Page 50 of A Magic Deep & Drowning

The old castle where the queen was imprisoned reminded Clara of the crypts beneath the New Church. She had visited once as a girl, on the occasion of the death of a great uncle or distant cousin, she couldn’t remember who. But she did remember that it had been tight, the air heavy, and she had thought that she would die from the stench of it. Her mother had pinched her by the ear and told her to stop crying or else the putrid vapors would settle in her lungs. The memory did little to calm Clara, and panic begin to grip her chest. Her breath came out cold and shaky, her fingers raw as they scraped against the damp, close walls. There was air here, at least, which was the one small comfort.

Her heart beat loud in her ears, the only other sound the echoing drip of water, the same sound that had haunted her dreams since she was a child. And now it was here, all around her, and she was plunging right into the heart of it.

Although Neese had assured her that the same magic that kept the queen in also kept interlopers out, Clara could not help but look over her shoulder as she felt her way through the narrow, dark corridors. Thade could have spies or any number of creatures hidden here, just waiting to snare her.

A crab scuttled over her shoe on porcelain claws and she jumped before finding her footing again. Itsclick click clickrecededinto the distance. The corridor narrowed as it twistedfurther into itself, a spiraling sense of expectation that kept her moving, a feeling that if she could only reach the center, she would be able to breathe again.

“Come, Clara.”

Clara stayed her step, one hand on the cold wall to steady herself. That voice. She had heard it before, both in life and her dreams. It was sweet and clear, yet sent a ripple of cold dread through her. She moved forward as if pulled by a current, until the impossibly narrow corridor spit her out into a great room.

The burst of light assaulted her eyes, and she covered her face with her scraped hands. The seaweed that had lit her small chamber in Thade’s castle had been dim and soft, but here it was a brilliant, undulating canopy that hung from the soaring rock ceiling.

“Open your eyes, Clara,” the voice instructed.

Clara did not want to obey, but she found herself helpless as her hands fell away and her eyes gradually adjusted. The room was not so grand as the palace where Thade had interrogated her, but it was no less impressive. It felt... old, like a temple to a forgotten god. Pearls everywhere caught the light, glinting with colors that would have taken her a lifetime to capture with paint. For a prison, it was easily one of the most beautiful places she had ever seen, second only to Thade’s hall.

In the center, a pool the color of a peacock’s tail glimmered. The queen sat with her back to Clara, tail dipped in the water. Carmine hair threaded with pearls and shells flowed from beneath a jagged silver crown. Her back was a network of lean muscles, her waist tapering to a tail so brilliantly colored that Clara momentarily thought herself back in the Old Church with the sun illuminating the stained glass windows.

Having no voice, Clara could only plant her feet on the ground and await whatever came next.

“I wondered when you would come,” the queen said, slowly turning to face her over her shoulder.

There was no mistaking the woman before her as being Maurits’s mother. They shared the same strong cut of the jaw, the same eyes the color of sunlight dancing on a canal. The resemblance shot an arrow of longing through her, her memories of kisses and betrayal tangling and knotting together.

“But of course, you have no voice.” The queen made a little sound in her throat. “You probably have some choice words you wish you could share with me.”

Clara stood her ground, her numb feet anchored to the slick rock below her. She would not be intimidated, not when she had already lost everything, seen so much. Then there was a flash of red hair and shimmering scales, and the queen was before her, so close that Clara could see the flare of the gills on her neck. Gone was the jeweled tail, replaced with long legs strapped with lean muscle. What had been ethereal beauty from a distance, Clara now recognized as lethal vitality. She willed her knees not to shake.

The queen arched a brow. “What, did you think I was not free to move about my own prison? That I could not still shift my form to my whim? My son may have put me here, but even he would not dare completely tether the lady of the water.” She drew nearer still, sharp white teeth glinting as she slowly circled Clara like a hungry hound. “You caused quite a bit of trouble,” she said when she had finished her slow and meticulous inventory. “I did not have high expectations of my son bringing you to me, but for you to slip through Thade’s fingers...” She made another noise in the back of her throat.

“It is just as well you have no voice. I have much to say to you, and I know how prone humans are to interruption, how much they enjoy hearing themselves speak.”

Gesturing to a smooth stone beside the pool, the queen settled herself back at the edge of the water. Clara slowly lowered herself on the rock, wary, but grateful to rest her aching feet.

