The Mermaids Madness

human queen’s ship, sinking them all, but the shock of the knife’s rage had been too much. By the time Lirea recovered, the humans had already fled.
    Perhaps it was for the best. The human queen had been Lirea’s only hope of finding Lannadae, and now she was dead. Let the survivors carry her warning back to their king. When their vessels began to disappear, they would remember Lirea’s price for safe passage.
    Raindrops sprinkled Lirea’s skin as she lowered the flotation ring back into the water and climbed down to retrieve her knife. Once she was back on the ship, she knelt to remove Geoffrey’s clothing. Both men were larger than her, but it would do. She slipped the loose shirt over her head, then used a skinning knife from the older man to shorten the sleeves. She performed similar alterations on the trousers, then sat down and massaged her legs, trying to rid her muscles of the worst of the pain.
    She searched the rest of the ship, but she found no other occupants. With the cabin blocking her from the other ships, nobody else appeared to have noticed her presence.
    She dragged Geoffrey’s groaning body below. If anyone had heard rumors of a mermaid living along the shores of Lorindar, it would be a sailor. If not this one, there were plenty of others to talk to.
    Lannadae had evaded Lirea once. She wouldn’t escape again.

CHAPTER 3

    I N THE YEARS SINCE SNOW HAD FLED her country, she had never been able to completely accept Lorindar as home. The endless rain, the fog that rolled in each morning, chilling the air, the cry of the gulls . . . and had she known how often she would be forced to eat seafood, she might have stayed in Allesandria, even if it meant facing a death sentence for the murder of her mother the queen.
    Though she never spoke of it, there were days when she longed to look out and see not endless ocean but the jagged mountains topped with snow.
    The place where she felt most at home was far beneath the palace, in the room she had claimed as both library and laboratory. Books lined the walls on shelves of oiled wood. The walls were bare stone, as her room in Allesandria had been. The blue and gold carpet in the tight-stitched styles of home must have cost a fortune. Beatrice had imported it two years ago for Snow as a birthday gift.
    Stains and burns marred the carpet now, the result of two years of magical experimentation.
    The most valuable artifact in the room, one of the few items Snow had been able to smuggle out of Allesandria, was the magical mirror that hung from the wall. Flowering vines cast in platinum framed the oval mirror, which was taller than Snow herself. Every once in a great while, Snow would sneak down here and ask the mirror to show her the mountains of home.
    Today she was ready to smash a chair through the glass. She sat on a barrel, her bare heels thudding against the wood as she glared at the mirror. The mirror reflected her glare right back.
    “Mirror, mirror, of silvered glass. Find Lirea or I’ll break your—”
    “How exactly would one break a mirror’s ass?” asked Talia, stepping through the archway into the room.
    “It’s metaphorical.” Snow rubbed her eyes, then grimaced. Her joints were stiff, and her eyes felt as though Danielle had scoured them on one of her cleaning binges. “How long have I—”
    “About an hour.” Talia sat on the floor, folding her legs beneath her. “I take it you haven’t been able to find Lirea?”
    “I caught a glimpse once. She was somewhere in the water.”
    “Well, that certainly narrows it down.”
    Snow reached out to touch the platinum frame of the mirror. She had tried one spell after another, searching for both Beatrice and Lirea. Her first efforts to find Beatrice had come up against a magical ward. Recognizing Father Isaac’s spells, she had tried again, this time concentrating on Bea’s spirit. The mirror had revealed only darkness. “My mother would have been able to find her.”
    She peered more closely at her reflection, studying the strands of white scattered through her hair. Her mother’s hair had been the opposite, white with wisps of black.
    “As I recall, you defeated your mother,” said Talia. “Twice. Anything she could accomplish—”
    “I cheated.”
    Talia shook her head. “When you’re fighting for your life, there’s no such thing as cheating.”
    Snow smiled absently. “She tried to teach me when I was younger. With every spell we cast, I could feel her power