Chapter 19 Toran #2
She laughed, a real laugh, and he shot her a wide grin. He held that grin until the quiet crept up on them, snuffing out her laugh like a gust sweeping over a flame.
He watched as her gaze found the sea. Watched as she stared at the ocean like she might one day find a way to conquer it. He stared, too. The sea was boundless. It was the one thing in the world that couldn’t be claimed.
“In the spirit of honesty, tell me this.”
He turned back to her, curiosity piquing.
“What do you think is going to happen once we find the Witch?”
“What do you mean?”
She snorted, the sound anything but dainty. “She’s the Witch. And you’re…” She waved a hand at him.
“A handsome face?”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re a guard.”
He put a hand to his dripping-wet chest. His overexaggeration was just big enough to mask the real hurt pinging underneath. “I’m much more than a guard.”
“You are,” she said, her teasing tone gone, the truth sudden and bare between them. “Though an inexperienced hunter, you are the Crown and the best fighter this country has.”
“And here I thought you didn’t give compliments.”
“It’s not a compliment.” Her shoulders straightened, her chin lifted, and suddenly she seemed taller than him. “But that might as well mean nothing.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s the Witch,” Nes said. “You have no idea the kind of power she has.”
He straightened, too. “I know some—”
“You don’t.”
Her tone made him stiffen.
“You think you know because you’ve heard stories or seen a bit of magic on the streets.
But that’s not enough. Nowhere near enough.
” She stared at him, her eyes like stones, her gaze unwavering.
Gone was the soft, rolling blue he’d glimpsed.
“This is the Witch we’re talking about. She doesn’t just have magic. She is magic.”
She shook her head and turned her back to him, heading for the street. A few steps away, she looked back. Her face was a battleground of emotions. “And, Cap, you have no idea what you’re up against.”
She left him then, disappearing into the crowds in a single blink.
She is magic.
Her words swam through his head. Nes might as well have said the Witch was evil. For anyone but the Goddess, magic was evil. And if the Witch was magic, as Nes claimed, then she, too, was evil. She had to be stopped.
He wondered what it had been like for Nes to watch Captain Mikaud die at the hands of the Witch. To see evil incarnate take her friend from her. And he wondered if that was what spurred her to warn him.
For the first time since meeting Nes, he wished he knew her past. He wanted to know what had made her the girl he saw today.
When he’d seen her trying to save them all in the Drowning Square, he thought he understood her.
Thought he saw his own reflection in the despair on her face.
But there were things he had missed. Things he couldn’t see with his eyes.
“I wouldn’t go there if I were you.”
Too late.
Toran turned to face Quint. “It’s not like that.” And though the lie rolled smoothly off his tongue, his emotions broke free of their cage.
Genna stored the oars under the seats and climbed out of the rowboat. “Not like what?” she asked. “ ’Cause it most certainly isn’t an innocent business arrangement.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Sergeant Rizzo, don’t you have somewhere else to be?”
Genna tied the rowboat to the dock before straightening to her full height—a good head shorter than himself. She grinned. “No.”
It was only then that he remembered he and Nes wanted to question Genna about Fell’s mission. But Nes had stormed off. He supposed that conversation would have to wait. It didn’t feel right to have it without Nes.
He turned to Quint. “What did you find?”
Quint briefly glanced between him and Genna. “Unfortunately, not much. Aeos employs a barter system with the Witch.”
“In what way?”
“In that they learn what the Witch wants and give it to her in exchange for helping them.”
“Well, that part’s easy. We already know she wants Captain Fell dead.”
“Great.” Genna clapped her hands together. “We’ll kill Fell for the Witch, then she turns herself over to you, and immediately the world is a better place.”
“As nice as a world without Fell sounds, we can’t offer up his life to the Witch.”
Genna wrinkled her nose. “I certainly wouldn’t mind.”
Quint eyed Genna like he wouldn’t trust her no matter how far he could throw her. “What do you have against Captain Fell?”
It was a question he very much wanted to know the answer to himself.
“That’s none of your business,” Genna snapped. “Focus on your Captain’s problems.”
Quint blinked several times, baffled by Genna’s outburst. Toran bit his lip to keep from grinning.
He couldn’t recall a time someone had ever spoken to Quint in such a manner.
No one had a problem with Quint. His best friend was the most agreeable, well-mannered person he’d ever met. And Genna was…not.
He twisted the end of his shirt, sending a stream of water onto the dock. Nothing had gone exactly as planned today.
“There has to be another way,” he said. “Something we missed. The Witch has been around for centuries, and no one’s found a way to subdue her? I don’t believe that.”
“Aeos was our best shot,” Quint reasoned. “They’re the only country that has been in support of the Witch from the start.”
Genna uncrossed her arms to hold a finger out. “I’m not sure I’d call wanting to use her power ‘support.’ ”
Toran nodded. “Regardless, you would think the Aeosch would have been the ones to do it.”
“You have to face facts,” Genna said. “The Witch only has one weakness. We’re lucky we know about it.”
Beside him, Quint was frowning. Toran could see the way his thoughts stirred behind his eyes. “What is it?”
Quint looked over to him. “I was thinking about what Nes said to you before she left.”
“You heard us?” Toran couldn’t help the blush rising up his neck at the thought.
“Something seemed off when the three of you returned to the docks. It’s part of my job to watch out for you, Toran.”
He met Quint’s gaze, and though neither of them said it, he could hear their usual call and response all the same.
What are you looking for?
You.
“Congratulations. You are an admirably loyal eavesdropper,” Genna said. “What’s your point?”
“She said the Witch ‘is magic,’ ” Quint explained. “What if we’re looking at this all wrong?”
“How so?”
“The Witch is drowned in the ocean because we know only by submerging her completely can she be killed. But we also know pure magic can be diluted with seawater—its potency lessened, so to speak. Maybe we should be trying to find a way to do the same to the Witch.”
Toran turned Quint’s words over in his head. They made sense. If pure magic could be diluted, then it stood to reason the Witch could be weakened in a similar way.
“You think there’s a way to use the ocean against the Witch? Other than killing her?” Genna asked.
“Not the ocean,” Toran said, Loriana’s written words returning to him. “But something to use against her.”
“Like what?”
“Like real siren hair.”
“Real siren hair?” Genna scoffed. “Toran, I think you swallowed a bit too much seawater when we tipped.”
He frowned, turning to Quint.
“I hate to agree, but what you’re proposing is impossible,” Quint said. “Sirens are notoriously difficult to hunt down, even more so than the Witch. They live deep in the ocean and rarely surface.”
“The only time they’re known to surface is after a shipwreck to collect the dead,” Genna pointed out.
Like Loriana’s.
He shook his head. He needed to stay focused. “But in her journal, Loriana said, ‘I will find the Witch and bind her with siren’s hair from home.’ Don’t you see?”
For he finally did. He saw Loriana as she grinned at him and berated him and kissed him—all the while with that thin, shimmery bracelet wrapped around her wrist.
Quint and Genna both stared at him.
“The head of a siren isn’t the only place we can get siren hair. The Kono Islands have it, too.”