Chapter 32

Alba watchedthe full moon creep closer every night while tending to the lantern. Taking notes in the tender's log, scribbling lines on pages opposite the ones written by his mother. Instead of lists of supplies, he made lists of things he wanted to see once they were free. Experiences he wanted to share with his siren, places to go, things to eat, ways to get there. Climb a mountain. Dance at a festival. Ride a train. Walk through the desert—and see if such places are actually as hot as I once read about.

The night before the full moon, Alba wrote one last page. A manifesto of the everything he'd seen, not sure if he would leave it behind to be discovered by the next wickie, or perhaps something he would take with him once they went. He wrote about how the people of Moon Harbor used merrow magic for themselves, and all the things he'd realized were just harvested parts—the hair woven into their nets to lure more fish; the scales used as wound bandages; earrings and makeup pigments and adornments in their homes; shawls draped over the oldest of them, perhaps to extend their wavering life; still-beating merrow hearts claimed to revive the dead. And those were only what he'd seen with his own eyes.

He wrote about the wickies who came before him, particularly the ones whose notes and names were recorded in that same log book. Explaining what he thought happened to them, based on what he'd seen of their drowned corpses haunting the lighthouse rock, as well as the murals in the mermaid caves. ‘I think they killed wickies on the full moon and threw them into the sea hopin they would become new merrow, since they were runnin out of merrow native to this harbor. Including my mother, Edythe Marsh, who was born in this town. I think they (under instruction of Josiah Warren) will try and do somethin similar to me tomorrow night, when the full moon comes again.'

Closing his eyes, Alba breathed in deep to keep his nerves at rest. The thought made his heart want to race in anxiety, finding reassurance in the simple thought of—if they attempted to do to him what they'd done to his mother, he might see exactly how they kept her spirit trapped there in that town. He would see what she saw in her final moments. He might see exactly what he needed to finally put her to rest.

Even if he couldn't—destroying the town would hopefully do the job for him. He still didn't know how they would, but—he would not leave Moon Harbor until there was nothing left of it to mourn.

Alba was all tooconvincing when the men came to gather him the following night, acting surprised and caught off guard and confused, fighting back against them with everything he had, knowing they'd overtake him with ease. His only moment of genuine bloodthirst came when he laid eyes on Josiah waiting on the docks across the water, face bandaged where Eridanys had raked claws through his cheek. Appreciating the sight of his ship missing the mermaid on her bow. Prepared for a replacement.

The reminder alone was enough to make Alba lunge, nearly getting within reach to shove him into the water where he'd be crushed against the dock. It earned him a punch to the stomach, buckling forward with a grunt, reminded not to be so impulsive. He would get his chance to kill Josiah Warren, later.

There was no way for him to anticipate where the people held their full moon rituals, half-expecting to be led to the same place he witnessed the ritual on the new moon. The townsperson who guided them as the sun set carried a single lantern, draped in a black robe that shadowed their face, a polished sickle swinging from the belt on their waist. They constantly glanced over their shoulder to where Alba walked silently on their heels, two of Josiah's men behind him, constantly nudging him along with the end of a shotgun.

The ache in his hip made the hike to the cemetery on the hill agony, but Alba kept it from showing on his face. He just watched the lantern as it swung to and fro on the pole, lighting their way through the deepening dark. From the forest to their right, a sorrowful song hummed in pursuit of them, and Alba knew if he turned to look, a gallery of moon-pale faces would be watching the procession.

The cloaked figure didn't take the path into the trees like Alba expected, instead passing down the length of the cemetery to another worn trail leading over the side of the hill and snaking down toward the shore. At the end of the long, winding path, illuminated by the bright moon in the clear sky, a finger of dense forest jutted out into the sea, dissecting the black-sand shore just before the cliffs blocked the horizon.

"Is the merrow ready to be delivered to the new harbormaster?" the lantern-bearer asked with a brief pause to look back at them. A silent warning that they wouldn't continue further until they got the answer they wanted—and an unintentional announcement to Alba, loud as ever, that the townspeople had been told something very different from what Josiah actually meant to do that night. Alba nearly said something, but held it back. It wasn't his business what lies Josiah was spreading.

"Yessir," one of the men behind him answered. "All trussed up and ready for whenever we're done here. You'll get your magic fish, don't fuss about it. Go on, then, or this'll take all night."

The lantern-bearer's eyes lingered on Alba for a moment, before turning to continue. Alba followed, still without a word, not sure if he was amused or annoyed that the people had apparently fallen for the first lie they were told. After everything Eugene had said about the Warrens' long history in their town, they really should have known better.

Limping miserably by the time they reached the base of the path, the outcropping of trees extending onto the water greeted them, a garland of pearls and jingling bells hanging across the entry just like the way into the forest at their backs. Down a corridor between the rich-smelling pines, a small clearing opened up, grass bedded down and loamy with a shallow blanket of water as the moon's king tides flooded it with every wave.

