Chapter 30 - Marella
Everything around me sounded muffled. Voices filtered through my consciousness like they were being pulled through water.
Words came too slow and then too fast, but never at a speed I could quite understand.
It was as though everyone was speaking a language I’d never heard, understanding slipping away from me even as I tried to grasp it.
Everything hurt. I could feel wetness pooling beneath my scalp, but I couldn’t lift my hands to check the severity of the damage.
Then, one sound cut through the rest, a voice, angry and panicked and desperate, but here. And then there was something soft on my shoulder, beneath my neck, holding my head as if it was made of glass.
And maybe now it was.
Another arm wrapped around me, cradling my shoulders and lifting me from the hard stone floor. When I was finally able to open my eyes, all I could see was gold. The low light in the room reflected off his hair, making him look as though he wore a halo.
But his face was not magnanimous like ancient images of angels. In fact, he wasn’t looking at me at all. His teeth were bared, and his eyes were bright, and he was shouting something I still couldn’t quite grasp at someone on the other side of the room.
When that someone responded, the sound made the blood in my veins turn to ice.
"Don’t be an idiot, boy," that gravelly, dry voice mocked. "I didn’t bring you here to kill you. But if you insist on remaining a pest, I will do just that."
As my vision finally began to clear, I looked around, beyond Garrett’s face, to take in our surroundings. We were in a dank, stone cavern lit by sconces and stinking of filth and sulfur.
With a jolt, I realized that I’d been there before. There was no water on the ground now—that had long since dried up—but the smell of rot was unmistakable.
We were in the witch’s lair.
Garrett’s fingers tightened against my shoulder. "Why did you bring us here?" he demanded.
I opened my mouth, trying to form words, but no sound came out. His blue eyes cut towards me for just a fraction of a second, but in that moment, I saw them soften.
"You are here to receive a warning," the Stone Witch answered. "Stop trying to interfere with me, and I’ll let you live out the rest of your miserable, cursed life in peace. I tend to ignore those who ignore me."
Garrett started to respond, but she raised a hand to silence him. "But if you insist on provoking me," she continued, "I will lock you into stone alongside the merfolk and ensure that you never breathe another free breath in your life."
His mouth snapped shut.
"As for you," the witch turned her attention to Ordina. "You did what I asked. You delivered your sister and the Fratello to me. And you’ll find that our bargain is fulfilled."
My breath caught, and I finally found my voice.
"Ordina," I whispered, pushing my way up. Garrett kept his hands on my shoulders, supporting me as I stood. "What have you done?"
My sister stood on the far side of the room, in front of the only exit. She glared at me through red-rimmed eyes. "I did what you should have done from the start," she snapped. "I made a bargain to free our remaining family. I’ve saved us. You should be thanking me."
I took stock of my body, searching for the familiar ache of thirst at the back of my throat.
It was still there. And when I ran my tongue over my teeth, I could still feel the sharp prick of my canines. I looked to Garrett, who shook his head almost imperceptibly. He hadn’t changed either.
Across the room, Ordina seemed to be coming to the same conclusion.
"But you haven’t—"
"I told you I’d free you from the fountain." The Stone Witch smiled as she spoke. "I never said I’d release you from your thirst."
Ordina’s mouth flew open. "We made a deal."
"And I’ve fulfilled my end of that deal." Her voice was tight and mocking. "Like your mother, you could work on the specificity of your requests."
She turned her attention back to Garrett. We stood, face-to-face, his arms on my shoulders as he glared at the witch. "I suggest you retreat now, boy. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll leave this city, and my creatures, behind."
Garrett tightened his grip on my shoulders, pulling me towards his chest protectively. The gesture made my heart ache.
"And if I don’t?" he snarled, voice angrier than I’d ever heard it.
Petra eyed him boredly. "As I already said," she drawled.
"I’ll turn you to stone." Her eyes raked across us, up and down our bodies as we stood together.
"This would make a lovely statue, come to think of it. Perhaps I’ll freeze you both now and be done with it.
" She looked into the distance, examining something we couldn’t see.
"The time has run out on our bargain anyway, dear Marella.
And you seem to have failed in your quest."
