The Mermaids Madness

hauled the door shut.
    With three people and one undine, the map room was quite cramped. Snow’s choker flared to light, illuminating the room. A single desk occupied half the room. An enormous map of Lorindar and its surrounding countries dominated the far wall. To one side, long drawers of red-stained wood were mounted to the wall, each one latched with a small brass hook.
    Stone weights held another map flat on the desk. One of the mirrors from Snow’s choker stood in the center of the map, thin gold wires acting as both legs and pins.
    Wind howled, and the Phillipa rocked to the side. One of the rocks slid onto the floor. Talia grabbed the ornately embroidered chair behind the desk before it could topple over.
    Snow squeezed past Talia to claim the chair. The desk itself was secured to the floor to keep it from sliding. She jabbed a finger at the map. “The wind is all wrong for this part of the sea. This is magical, like the storm that chased us from Lorindar.”
    Danielle held the other side of the desk for balance. The lines and arrows covering the map made no sense to her, but she trusted Snow.
    “Could Morveren be the one controlling the storms?” Talia asked. She didn’t seem to notice the pitching floor. Her knees bent to shift her weight, easily compensating for the motion.
    “She couldn’t have sent them all the way to Lorindar.”
    “What about Lirea?” asked Lannadae. “If she’s followed us here—”
    “I don’t think so,” said Snow. “This storm . . . it feels settled, somehow. It’s been here a while. Lannadae, you said that when you tried to find Morveren, the sea grew angry and the waves tried to batter you against the rocks.”
    “That’s right.” Lannadae pulled herself up to look at the map, her tails spread back in a V for balance. She jabbed her partly eaten fish at the map. “You think the wind was deliberately keeping me away?”
    Another rock slid from the desk, and the map curled back over Snow’s mirror. “I don’t know,” said Snow. “But it’s really starting to irritate me.”
    “The Phillipa is tough, but if the wind smashes us into the rocks, we’re still going down. If this thing is guarding Morveren, we have to fight through it,” said Talia.
    Snow cocked her head. “What do you mean ‘we’? What are you planning to do, throw a knife at it?”
    “Can you fight it?” Danielle spoke quickly, trying to cut off the annoyance she saw in Talia’s eyes.
    Snow grabbed her mirror from the map and returned it to her choker. “There’s no body to attack. It’s not a demon hiding in the center of the storm. It’s the whole storm.” She rose from her chair. “I need to be out there. I need to feel the wind on my skin, to allow its power to touch my own.”
    Snow stepped to the door and pushed it outward. The wind yanked it from her grasp, slamming it open so hard the topmost hinge cracked loose from the frame.
    Danielle and Talia both moved to brace Snow’s arms. When Snow cast her spells, she sometimes lost track of the world around her.
    Waves crashed against the side of the ship, washing over the main deck below. None were tall enough yet to reach the map room, but that could change at any time. Salty spray chilled Danielle’s face.
    Sailors shouted as they fought to secure the boat below. The guns were still lashed tight from the previous storm. Lifelines spread from the mainmast like a spiderweb. How could any storm have built so quickly?
    Even with the sails furled, the wind still carried the ship along at a good pace. So far, Captain Hephyra had managed to keep the ship aligned with the wind. Danielle tried not to think about what would happen if Hephyra lost control of the wheel, and those winds struck the Phillipa broadside.
    The door started to blow shut, but Talia snapped her foot out to stop it before it could slam into them. She grunted at the impact. “How long do you need to stand here, Snow?”
    “The wind is bound to this place.” Snow’s eyes were squeezed shut, her face crinkled against the rain. “I’ve never seen a binding like this. I might be able to break it eventually, but it’s like trying to snap steel chain with a cooking knife.”
    Danielle squeezed Snow’s arm to get her attention. “If it’s a guardian, can you hide us somehow?”
    “Illusion doesn’t work too well on things that don’t have eyes.”
    “So what would work?”
    Snow tilted her head back, like a child tasting the rain. “That depends on