The Sea Witch (The Era of Villains Book 1) (9 page)

“
Thank
you,” said Serena. She bit her lip and glanced at Marissa from
beneath her eyelashes. “I was hoping that maybe I could get my
job back.”

Marissa put her hand
on the top of her purple tail and looked Serena up and down. Serena
tried to look her sweetest.

“
Oh,
alright,” said Marissa with a huff of breath. “I can
always use another hardworking maid. The one I hired to replace you
is useless.”

“
Thank
you so much. I promise, no more swimming off. I’ll give you
notice next time I quit,” said Serena with a wink. “I’m
not going to be a maid forever, you know.”

Marissa put Serena to
work right away. She sent her up to the fifth floor to clean up
broken cutlery. Triton had had a party and, according to Marissa,
“It looks like a whale swam through there.”

No sooner had Serena
swam over top of the fifth floor balcony when she heard a familiar
voice below her that sent a tingle of excitement all the way down to
her tail fins. She clutched onto the balcony and looked down into
the atrium.

“
Mother?”
Triton called again as he swam into view.

The sight of him after
such a long time took her breath away. Her fingers ached to touch
his face and feel the roughness of his blonde, short-trimmed beard.
Her lungs ached to speak to him. Her ears ached to hear him say her
name.

“
Mother?”
he called again.

Amphitrite appeared
from another corridor. “Right here, dear,” she said.
Serena’s blood began to surge, tingling her skin as the magic
in her blood awakened with the sudden anger brought on by the sight
of Amphitrite.

“
What
did you need me for so urgently? I was in the middle of an audience
with a mollusk farmer,” said Triton.

“
By
yourself?”

“
Dad’s
letting me do audiences on my own sometimes now. He says I need to
start learning how to do other royal duties besides battle training.
Now, what is it? I told the farmer I’d be back in just a
moment.”

“
Oh,
forget the peasant, dear,” said Amphitrite with a wave of her
hand and a tinkling laugh. “You’ll soon learn they’re
always whining about something or other, and it’s hardly ever
over anything worth our time. I sent for you because I need to know
what sort of party you would like for your twenty-first birthday.”

“
Mother,
my birthday is over a month away.”

“
Yes,
but it’s never too early to start planning. It needs to be
perfect.”

“
Mother,
I’ll talk to you about it later. I really need to get back to
the audience hall.”

“
Nonsense,
dear,” said Amphitrite, grabbing Triton’s wrist when he
tried to swim away, “the peasant can wait. You’re a
prince, Triton. If the peasants want your help, they must wait for
you; you don’t have to rush and worry yourself into a tizzy
about them.”

“
But,
Mother.”

“
Don’t
argue with me, Triton. You know how it gives me a headache. Please,
just make your mother happy and tell me what you want for your
birthday. Don’t you love me, dear?”

“
Yes,
of course I do, Mother, it’s just that…”

“
Well
then act like it and make me happy, won’t you?” said
Amphitrite, pouting like a child.

Triton sighed heavily,
his muscular chest visibly rising and falling. “Alright,
Mother, but only for a moment. Then I really have to get back.”

“
Yes,
yes, of course,” said Amphitrite, dragging him along by the
wrist as she swam back down the corridor she had come from. “Now,
would you like a theme, or do you just want something classy?”

When they were out of
sight, Serena wrinkled her nose and made a sound of disgust with her
throat.

“
That
spoiled, wicked little sea snake,” she said, a growl in her
voice.

There was a loud
crack, and Serena pulled her hands off the balcony as if it had
shocked her. There was a long crack in the stone where her hands had
been. She raised her hands and stared at her palms in wonder. A wry
smile lit her face, and if she had had a mirror at that moment, she
would have been shocked to find how much she looked like Moira.

— — —

“
I
accept the deal, Mother,” said Serena, swimming into the cave
and startling Casius and Moira out of what seemed to be a deep
conversation.

Moira rose from her
starfish chair, adjusting her coral crown, her eyes alight with a
glimmer that made Serena uneasy. She swam towards Serena with her
hands outstretched.