The trees encircled a standing wooden slab like a mantle of witnesses. In the dark, it was hard to see what exactly was carved into the altar, how the stones were arranged in the dirt beneath their feet, how many cobwebs crisscrossed between the branches encircling them with how often they trailed over Alba's cheeks and arms. But there was one thing he did see—in the light of the single lantern, the altar was soaked a deep plum-red from long-spilled blood, proof of the previous wickies cut open before being tossed into the waiting waves lapping right up against the base of it. Previous wickies, including Alba's own mother. It was enough to make his knees weak, falling to one of them just to be yanked back upright again.

The lantern-bearer approached the altar, setting the pole carrying the light into a designated slot in the earth. They pulled the sickle from their belt, sliding the flat side of the blade up and down the edge of the wood as if polishing it with the old blood stored within the fibers.

Behind him, Alba heard the sound of shuffling fabric, then the strike of a match. He smelled the rich scent of tobacco, glancing over his shoulder just as one of the men stepped away from the other. Approaching the robed figure while taking a drag from his cigarette. He interrupted the person's movements, saying something Alba couldn't hear—before lifting his foot and punting them into the waves.

Hardly a second passed before a flash of bright moonlight lunged and thrashed beneath the water. Alba held his breath, staring, unblinking, at the churning froth, seeing the exact moment the foam tinged pink, then bright red, then went still again.

"The hell'd you do that for, jackass!"

It made Alba jump, stumbling back a step as the man behind him stomped forward, waving the shotgun around and grabbing the coat of the other in anger. "It's gotta be hungry enough to eat the damn wickie!"

"Look, there's an arm floatin' up. See it? Thing didn't eat the whole guy." He glanced back to Alba, the second one following suit. "S'not like he's too big of a meal, either. More like a dessert."

"We was supposed to spill ‘is blood on the damn altar so the folks think they got their witchcraft done," the second man continued to argue, growing more agitated. "I'm half a mind from cutting your own neck on it so Josiah doesn't come'n chew me out once he starts gettin' angry telegrams from these twats."

"No god-fearin' man's gonna be standin' by when witchcraft's goin' on," the other spat, sucking on his cigarette again before claiming the shotgun and turning to Alba. "C'mere, wickie."

When Alba didn't move, the man grabbed and dragged him closer. He chuckled upon gripping Alba by the nape of the neck and pointing into the water, dark and lapping at the edge of the grass, sometimes high enough to kiss their feet with the unpredictable tide.

"See ‘im?" he asked. "That's that merman you've been spreadin' your legs for. What's a fish cock in the ass feel like?"

A frenzied, moonlit creature thrashed beneath the surface, leashed in place by something Alba couldn't see through the darkness. Knowing it was there by how stilted the movements were. But Eridanys' snakelike silhouette was undeniable, and the strength with which he churned the depths into bubbling foam was enough to strike another apprehensive bolt of fear into Alba's heart.

God—with how blindingly fast he tore the previous person apart the moment they hit the water, Alba could only pray Eridanys would use his eyes before doing the same to him.

"Maybe he'll let us watch and see ‘fore he eats you up," he man continued, leaning over Alba's shoulder. Close enough that Alba felt the end of the gun against the small of his back, the heat of the man's breath on his neck.

He closed his eyes, preparing to be pushed, to face whatever remained of his siren's self-control—but a king tide suddenly swelled in fast and hard, crashing against the rocks with waves tall enough to soak the trees and knock all three of them off their feet. It sucked Alba in first, and he inhaled a mouthful of air just as his head cracked against the rocks and the strong tide turned him over himself.

With his arms tied behind his back, Alba could only kick his legs, releasing what little air he could from his lungs to search for the bubbles and figure out which way was up. Something clawed at him from below, knocked away with a slam of Alba's heel. He fought to climb through the water, straining his legs and propelling himself upward as if hooked by a line.

The moment he broke the surface, coughing and spluttering, Alba barely managed a sharp "Eri—!" before the same hands that'd grabbed him from the depths yanked him back under again, a knee smashing into his cheek as one of the men fought to remain on the right side of air, using Alba as a life preserver. Alba kicked his legs, thrashing against him and his weight, fighting to knock himself free before he actually did drown—until a streak of silver tore from the darkness like an arrow, slicing into the man and ripping him from Alba's shoulders.

Alba frantically kicked his legs harder, breaching the surface again with something akin to a death rattle, barely managing a breath before having to dunk under once more as another wave swept over. It carried him toward the rocks that time, as if wishing to do him a favor—slamming him against them, but far enough over the lip that he was able to grind his knees into the stone and anchor himself. Just enough to cling to it as the water flooded back out, letting him sink, melting into the stone and grass, waterlogged like a heavy canvas sail.