I glanced between her and Garrett, feeling a lump forming in the back of my throat. It shouldn’t have surprised me, but hearing her confirmation, realizing that nothing had been undone, and knowing that that could only mean one thing…
That Garrett didn’t love me…
It hurt like nothing I’d ever experienced. Some deep part of me, still and long-buried, had been awoken these past few days. Seeing the good in someone like Garrett, witnessing his patience, feeling his gentleness… it broke something within me.
Or maybe it had healed something.
I swallowed once before speaking, unsure whether the bounds of the bargain still prevented me from revealing its stipulations to Garrett. When the words came out, I felt a deep sense of relief. "You swore he’d be safe, regardless of whether I succeeded."
She smiled again. "I said he’d live, little sea brat. As you well know, one can live within stone for millennia if I will them to."
"What is she talking about?" Garrett looked between me and the witch, brow furrowing.
Petra’s smile grew wider. "Oh, of course!" She looked positively delighted. "She couldn’t tell you, could she?"
Garrett’s eyes bored into mine as she spoke. And from the corner of my vision, I saw movement.
"I can’t seal you away forever without letting you know how close you came to another fate."
Across the room, I saw Ordina take a single step backwards, her eyes on something I couldn’t quite see.
Petra addressed Garrett as I slowly moved myself between them. "Your little friend here made a bargain with me. If she could make a member of the Fratelli—you, my boy—fall in love with her in a week, I would free her family from their curse."
Behind Petra, Ordina’s expression grew shocked for just a moment, her attention focused on movement somewhere else in the room.
My heart pounded relentlessly, heat boiling beneath my cheeks. I couldn’t bring myself to look at Garrett, but I felt his eyes on me as she continued talking.
"But she grew insolent. And so I upped the ante. If she failed—I got to keep you. And her family still wouldn't be free."
Garrett’s fingers tightened on my shoulders again.
"And after all of that," her face fell into a mocking frown, "you couldn’t even love her." She smiled again, voice dropping low. "Too bad."
She raised her hand in our direction. Instinctively, I shoved my way fully between them, ready to protect Garrett from whatever spell she was about to cast.
But it never hit us. From behind me, I heard a frustrated shout, and when I turned, I saw Lucas, still bleeding, clinging to the witch from behind and raising his knife above her throat.
He brought his hand down hard, and for a moment, I let myself hope that he would succeed.
The blade should have sunk into her throat.
But it didn't. Instead, the stone beneath it seemed to harden. The tip skittered across her skin, leaving little more than a pale scratch.
Petra smiled.
Lucas struck again, harder this time. Somehow, she looked stronger for it.
Finally, just as he reared back for a third blow, Petra gripped him by the hair with both hands, and flung him from her shoulders into the stone wall beside Ordina. He hit with a sickening crack, hard enough that several large stones dislodged from the wall and tumbled down onto his still form.
Ordina screamed as he fell, but I didn’t have time to see whether he was okay, because Garrett was suddenly running past me, knife drawn, taking advantage of Lucas’s distraction to throw himself onto the witch.
She rounded on him just in time to parry his first attempt.
The knife caught her across the shoulder, splitting stone and exposing a thin line of pale flesh beneath.
Petra's expression turned deadly, and her eyes narrowed on Garrett's knife.
He followed her gaze with his own, and something in his expression hardened.
He struck again, fury coating his features.
But this time, the blade struck stone, as it had with Lucas.
Petra smiled again. But before she could move, I ran towards her as well. I didn’t have a knife, but I thought that the sheer hatred filling my bones would do.
It did not. She knocked me over like a leaf on the breeze, sending me sprawling backwards and into a wall as Garrett jumped once more into the fray. Desperation bled from every inch of his face as he stabbed and cut and slashed, but she blocked him each and every time. She looked almost bored.
Then, with one final, massive shove, she sent him flying backwards as well. He didn’t hit the ground as hard as Lucas, but the force rattled him enough that his legs wobbled as he tried to right himself.
I pushed upright, clutching what I was sure was a broken arm, and limped towards him.
And I almost made it. She gave us just enough time to meet each other’s gaze. Just enough time that I could see the apology written across his face. My fingers brushed the loose fabric of his robes—
Then she snapped her fingers.