Page 73 of A Magic Deep & Drowning

Now that there was no kingdom anymore, no duties to shirk, he had little idea what he would do with his time. If the curse was broken, then he would have spent his days by Clara’s side, exploring the land and all the wonders it had to offer. Even with his powers partially restored, he did not think he was capable of shifting his form for long periods of time. And there was still his mother to contend with, and he could not put off their reunion forever. He did not look forward to explaining what had happened to Thade. Perhaps she already knew; even imprisoned, he couldn’t imagine that there was much that transpired in the water that did not make its way to her ears. This was all assuming that his mother was still alive.

Clara looked about, rubbing her eyes and fighting a yawn. He wondered if there ever would be a time when he could offer her a warm bed, a proper place to be together. “I suppose you must,” she said, rising and stepping toward the encroaching waves.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m coming with you.”

“Clara, you cannot think to—”

She crouched, stopping him with a light touch to his chest and heat shot through him all over again. “I cannot think to live with you beneath the water? Of course not, I would not dream of such an impossibility. But I must speak with your mother.”

“I do not know where my mother is. She may be dead for all I know. I—”

“You need not know. She will find me. I only need you to bring me down.”

He studied the woman he loved, the unmovable resolve in her clear eyes. “Why?”

She stood. “Do you trust me?”

“Of course,” he answered without hesitation.

The sea was racing up and around her ankles, her hem billowing out around her. She held out her hand, and this time, it was he who followed her into the water.

How quickly the landscape beneath the waves had changed. Already schools of fish had replenished, their quicksilver bodies moving like winking diamonds in the dark. Forests of kelp grew, straining for the moon. And as they descended, the shimmering glow guided them, a thousand twinkling orbs gently pulsating in the current.

The ruins of the palace greeted them. Here and there an odd pillar jutted defiantly out of the rubble, but otherwise there was little left of the once-great building that had glistened with pearls. “The Water Kingdom was never the palace or Thade or even the queen,” Maurits told her as they passed merfolk. Some were scavenging in the rubble, others were busy surveying the damage. All stopped to look at Maurits as they passed. He didn’t seem to notice. “The traditions grounded our world in history, but it has always been the water itself that made us what we are. The dire whales understand that. I suppose the way that we saw the land and humans, the dire whales saw us, imposing an unnatural order on the water. I cannot blame them for wishing to see the kingdom brought down.”

Clara wondered that he could speak so calmly of the creatures that destroyed his kingdom and nearly took his life. Despite his calm, Clara knew how the grief would eventually find its way to him, how the loss of all the familiar places of his childhood would haunt him. Just as the places of Franeker and Wierenslot haunted her, wherever she went.

Maurits held her tightly, and this time, she gripped him back, glad not just for the safety of his body, but the sensation of his skin beneath her fingers. When they reached theseafloor, he did not let go, only drew her close to him with his arms draped around her waist. He was beautiful on land, but stunning in his element, his russet hair a gentle halo in the current, his lithe body weightless, yet solid and real. Her resolve on the beach wavered when it came time to draw away from him. She had always been so cold in the water, and his presence ignited a warmth deep inside of her. She knew as soon as she left him that the coldness would return, along with an empty ache that would be worse now for the knowing of what it was to be filled.

When they came to the old castle where the queen had been imprisoned, they found the valley covered in a new blanket of seaweed. But as for the building itself, all that remained was a pile of toppled stones covered in swaying algae. The thought of the indomitable water queen somewhere beneath the rubble made Clara unspeakably sad. She reached for Maurits’s hand, and he drew her closer to his side.

“I have always been able to feel her in the water,” he murmured into her hair. “I don’t think she is gone, but I do not know where she is.”

As if spoken into existence, there was an unmistakable tug in the current, soon joined by the faraway voice that Clara had heard in her dreams since she was a child.

Maurits stiffened, then pulled Clara closer as if he would shield her.

But Clara would not be deterred. “You said you trusted me,” she said, putting just the smallest space between them.

He raked a hand through his auburn hair, muttered something under his breath. “I do. But I don’t trust my mother, not in the least.”

“Then trust me to take care of myself and to know what I’m doing.”

He looked like he would rather do anything else than let her go off, and a small part of her wanted him to refuse, tosweep her back into the safety of his arms. But he was true to his word and only planted a soft kiss on her temples. “Very well, my love.”

She held out her hand, and this time, it was he who followed her into the water, gifting her with breath as they submerged.

Clara only had to follow the siren song through the valley. Maurits insisted on waiting for her, and she could feel his gaze on her as she allowed the unrelenting current to pull her toward the queen. When she had crested the hill, she at last looked back to find that the dark valley had swallowed Maurits up.

The current brought her to the jagged mouth of a cave. Clara hauled herself up on the wet ledge, the distant crash of waves echoing through the dismal space. Maurits’s grotto might have been damp and cold, but there had at least been a feeling of habitation to it, the comfortable feel of a space that was loved and used. There was no such comfort here, only a whispering sense of sadness and loss.

“Clara.”

Her name rang through the cave, the water droplets that clung to the slick walls reverberating with it. Clara was a little girl again, lingering near the canal, fear making her skin prickle. She could turn back now, swim to Maurits and take refuge in his arms. There was nothing compelling her to have this audience. But she pushed past the memories, and forced herself to clamber up deeper into the dark cave.

“My darling, Clara.” Queen Maren sat atop a jagged rock at the opening of the cave, the moonlight behind her throwing her into an even more ethereal glow. The Water Kingdom may have no longer required a ruler, but she was still very much a queen, and Clara felt her legs shake as she instinctively bowed low.

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