“
That’s
wonderful, darling, just wonderful,” she said, clasping
Serena’s hands in hers. “Casius and I were just saying
we hoped you’d make the right decision. It really is the only
way.”

“
Well,
actually,” said Casius, “I simply said I hoped she would
embrace her magic.”

“
Same
thing,” said Moira with a dismissive toss of her head.

Serena looked over her
mother’s shoulder at Casius and searched his pearly eyes.

“
It
does seem to be the only way,” he said after a moment. Serena
nodded solemnly.

“
Let’s
get down to business!” said Moira, alarmingly cheery.

She snapped her
fingers and a large, thick role of paper made from pressed kelp
leaves appeared in the water beside her head. The contract agreement
was already etched on it in ink. Serena had seen Moira do this many
times, but Moira raised her eyebrows and smiled like the trick was
brand new.

“
You’ll
be able to use magic for small things like that without potions or
spells once I teach you how to control it,” she said.

With a flourish of her
hand, a quill pen made from a gull feather appeared between Moira’s
fingers. Serena knew no ink bottle was required. Extracting ink from
a bottle underwater was tricky and messy business, so Moira had
enchanted the pen to draw ink for itself from seemingly nowhere.
Serena read the contract carefully, looking for any of Moira’s
signature hidden clauses tossed in amongst boring legal jargon so
they would be easily overlooked.

“
Oh,
come and get on with it, Serena,” said Moira, the familiar
snarl back in her voice for a moment.

Serena said nothing
and calmly finished reading while Moira heaved theatrical sighs, and
then she signed her name at the bottom with a shaky hand, her
stomach in knots, her breathing shallow. She had pitied and even
sometimes hated the merpeople who signed such contracts, and yet,
now she had just finished doing it herself. She swallowed hard and
looked at her grinning mother like a child who had been caught doing
wrong.

“
And
of course, it’s completely unbreakable, dear,” said
Moira in a single breath, snapping her fingers again and making the
pen and paper disappear, “and there will be dire consequences
for breaking it.”

“
Yes,
Mother,” said Serena with a roll of her eyes. “I
actually read it, remember? I won’t break it.”

“
Let’s
get started then, shall we?” Moira grabbed Serena’s
wrist and pulled her to the empty cauldron. “It’s really
quite simple. It will be for
you
at least.”

Serena looked up at
the remark and saw exactly what she had expected—Hazel lurking
in the corridor like a wounded animal. Serena almost asked Moira to
let Hazel help, hoping it would bring a smile to Hazel’s face,
but realized it would only give Moira an excuse to give Hazel
another snide, hurtful dismissal.

“
There’s
really not any magic involved until the end,” said Moira,
hovering over Serena so closely that her long, black hair tickled
Serena’s arms. “Just add the ingredients that I tell you
to, and only in the amounts that I tell you to, or the whole thing
will be ruined and you will have proven yourself to be as useless as
your sister.”

Moira was testing
Serena as she had done with Hazel when she first started learning.
She hovered and barked orders and threatened that one tiny mistake
would ruin everything. It made Hazel go all to pieces. She had
failed all Moira’s tests miserably, and now Moira just did it
to her for the fun of it. Serena took a deep breath. She was not
scared of her mother, but she was scared to use her magic.

“
Ten
whole oyster shells,” said Moira suddenly and loudly. Serena
flinched. “For lust and desire,” added Moira with a
wink.

Serena
found the shells amongst the ingredients on the many shelves with
ease and dropped them into the cauldron where they landed with a
small
plunk
. Gravity
seemed to pull harder inside the cauldron, ensuring that even the
lightest of ingredients did not float away in the water. Moira
nodded stoically.

“
The
hair of a virgin maiden, for innocence and tenderness.”

Serena extracted the
blonde curl from a vial and dropped it in. The cauldron sucked it
down like a greedy mouth.

“
Three
pink pearls to make it rich and rare.”

