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Goddess, that hurts coming from her.
Bijou pushes the blade back down. “She’s the missing Mer-Princess.”
“What the devil would Princess Cordelia be doing in Crossbill Haven?” Darcy closes her eyes, trying to make sense of it.
“I would guess that she was trying to find the woman she fell in love with.”
“The siren,” Darcy says. “The mermaid who was trying to revive the Order of the Undine.”
“The one you were hunting,” I add, tears blurring my vision. “The one you were meeting when you were attacked by the stoor wyrm and thrown to the bottom of the sea.”
“Dee,” she whispers, realizing what I’m telling her. “Cordelia.”
“Yes.”
Darcy lowers her blade to the floor and drops an elbow on her thigh. She glances at the priestess, but she’s looking down at her lap.
“How do you know all of this?”
“Because you love me. Because you’ve vowed to love me for as long as you live,” she says. “When I got sick again last year, you went against every single one of your values and visited the sea witch.”
“No, I wouldn’t have done that.” Darcy tugs her hair, trying to remember.
“But you did. I followed you there, and you never knew it.” Bijou rocks against Darcy as the carriage whips around a sharp turn. “She agreed to lift my illness if you could befriend the mermaid and report everything you learned about her. She gave you a time and a place where she would be exploring and told you to make it seem like it was fate.”
My teeth sharpen as I bite my lips together. Our first meeting did seem like fate when she heard my song and echoed it back to me.
She acted like she was protecting me when we agreed to guard our identities, but she knew who I was all along.
“Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?” Darcy holds her head in her hand.
“Because you owe her your life, and I know you would never want to do something to hurt her, so I tore some of the pages from your notebook, hoping you would forget about all of your business with the sea witch,” Bijou says. “I think there was a time when you actually cared for the Mer-Princess. Loved her, even.”
Darcy spreads her fingers, looking at me. “Did I?”
“I don’t know,” I answer honestly. “The sea witch took all of your memories of me.”
She throws her head back. “I guess we’ll never know, then, will we?”
“No, I suppose not.” I bounce in my seat as the wheels turn over gravel. The noise of the crowd is lost to squeaky axles and a steady pattern of rain hitting the carriage.
“If you’re Princess Cordelia, then you know where the final rune key is,” Darcy says, straightening. “You can summon Zephyr.”
“You’ve met them already. They were never a threat to you.”
Her bones seem to snap into place, her body going rigid as she realizes what’s been happening right beneath her nose. “I’m not so sure about that. After a few days in a cell, I’m sure you’ll tell me everything you know about the rune keys.”
“I don’t have a few days. The body the sea witch gave me is only temporary.” I lift the wet hem of my wedding gown to show her the scales cutting through my shins. “She’s the one who’s been controlling the rune keys, and I need to stop her before I return to the ocean.”
“No, it is my duty to protect the island,” she says. “If what you’re saying is true, then I need to be sure you’re not working with her.”
“The sea witch never told you why she wanted you to get close to the Mer-Princess, but I think I know the reason.” Bijou’s posture shifts, transforming her from a woman speaking with an old friend, and into a coven leader, a high priestess. “King Morrow united the six seas, took six lovers, sired six daughters, and I believe he created six rune keys.” Her eye rolls to my necklace. “Is there anything she wanted from you when she gave you your human form?”
“Nothing significant.”
“Are you sure about that? Is there anything your father might’ve kept from you?”
Wind whistles past the carriage, and I hear the ethereal reverb of my Ocean Voice behind it.
