footsteps on the stairs as he ran up them to retrieve the rosebuds. Waves crashed against the rocks of the jetty. She kept all her focus on Sian. “Come on, you can do it,” she whispered. “You’ll be okay.”
She read the spell again, louder this time.
The purple streaks between the scales began to pulse.
Please, let this work!
Kiela wrapped an arm around Sian’s neck and spoke the words a third time, directly into Sian’s ear. Her other hand shook as she held the paper with the spell. Please, please, please. She pronounced each word as clearly as she could.
Suddenly, the merhorse convulsed in her arms. Her back arched, and her tail slapped the rocks. Kiela heard Larran cry, “Sian!”
He was close.
How close? What did he see? What did he hear? It didn’t matter. Only Sian mattered right now. Kiela stared into the merhorse’s eyes. “Come on. Be okay. Please.”
Like the clouds draining from the sky after the storm, the milky white cleared from Sian’s eyes. They deepened back into their rich blue, and the lightning vanished. The color of her scales spread like a sunrise, the gold overwhelming the purple streaks.
Sian stuck her muzzle in Kiela’s hair and snorted.
Kiela laughed and released the horse-fish, who promptly inhaled the uneaten tomato. Pushing off the rocks with her front hooves, Sian launched herself back into the waves. A smile on her face, Kiela turned to face Larran—
And saw Radane staring at her, only a few feet away.
Caz was at her feet, quivering on the rocks, unable to pull Radane’s attention back to shore. Larran dove into the water. A second later, he surfaced. Sian played in the waves around him.
Holding the paper behind her back, Kiela crumpled the spell and dropped it into the sea. She stood up, hands empty. “Guess it didn’t need the pepper or the rosebuds.”
“Miraculous,” Radane said.
“Just an old herbal remedy,” Kiela said.
Joyful, Larran played with Sian in the waves, while Radane watched and Kiela tried to convince herself that she’d done the right thing, not made an irreversible mistake.