Trailing her long fingers through the sparkling water, the queen took her time coming to her point. “Did you know, when I came to the throne as a young mermaid, the outer rings of Amsterdam had not yet been built? It was completely water before the Dutch built it up.Reclaiming, they called it, as if it had once been theirs and they were simply taking it back. But it had always been water—a spawning ground, you would call it. A place where our kind birthed and raised our young for the first year, before taking them deeper into the sea. The humans filled it with sand and rock and dirt, and on top of it they built their buildings and carved out their canals. The Dutch Republic became a glittering jewel, known for her scientists and artists, her long arms that reached every corner of the earth, plucking riches and spoils for her crown.”

Despite the harsh truths she spoke, the queen’s voice was soothing, and Clara listened, spellbound, her sore feet and scratched palms forgotten.

“Did you never wonder the cost of such beauty, such progress? For what is progress to the butcher is simply another form of death to the boar. Maurits often told me of the delicacies that are sold on land—sweet breads, pies, marzipan novelties. Tell me, how many slaves harvested the sugar? How many hands were bloodied to grow the spices, all for a moment of sweetness on the tongue? And yet, I do not believe it is humans that are evil, not inherently, but their love of money and power. Perhaps previous generations would have been amenable to an understanding. But once the money began to accumulate, once they saw their wishes and desires reflected back at them in the glint of gold...” The queen lifted her shoulders in a graceful shrug. “Their souls are too corrupted, their society rotten. Do they truly think that they can endlessly profit? That the delicate network of roots and waters upon which they built their world can support such an insatiable appetite? There are plenty of fish and gold and spices until there is not. What then?”

Clara thought of Hendrik and his ships, how their purpose made little difference to him so long as they brought him wealth. She thought of her old house full of fine paintings and silver, tiles and exotic flowers. Thade had already made certain that she felt the full weight of guilt on her, but an unpleasant feeling of shame snaked through Clara’s belly now as well. She had never considered what made it possible for all these things to exist. She had never complained of the pretty gowns or the good food. In fact, she had bemoaned her life as stale and without satisfaction. She’d known that there were plantations across the sea. She’d known that slaving was a terrible business and could not please God. She’d known that there was nothing gentle about any of it. Yet it had all seemed so far away until the day the scarred whale washed out of its world and into hers, bearing not an omen of what was to come, but a warning of what was already happening.

But it all mattered little now. The Dutch Republic and all her cities were built. Clara had seen for herself the life and art that flourished in Amsterdam. It might have sprouted from a bad seed, but it had bloomed into something beautiful. Besides, it did not excuse what the queen had done in taking all those children. In taking Fenna.

“Uncomfortable, isn’t it?” The queen arched a brow with far more poise and authority than a prisoner should have been able to muster. “The humans will wish me back on the throne when they see what Thade has planned for them. They will think me merciful and just,” she said, a hard edge creeping into her otherwise silky voice.

Maurits had told Clara that he had believed he could be gentler in doing his mother’s bidding. Clara had only seen him through the eyes of an impetuous girl, a jilted lover, but he came from a vastly different world, one where his upbringing had been shaped by injustice and anger toward humans. Could she truly blame him for any of the deceptions he hadpracticed? He had tried to save her, many times. His lies and falsehoods fell under a gentler light, a protective light, and she found her anger turning directly on his mother instead.

The children,Clara wanted to scream at her.What of the children?

Whether it was magic or intuition or something else, the queen seemed to infer her question.

“You were the last child,” she told Clara. “The last installment of the payment. I took Fenna, but it was always supposed to be you. The children of the poor, of the workers, well, I really had no use for them. After all, it was not the poor who had encroached upon the water and dried up all of its riches, was it? No, it sent a message to the burghers, the men who sat safely in rooms of marble and gold, playing at God. But you,” she continued, “you were slippery, my little fish. Your brother came easily enough, but either through luck or some other force at work, you were much harder to net.”

A fever. Helma had told her that her brother had died of a fever in infancy. She felt the rock beneath her cant, the whole world shift. The wordbrothershaped itself on her lips.

The queen’s expression was slightly peeved, as if she could not believe she was being forced to recount such obvious details. “Your parents offered me one of their children, but they forgot to specify which one. They thought taking one might placate me, might make me forget the terms of the deal. So when they told me they had a daughter that had been unwanted, I took the son instead. Let them understand that the terms of the deal were mine to forge and enforce. And I told myself that there would be time, that I would return for you later. Well, now we see how that came to pass.”

---