Page 8 of A Magic Deep & Drowning

He closed his eyes as the boat drifted past endless fields and rows of poplar trees, and he let the weak sun warm him. He could still see her upturned face, the sly smile and faint blush that spread across it when she’d realized she’d been found out. He’d known what she would look like—he’d been watching her for months now, after all—but he hadn’t expected that she would be so... so warm, so alive. He certainly hadn’t expected that the touch of her hand would send heat racing through his body, or that her unguarded curiosity in him would make him feel as if he had been born anew.

“Enjoying your day?”

The cool voice jolted him from his reverie, and Maurits sat up, disrupting the oar.

“Mother was wondering where you were, and if you had the girl.”

Maurits didn’t need to see Thade to know that his younger brother would be wearing his usual disapproving grimace. “Can’t a man drift in peace?” Maurits said, lying back down in the boat and closing his eyes.

The boat rocked as his brother hefted himself up inside. “No, he can’t, not when he was entrusted with a commission from the good queen herself.” Thade paused, presumably to gain his land legs. “And you’re not a man.”

Maurits let out a snort. “Perhaps you’d like to do Mother’s bidding, then,” he said, though as soon as the words left his mouth, he regretted them. He didn’t like the idea of his brother taking Clara, plucking her from the land and dragging her down into the water.

“You know that it must be you,” Thade said, his voice bitter as kelp. “As next in line for the throne, she wants you to handle these affairs. She has no use for me.”

And yet you slaver over her like a dog, as if she might change her mind,Maurits thought. Finally opening his eyes, he regarded his brother. On land, he did not look much different than Maurits. His hair was a little darker, his shoulders narrower, but he was tall and well-built, with their mother’s sharp eyes.

Sighing, he propped himself up. “What does it matter if I bring her the girl or not? It will not quench Mother’s need for reprisal, and I daresay the men will not change their ways.”

Thade looked at him, incredulous. “Because they must be punished!” he exclaimed, his gray eyes flashing. “They have broken their word again and again, and grow more prosperous while draining our kingdom of land and resources.”

“You sound like Mother,” Maurits said, growing bored with this familiar line of conversation.

Thade ignored him. “So, where is the girl now?”

Maurits hitched one shoulder in a lazy shrug. It didn’t fool his brother. “Let me guess—rather than just doing as you were told and taking her, you played some ridiculous part with costumes and falsehoods. You can never let an opportunity for playing man pass by, can you?”

“Men dine on cheese and pastries and gaze at miraculous paintings. Men map the cosmos and explore the world. So no, I cannot let an opportunity to be a man pass me by, even if it is only for a morning.”

Thade’s power was substantial. He had never missed a training session and could shift forms easily, call on magic that Maurits barely understood. Maurits knew that there was nothing stopping him from honing his own abilities, but he would rather be on land partaking in the delights of human life. What little power he did possess, he used for selfish reasons, like prolonging his land form that his mother gifted him the week of every full moon.

“Men are shortsighted and would rather kill their fellow creatures than live in harmony with them. They are barbarians and nothing more.” Thade paused. “What name did you give her?”

“Maurits de Vis.”

“Maurits the Fish? The fish at least makes sense, but waves above us, where did you get ‘Maurits’ from?”

“It’s the name of the late crown prince of Orange,” Maurits said, indignant. He had always admired the brilliant Dutch prince, and had been pleased with the natural flow of the name.

“Your own princely name is not good enough for you?”

“My own princely name is not pronounceable by humans,” he said wistfully. He’d thrilled at hearing Clara say his name, and only wished that it had been his real name.Clara.He mouthed the word over and over, delighting in the sound itmade, like water running over smooth stones.Clara Clara Clara.Thade and Evi had simple names that slipped easily off the tongues of humans. But not him. No, he had been saddled with a name as old and ridiculous as the expectations placed on him as a crown prince.

He looked up to find Thade studying him with clear distaste. “You’ll never be a man.”

“You’ll never be crown prince,” Maurits shot back, though the words tasted bitter in his mouth, an uncalled-for blow.

But Thade bore it magnanimously. “And neither of us can ever be Evi,” he said morosely. Maurits had to agree with him, they neither of them would ever be able to hold the same affection in their mother’s heart as her daughter had.

They sat in silence, lost in thought about the sister that had come before them. He had been little more than a whelp when Evi had died, had barely even understood what death was. As eldest, it was Evi who had been destined for the throne, groomed for it. And what a queen she would have been, with her regal bearing and kind eyes, her luminous red hair. She’d always had a kind word for her little brother, always was diplomatic and virtuous. If Evi was still alive, would his mother still be so bitterly bent on revenge?

“I won’t tell Mother,” Thade finally said quietly. “But you must do her bidding. If you don’t, she will take matters into her own hands, and she will not be so gentle.”

Maurits didn’t say anything, but his brother’s words had found their mark. He had seen his mother’s ruthlessness firsthand, and the all-consuming rage that inflamed her.

Chapter Six

Clara blinked, her eyes adjusting to the dim hall after the brightness of outside. She could hear the low echo of voices. Hendrik Edema was here, and she was flushed and unkempt, sweating profusely from her unexpected rendezvous outside.

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