Page 34 of A Magic Deep & Drowning

While Maurits was deep in conversation, Clara took the opportunity to eat some of the fish. Stealthily at first, but then ravenously. She closed her eyes, the crispy skin salty against her lips. It was the best thing she had ever eaten. She shoved a few more in her mouth, barely stopping to chew them.

“You’re eating. Good.”

Her eyes flew open to find Maurits turned back to her, watching her intently. Immediately, she pushed the remaining fish away and glared at him. He sighed.

“I have to go attend to some... business. Will you be all right here for a little while? I promise I shall return, and I will bring clothes for you. Something warm.”

In answer, she turned back to the wall, waiting for him to leave.

“Your lady is downright feral, isn’t she?” The words were spoken in the musical hiss of the creature, and sent prickles down Clara’s arms.

“She is not feral,” Maurits said sharply. “And I would wager that she does not wish to be considered ‘my lady,’ either.”

The creature made a little sound that Clara interpreted as a smirk, and then there were twin splashes of water.

Alone at last. The emptiness of the cave wrapped around her, every drip of water magnified and echoing. Clara finished the fish and drank greedily from the bucket of clear water that Maurits had provided. When her belly was finally full, she stood up, surveying her surroundings with renewed determination.

She could not stay here. Maurits was not to be trusted.

But what was there for her on land? An empty house—and that was assuming there was a house at all—a dead family? And what of the rest of Friesland? What was the extent of the flood? Were there other cities still standing, cities that she could go to? But even if there were, she could not simply reappear in her smallclothes and expect to step back into society.

She had to try. She would not be a prisoner, subject to the whims of a man—or whatever he was—who was untrustworthy at best, and dangerous at worst. If she was to escape, it had to be now, while he was gone.

The sliver of light that filtered in through a crack was much too high above her to reach, as she had already discovered from her first attempt at scaling the walls.

Which left the water.

There was no current here, no movement from the inky black water, but Clara could feel energy charging it all the same. It was a living thing, home to creatures that she could not even begin to imagine. Her eyes had been closed for most of the descent with Maurits, but she doubted that she would have been able to reconstruct their journey anyway.

Testing the water with one toe, she shivered. Maybe it was better to wait for Maurits to return. Force him to take her back. But what if he came back with that creature again, or others? What if what he said about his mother was true, and he decided to take Clara to her after all? No, she could not risk it.

Sitting on the edge of the rock, she carefully put both her feet in up to her ankles. The water was placid, only faint ripples emanating from where her calves now dipped. No sea monsters or angry queen came spiraling up from the water, so she slid further in, twisting her body so that she could grip the rock ledge as she lowered herself down.

There had never been an opportunity for her to learn how to swim, and indeed, she doubted that it would have served her now, in any case. But if there was light above her, then all she needed to do was hold her breath, pull herself up along the rocks as far as she could, and she should be able to reach the surface.

Taking a deep breath, Clara closed her eyes, and prayed that she was right.

Chapter Nineteen

There were not many folk whom Maurits implicitly trusted with his life, but Neese was one of them. She was old—gods only knew how old—and he could remember her lurking in the dark edges of the water ever since he was a child. Her kind, the nix, were not well-liked by the other water folk. He had never been sure why exactly, but he suspected it had something to do with the fact that they were notoriously merciless hunters, and had no compunction preying on weaker creatures. That had not stopped him from untangling the nixie from a fishing net when he came across her as a boy, and she had rewarded his kindness with her fierce loyalty. After that, they had become fast friends, much to the dismay of the rest of his family.

So when Neese had sought him out in the cave, claiming to have information about Thade, he took her seriously.

“Your brother is planning something,” she had told him without preamble as they glided to the lower reaches of the seafloor, where the light was dim and the water colder.

He watched her as she slid a mackerel down her throat, leaving the delicate skeleton behind in her webbed fingers.

“He inferred as much,” Maurits said. “He’s eager for the throne, and I think he’s trying to impress our mother.”

Neese shook her head, her dark hair spiraling in the weak current. “It is more than that. He is working towardsomething bigger. I heard from the basilisks that he plans to send a flood. Another one, even more destructive than your mother’s in Franeker.”

This gave Maurits pause. He knew his brother to be ambitious, but this seemed unduly aggressive, even for him. “At my mother’s bidding?” he asked.

“The queen is unaware of his actions.”

He stared at his friend for a long moment, a sinking feeling in his stomach. “What are you saying, Neese?”

“You know exactly what I’m saying. Just as you know that your brother has ambitions, has always had ambitions beyond his place as second in line for succession.”

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