Into the cauldron they
went, the last of Moira’s supply. As they hit the bottom,
Serena felt a strange current of energy tingle through her
outstretched hand, and suddenly the water in the cauldron glowed
lavender and Serena could not see any of the ingredients in the
cauldron’s belly.

“
Excellent!”
said Moira. Her hair began to slither around her like black snakes
and her red lips turned up in smile.

“
I
thought you said no magic was involved until the end. Is that the
end?”

“
No.
I lied,” said Moira with a shrug. “I wanted to see if
your powers would present themselves on their own without you
consciously channeling them. It should have glowed from the moment
you added the first ingredient, but it’s a start.”

Serena sputtered,
unsure whether to be angry at Moira or not, and surprised by the
feeling of pride swelling in her chest.

“
A
turtle shell to make it last,” said Moira, snapping her
fingers in front of Serena’s face.

Serena concentrated on
trying to reproduce the tingling surge of magic as she picked up the
shell. She closed her eyes and kept her hand outstretched over the
cauldron as she dropped the shell in. This time, she was more aware
of the power as it surged through her. It started as a warm
sensation in the middle of her torso, just below her breasts. She
concentrated on it and felt it fill up her chest and make her heart
race and then travel down her right arm and into her fingertips. The
potion turned a rosy pink.

“
And
finally, the blood of a witch to make it strong and binding.”

Serena looked at
Moira, aghast.

“
Just
a few drops will do,” said Moira with a wicked smile.

She pulled a small
bone knife from the shelf and held it out to Serena, who took it
with a shaking hand. Serena sucked in a shivering breath and slit
her left ring finger, the one she hoped would soon wear a wedding
band, and winced. When three drops had fallen, the potion rose up in
a roaring whoosh of bright pink smoke. Serena flinched back,
surprised.

“
You’d
better let me do the next part,” said Moira. “It
requires delicacy and skill. Although, you should get there in no
time.”

An unexpected smile
lit up Serena’s face at the praise, and she blushed. Moira
reached far back in one of her many cubby holes carved into the
stone wall of the cave, shoving aside tinkling bottles and stone
basins and clam shell containers, and pulled out a heart-shaped
golden locket that had probably been ripped from the skeleton of the
poor human girl wearing it inside a sunken ship.

Moira began to sing
under her breath. Serena could not understand any of the words, but
she recognized them as old Atlantian. The pink love potion began to
slither out of the cauldron. It flowed in a long, twisting line from
the cauldron, up to Moira’s hand, and into the locket she
clasped in it. The locket glowed pink until all of the potion had
been sucked into it and Moira quit singing, and then it reverted to
its original gold.

“
There
you are,” said Moira, clasping the locket around Serena’s
neck. The gold was cool against her breastbone. “The spell to
get the potion out of the locket and into Triton is much simpler.
Imbuing the locket with the potion’s powers and binding them
together is the hard part. Once you’ve said the spell and the
potion has taken effect, you must keep the locket on. It is what
will bind him to you and you alone. Don’t ever let anyone else
wear it. When you want to break the spell, simply take it off and
put it away or break it. Now, let’s make Amphitrite’s
poison, shall we?”

“
We?”
said Serena, fear gripping her heart. Using her magic to make the
love potion had been fun, exhilarating even, but she had sworn she
would never use her magic for wicked things like Moira did. She had
promised herself making the love potion was the only magic she would
ever allow herself to do. It was unavoidable, inescapable, so she
had done it, but that was it.

“
Yes,
darling,” said Moira, her voice cold as stone. “You
remember your part of the bargain, don’t you?”

“
Yes,”
said Serena, hanging her head at the thought. “I agreed to
poison Amphitrite, but I didn’t agree to make the poison. Read
your contract again.”

Moira’s mouth
was a hard line. Her hair stood on end around her. The violet flame
appeared in her eyes but did not consume the irises…not yet
at least. Serena knew she was going over the contract in her head,
trying to member if Serena’s involvement in making the potion
was specified.