Page 51 of A Magic Deep & Drowning

Clara staggered up from her seat, the ground swaying beneath her. With a hand to the wall, she began lurching toward the narrow spiral path.

The queen tracked her movements with detached interest. “Well? Did you get what you wanted?” she asked.

None of this was what Clara had wanted. She longed to be back home at Wierenslot, walking through the same old gardens while Helma shouted her same old warnings after her. If she could, Clara would go back even further than that, to the days when she and Fenna had run free, careless of the world and its evils. How good life had been, and what a fool she was to not have seen it. But such is the nature of childhood, a curse and a gift all at once, something so sweet that the rest of life tastes bitter in comparison.

“You were a beautiful child,” came the queen’s voice behind her. A melancholy thread wound through the soft words. “And you could have stayed beautiful, here under the water with me, far from the corruption of man and his ambitions.”

Despite every instinct telling her to flee, Clara turned around. The queen’s attention seemed to have strayed entirely as she gazed up into the softly winking lights that clustered about the ceiling. “A child should be a child forever.”

It was good that Clara did not have her voice, because despite the queen’s soothing assurances, she was sorely tempted to argue that what a child needed beyond anything else was the privilege to grow up.

The queen was toying with a glittering bangle about her wrist. “Do you disagree? What has adulthood brought you other than a keen awareness of the injustices of the world? What has it done other than shaped you into a prize for a man to pluck?”

A life of injustice still seemed preferable to no life at all. The queen had drowned Fenna, and the fact that she thought it a mercy, instead of the murder that it was, made Clara all the angrier.

“You are not a mother,” Queen Maren continued, unaware or unmoved by the anger that radiated from Clara. “And so you can never truly understand. When you are amother, every child becomes your own, regardless of their race, and you would do anything to safeguard their innocence. I lost a child,” the queen said softly. “A daughter. She should have sat on the throne, been a great queen like myself. But I lost her to a whaler’s harpoon when she was not yet even seventeen.”

Maurits had never mentioned a sister. But then, he had never mentioned a brother either. She thought back on their conversations, their few happy encounters and tried to shake them out like a rug, seeing if anything loosened and flew off. But of all the facades he had worn, he had never painted himself as a grieving brother. Her heart gave a tender tug.

“Do you truly think that humans deserve their young?” the queen asked, lengthening her spine as the hardness crept back into her voice. “You have seen how quickly they were to bargain away their futures, how thoughtless they are with their inheritance.”

All Clara could think of was Fenna, sweet, innocent Fenna, running toward a beautiful woman who promised her the world. Tears stung Clara’s eyes, and she was surprised that even here she could taste the salt as they slid down her cold cheeks.

The queen was saying something else, but Clara could not stand to be in her presence a moment longer.

“Wait.” Queen Maren reached a slender arm out toward Clara, compelling her to stay. The quiet word was not so much of a command as a plea. But Clara had had enough of the riddles and tangled logic, the conceited lessons on morality that the queen meted out.

Whatever answers she had been seeking from the queen, she was to leave empty-handed. As she was about to squeeze back through the narrow tunnel that led out, something compelled Clara to turn around one last time. And for just a moment, Clara saw Queen Maren as what she truly was: a mother, mourning the loss of her child.

Chapter Thirty-One

Whatever magic that had been trying to keep her out of the prison clearly did not care if she left, because Clara passed easily through the winding corridor and back into the dark expanse of the valley.

She was free, she supposed. There was no vengeful queen searching for her, no Maurits to try to persuade her to stay, and so long as she was quick, no Thade to bring her back as a prisoner. The whale was somewhere deep and far off in the water, and Neese was likewise gone, probably unwilling to risk herself any further for a foolish human. Clara could go back to land, resume her life as an apprentice in a city that afforded her anonymity and possibilities.

Memories of Alida’s studio sparked a hint of warmth in her as she pulled herself slowly along the jagged valley walls. There would be hot pottage and spiced wine. Her cabinet bed in the kitchen would be piled with blankets, warmed by a fire crackling in the hearth. She was so hungry that just the thought of a piece of bread made her mouth water. All the unbelievable events of the past year would eventually fade away, so long as King Thade did not actually plan on exacting revenge. But even if he did, there was no telling how bad the flood would be. Maybe it would just be a loss of some of the land near the docks.

The seaweed at her ankles was eerily still as she slowly made her away up and out of the valley. She tried not to think of Neese’s admiration for her decision to stay, or how anxious Maurits would be when he inevitably learned that she had been in the Water Kingdom briefly, only to return to land. He would be hurt, terribly hurt. But perhaps he would be relieved as well; after all he had brought her to the surface before, in hopes that she would be safe. If he truly loved her as he had professed, then knowing she was on land was the greatest gift she could give him. The thought did little to quell the guilt that she felt. She might be safe, but she was abandoning him, leaving him to face the consequences of her actions with Thade and his mother.

The seaweed gradually cleared as she left the valley behind, and she found herself in a sandy patch on level ground. The faintest rays of light shafted down, tiny particles and fish briefly illuminated in their paths. But despite the peacefulness, she was keenly aware that she was not alone, that she was being watched from the secret places under rocks and between crevices.

The sensation only grew stronger as she fought to walk through the water. Something cold and slick touched the back of her neck. She spun around, only to be met with emptiness.

It was past time she left. There was nothing for her down here. She had thought that an audience with the queen would throw everything into clarity, that she would find answers and know exactly what had to be done. But it had only shown her just how little she understood, and that while her intentions might have been pure, she was unfit for bringing about any sort of understanding between the two worlds. She would not offer herself up like a sacrificial lamb when she did not even know if it would change anything in a meaningful way.

Clara put out her arms as Neese had shown her, slowly propelling herself upward. Ascending had seemed so effortlesswhen Maurits had done it, but now it felt as if she were clawing her way through something thick and impenetrable. As she kicked her legs, the marble at her neck grew heavier and heavier, pulling her back down. With a gasp she realized too late that she would die before Thade’s magic would allow her to leave. The cold water slid through her fingers, and then there was a sudden tightness around her arms.

She flailed against the growing pressure until she was yanked back down. Suddenly, all was still. The marble at her throat was once again no heavier than a bird’s egg, and her lungs filled with air.

As her heartbeat began to steady, she felt the boring gaze of something on her. Whatever it was could not be worse than what she had just endured, so she slowly turned.

Immediately, she wished she had not. The creatures flanked her, their limbless bodies undulating in place. In front of her, another slithered about, watching her from black eyes. She spun around again, panic rising in her chest, only to find that she was surrounded.

“Rather foolish to venture into the deep with only a charm for air,” said a slippery, disembodied voice.

“It’s true then,” said another. “They really cannot swim. How curious.”

Five pairs of unblinking black eyes stared back at her, beady and intense. The toothy mouths of the creatures did not move, but she could hear their voices as clearly as if they had spoken aloud. Basilisks. Helma had told her a story once of a basilisk that had terrorized the citizens of Utrecht. But these creatures were smaller than she had imagined them, more like a school of eels than great serpents.

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