Page 53 of A Magic Deep & Drowning

Before she could think better of it, she nodded. She would need her voice for what she was about to do.

Chapter Thirty-Two

She WHAT?

If Thade hadn’t taken his fucking voice, Maurits would have spat the words, shouted them and sent every fish in the sea scattering. And if it weren’t for the manacles still about his wrists and tail, he would have shot straight through to the surface in disbelief. Not disbelief... anger.

“We just deliver the message,” said one of the basilisks. Maurits recognized it by a long white scar that ran down the length of its body, but beyond that he did not know which was which. If the creatures had names that separated them as distinct beings, he had long ago forgotten them. Perhaps they had forgotten too.

Maurits did not care for the message at all.How did she get here?There was no point in keeping up the pretense that the basilisks could not simply see into his mind and read his thoughts. Glaring, he dared them to pretend otherwise.

Silence. Silence on its own was unnerving, but coming from creatures that would as soon die before abstaining from ceaseless chatter, it was downright concerning. He had never known them to be nervous before, but they were darting worried looks at one another now, seeming to be in some internal distress about who should be the first to speak.

Finally, the one with the scar broke their silence. “Your brother.”

“He laid a trap,” another said, picking up the narrative.

“Brought her down with the promise of a dog.”

“Silenced her voice.” They watched him, naked curiosity on their narrow faces.

Reflexively, he opened his mouth to let out a curse. He would not rise to the bait of the basilisks’ curiosity about the dog, but his heart constricted painfully at the detail all the same. Clara had followed his brother back down into the water with the promise of seeing her beloved Pim, and now she was just like him—trapped. Voiceless.

“She was going up up up,” the basilisks chanted, cutting into his thoughts.

“When we found her.”

“Had no air in her lungs, but she was going to swim for it, despite Thade’s charm about her neck.”

Each new revelation only twisted his gut further.How did she get away from Thade?

The basilisks exchanged more nervous looks between each other.

“It’s not our place to say,” said one.

“Wouldn’t want to tell someone else’s story.”

Maurits closed his eyes. He didn’t need roundabout answers to tell him that this had Neese written all over it. He was more than glad to transfer some of the more unpleasant emotions welling up inside of him from Clara to his nixie friend.

But waves above,whywas Clara still here if she’d escaped? Was this the same Clara who had walked so demurely beside the canal with him? The same Clara who had allowed herself to be married off to a wobbly little excuse of a man? Of course it wasn’t. It was the Clara who had wandered into the wood and faced a moss maiden, the Clara who had tried to escape from the grotto, despite not knowing how to swim. He closed his eyes. When he opened them, the basilisks werestill watching him, their long bodies testing the boundaries of his cell.

“He will not like this part,” said the biggest one.

“No, not at all.”

Tell me, he commanded in his mind.

“She is to stand trial in Thade’s court.”

“For the human’s breach of the deal, and their unwillingness to pay their debt.”

“She saw the queen,” another said. “Had an audience in the old palace.”

“She is determined. Quite determined.”

He stared at his serpentine visitors. He had done everything in his limited power to protect her, to get her away from his mother and her vengeance, and Clara had come right back and had aFUCKING AUDIENCE WITH HER.

Maurits had always prided himself on his ability to keep a level head. His relaxed temperament endlessly vexed Thade who had seen it as further proof that Maurits was incapable of being a serious ruler. But now Maurits felt white-hot rage.

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