Coughing and gasping, he managed to clear his sore lungs just enough to finally inhale a shaky, scratchy breath, knowing he couldn't lie there and recuperate for long. He didn't know if another wave would come. He didn't know if another of Josiah's men would grab his ankle and drag him back under. Knowing it was their job to kill him, whether through Eridanys' hunger or to simply drown him and lie.

But when Alba finally gathered his bearings enough to strain his head around and look, the water was silent. Motionless, except for the waves. Even they seemed to have taken on a new state of calm, barely lapping against the rocky outlet. Skimming over the grass as if wishing to caress Alba's cheek pressed into the earth.

When a dark mass suddenly bobbed back to the surface, Alba jumped with another haggard gasp, only to hold it once he saw the gaping mercilessness of the man's missing arm, the way his head lolled in the water with only the finest tendon in his spine keeping it attached at the shoulders. Releasing his held breath with a deep shudder, Alba managed to sit up with a small grunt, watching as the fresh corpse once again disappeared into the darkness. Pulled by invisible hands—though Alba knew.

None other emerged. There was no movement for what felt like an eternity—before the moon of the deepest depths shimmered into existence, and Alba's breath caught for a different reason. Sitting forward, he watched in heart-racing anticipation as the whiteness grew closer, sharper, nearly within reach, finally crossing the threshold of the sea to lift himself on strong arms and press a kiss to Alba's mouth.

Alba pressed back into him relentlessly, straining against the ropes keeping his arms behind his back, wishing to hold him, to knot fingers in his hair and pull him closer, to kiss him and kiss him and kiss him forever. Eridanys gave Alba exactly that without having to be asked, hands finding Alba's hair, his face, drawing him impossibly close until there was hardly a breath between them of their own. Kissing him with lips and a tongue that donned the same taste of rust as when they'd kissed in the lighthouse.

Eridanys was the one to pull away first, and Alba nearly tumbled face-first into the water with how far he leaned into it. The siren produced the ceremonial sickle, and Alba released a short breath of gratitude, turning enough for the ropes binding him to be cut. He sighed in relief once free, rubbing his wrists before properly throwing his arms around Eridanys, the both of them tumbling into the water and emerging once more with mouths pressed against one another.

"Come on," Alba finally encouraged, breathless, grabbing Eridanys' arm. "Will you swim me back to the docks?"

"Unfortunately I cannot, sailor." Eridanys' smile was uneven, unsure. He gently swam Alba back to the rocks, heaving him up onto them again. "It's chains keeping me here. Nothing I can break out of, either, despite how hard I've been trying."

"O-oh," Alba whispered, feeling like he'd just been kicked in the chest. His thoughts raced, he—had to figure something out. He still had time. He could do something. He had to do something. They were so close—and he didn't want to lose another chance at the only thing he wanted.

"Albatross."

Alba jumped, turning quickly. From the darkness—that voice. It took him a moment, but he was sure of it—the voice of his mother.

He scrambled for the nearby lantern lying on its side and only just clinging to life. Allowing the kerosene to soak back into the fabric wick, he waited for it to reignite before pushing himself to his feet. But even with the added light, there was nothing there when he searched. Not even Edythe's residual spirit wandering between the trees. Nothing, no one, only the blood-soaked altar.

The lantern's glow spread over the discarded shotgun, and Alba raced to gather it up, checking to find both shells inside still dry. He turned back to Eridanys as a thought raced to his tongue, stopping short when something else caught his attention in the light.

All around him, the trees dripped with the sound of rain from the tidal wave that soaked them, clumps of foliage and cloth and rope dangling from their branches—or so he first thought. One closer look and Alba realized, knotted in the branches were strands of braided hair.

Eridanys asked what was wrong, but Alba didn't know what to say. There, right there, tied up on the branches around where other wickies had lost their lives on the red altar soaked with blood—exactly what he'd been hoping to find.

What he hadn't anticipated was the number of them. More than the ones he knew by name from the entries in the lighthouse keeper's logbook. There had to be dozens, even a hundred of them, ranging in every color, every texture, length, age. A long record of humans losing their lives where Alba stood, saturating that wooden pedestal with crimson—perhaps even long before Moon Harbor ever had any merrow living in their waters.

Alba didn't know what it meant, who the rest of them could have possibly been sacrificed to, let alone why—but it filled him with anger. Trembling enough with fury that the lantern-light shuddered in his grasp.

All of those people killed—how many were consenting? How many cried and begged and were dragged against their will? How many slit throats and bodies thrown into the sea for her to eat, and how many of those were with the agreement of the sea all the same? Too many were already forced to endure her against their will—Alba included. Eridanys included. His mother in death. His father in life. And the sea was always required to take them, to treat them no different from any others, even if she very well knew how much they feared her and her waves and her storms.

