Page 118 of Cruel Tides

She scoffed. “My brother is not someone to get close to, yet you seem naïve of that fact. Why is that?”

I blinked at her, and the way her smirk grew had ice slithering down my back. “Ah. It seems he hasn’t told you. How interesting.” Reclaiming her glass, she lifted it to her lips, throwing her head back and draining the pale liquid down in one gulp. She slammed it back on the table. “Please, do come and have a chat with me once he tells you. Or, better yet, I could tell you right now what makes him such adirty, worthless?—”

I grunted as I covered my ears, tearing myself away from her presence by sprinting up the stairs. Her vile magic seemed to follow behind me, clawing at the back of my mind, desperate to leave its mark.Dirty. Worthless.

When I made it over to Barren, I could barely think.

“Are you okay?” It was Barren’s deep, gentle voice, but I couldn’t even look at him. Not yet. Not with his sister’s magic filling my head.

“No,” I whispered, my voice shaky. I wasn’t okay. I knew mermaids were monsters, but she was something else. Something worse.

“I need a minute,” I said, fighting against the magic invading my mind. I needed someplace far away, someplace quiet. “Where’s the—the restroom?”

“This way,” Barren said, and although he tried to keep his distance, I wrapped my arms around his.

Dirty. My mind screamed the word, but I fought against it by holding on to him even tighter. Barrenwasn’tdirty. I knew that more than I knew anything.

“Sorry, Barren. I know she’s your sister, but she’s pretty terrible,” I said, wanting nothing more than to curse her.

Barren stifled a chuckle, but not before the sound managed to melt away some of his sister’s magic. “It might be better to hold off on disparaging my queen until a time when we aren’t surrounded by hundreds of her loyal followers.”

Oh—right.

“It’s fine. No one is close enough to hear us, anyway,” I mumbled, fastening myself to his side. If his kingdom was going to consider him dirty and tainted, then I was determined to be dirty and tainted, too. It seemed to work, and bodies readily parted for us as we made our way to a hallway tucked behind a pleated velvet curtain.

“I’ll wait for you here,” Barren said, and I gave him the best smile I could manage while his sister’s magic still loomed.

“Thanks. I’ll be quick.” I said, ready to do whatever it took to pull myself together.

I pushed my way through the crowd and finally arrived at the bathroom, where a mirror lined in an excessive number of lightbulbs awaited me.

Staring at my reflection, I took a deep breath. “So, Barren’s sister is a psychotic queen,” I mumbled, noting how one of my eyes was twitching. I hunched over an obnoxiously golden sink to splash water on my face, then pressed my eyes shut in concentration.

Barren’s not dirty, not broken, not worthless.Minutes passed, but I kept reciting the words, desperate to override what the queen had done to my brain.Barren is amazing. He’s kind. He cooks for me. He cares for me—he cares for all of us.

I kept it up until my tight muscles eased, and I was certain the last of her magic had drained away. With a final deep breath, I straightened, ready to face him again without fear of his sister’s lies coming back. Hopefully.

Was it glamour that she’d used on me, or something else? I didn’t think mermaids could be affected by glamour, but what did I know? I was an ex-mermaid with only the knowledge I’d picked up in passing from the palace maids.

Despite all the negatives, there was one good thing that came out of our meeting. The queen didn’t expect me to retrieve her trident. And although I didn’t trust the motives of a murderous tyrant, she was right about the chaos a trident could bring on land. Leander had proven that already.

When I reentered the hallway, I was scanning the crowd for Barren when a rush of something cold swept over my back.

“The heck…?”

With no further warning, black smoke flooded my peripherals. Coiling wisps wrapped around the hallway, and I bit back the urge to scream. The hallway was being consumed by shadows, but the people around us were laughing and talking, seemingly unaware. Frantic, my eyes raced to find Barren among the crowd. Where… where was he?

Barren—

An arm wrapped in a black suit jacket encircled my waist. I stared down at it, too stunned to react as a forceful presence snuck up behind me, pressing into my back.

A voice invaded my ears, as smooth and all-consuming as the dark smoke that spread through the hallway. “Can’t stay out of trouble, can you?” The hand that had been gliding over my hip extended its reach, securing its hold around me. “It seems destroying the portal was a wasted effort.”

I shivered. Every part of the unseen man seemed to toy with my senses. His voice. The smoke.

This was magic, I was certain. Not like the queen’s magic, no. But dark magic. Familiar.

A cool breath brushed past my ear. “Did you miss me, little captive?”

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