How many unwilling souls did she draw into her depths from Moon Harbor alone, nothing more than an ancient, wild thing driven to mad derangement, bloodlust, no different than a siren banished into vast loneliness?

Alba glanced back at Eridanys, his merrow turned siren, forced to kill on the sea to survive. He thought of himself, who once threw a man into the waves for the sake of his own life, and, in turn, his mother's. He thought of his father, who froze to death in the north, bodily remains picked off by sailors-turned-vultures else they meet the same end—no different from Alba forced to pick the remains off someone else succumbed to the cold, decades later.

His mother, who ran from the sea she loved so much only because she was told it wouldn't be forever. It would be for her own benefit, the Warren Sailing Company would take care of her and her new husband and their eventual child. Tricked, trapped, forced to her end by the one thing she always dreamed of seeing again one day, by the same people she always thought would embrace and protect her if she ever returned.

Killed to fulfill the bloodlust of a town driven to derangement by their own greed for magic; magic harvested from creatures driven mad by their own self-virtue; self-virtue that drove a merrow to gut his own caller of the shore, rather than be strapped to a Warren ship as a lure for fish, for wealth, for profit, to line the pockets of the same people who preyed on Edythe and Edward Marsh with promises of the same?—

I'll kill him,Alba thought. He meant to say it out loud, but if he opened his mouth, he would only scream.

He turned back to the trees, to the hair hanging from their branches, immortal reminders of the cruelty of that town and how its people fed into the parasite that was the Warren Sailing Company. Alba hated it—he hated all of them—and for a town full of people who thought they could own the magic of the sea and take everything from her to benefit themselves—he would force them to plead with her for safe harbor.

With a sweep of his arm, the lamp crashed against the high branches of the nearest tree. Glass and kerosene burst into a thousand pieces, scattering heat and sparking flaming children where they landed. Their hunger quickly took root, eating at fresh wood shielded from waves by thick clusters of pine needles; growing hotter and hotter until even the wettest of branches didn't stand a chance. Where the seawater soaking them bubbled until it boiled, spewing steam and thick smoke that replaced the fog that carpeted the land every night except the two where blood met the air.

Alba watched the fire burn until the sweat on his face edged on boiling with it, waiting for the satisfaction to come, the satisfaction that would allow him to turn and leave and walk away and be done with it all—but it never did. It wouldn't come. Not until Josiah Warren's blood smeared over Alba's hands like that of the wooden altar.

Turning back to Eridanys, the siren gazed up at him in silent intensity. Alba stared back, lips parted slightly in consideration, before crouching on the balls of his feet. He adjusted the shotgun in his hand.

"Show me your chains."

Eridanys narrowed his eyes, but dipped beneath the water, situating himself in a way that exposed the end of his long tail. It strained against the taut pull of the metal links anchored to something in the shallows. It didn't matter what—Alba didn't hesitate. The moment Eridanys flashed the shackle into view, Alba pressed the gun into the crook of his shoulder and pulled the trigger.

He was no sharpshooter, but he'd spent plenty of time perched on icecaps with fellow sailors, shooting empty crab shells tossed into the air to cure their boredom. Alba could aim well enough to not blow off Eridanys tail, hoping to, at the very least, weaken the chain links enough that the siren could lash his way free.

He didn't know whether he was successful at first, as Eridanys immediately thrashed back under the surface and tore back out again to curse at him—but Alba put his hands out, taking Eridanys by the face and kissing him. Eridanys' sharp teeth grazed the skin of his lip, his surprised anger snuffing as he wrapped arms around Alba in return, nearly pulling him back into the water with the embrace. Alba kissed him until the flaming heat on his back made sweat build and soak into his shirt, inhaling breath after breath between their mouths laced with saltwater and his siren's skin.

"Find a way out of the chains," he said. "I know you can. And then—we'll meet again before sunrise. I promise."

"Alba—" Eridanys attempted, but Alba pressed fingers to his mouth, before closing his eyes and pressing their foreheads together.

"There's just one more thing I need to do," he whispered, taking the shotgun in his hand again. "Just one more thing. Stay somewhere safe until I call for you. Please. You only have to do me one more favor, ever again."

Eridanys' hand found the back of Alba's head. Fingers tightened in his hair, and he was pulled into another rough, desperate kiss. Alba returned it, using the sensation of Eridanys' mouth to numb the growing fear in the back of his throat.

"Call for me," Eridanys said, like a command. "Call for me the moment you need me, Alba. I'll come."

"I know," Alba whispered. One more kiss, that time gentler. A promise. "I'll see you soon."

Eridanys had no chance to respond. Alba was already pulling away and limping into the mantle of burning trees.