The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea

There’s freedom in stories, you know. We read them and we become something else. We imagine different lives, and while we turn the pages, we get to live them. To escape the lot we’re given.

Yes, she was an orphan, a sister, a pirate, a girl, and also a boy. But more importantly, she was a person who sought power to protect those she loved. Including herself. Or himself. Both were equally true to her. Neither told the whole story.

She was not a creature of courage, but she was one of spite.

Love does not work in convenience. Or any kind of sense.

Magic was at its core, she said, a kind of madness. It was a willingness to look at the corporeal world and to see it only as the story up to that point. That everything that followed could be changed. Rocks fell because the belief that they would fall was so strong. But that belief wasn’t binding. It didn’t have to be binding anyway. For a price.

After that, she wondered, how improper was it — really — to slap a man in the face for staring?

There are those who are neither a man nor a woman. Those who were born and called the wrong gender and must reshape their story for those around them. But you. You’re something else. You’re whatever is safe. Both, maybe, but not neither. Or interchangeable. Names are funny things, because they can feel like lies but tell our truths.

Mermaid caught Returned to Sea By witch taught To be free Two souls bound By love, by knife True love found Restored to life Two souls fight For love, to be True love's might To save the Sea

It was her mother's gift to them both... They had earned it. Together.

She promised herself that when she breathed free once more, she would see these men ruined.

We don’t just read to imagine better lives. We read to be introduced to all kinds of lives. Any kind. Not just for ourselves, but for everyone around us. To understand others better. It’s escape, and it’s also a way to become more connected to everyone around you. There’s power in that, you know. In understanding. It’s like magic.

But He was not listening, not really. He simply waited expectantly in that way men sometimes did when waiting for their chance to talk.

Love does not work in terms of convenience. Or any kind of sense.

Disappointment rose in her throat, and she felt suddenly that she wanted to cry. Which was pathetic, of course. She was pathetic. That she thought she could just mince onto this boat and force a sailor into lessons was so arrogant and foolish. She was as worthless as her parents had so rightly noticed. She took in a breath and tried to steady herself against her own burning humiliation.

There's nothing out there to punish evil, no one out there to reward the righteous. We're all just adrift.

No, better. Stories. There’s freedom in stories, you know. We read them and we become something else. We imagine different lives, and while we turn the pages, we get to live them. To escape the lot we’ve been given.

If Florian was the wall that guarded Flora, then Evelyn had scaled his heights.

Guard, you said. Whatever. I don't need guarding, but I do love reading and I feel like - since you must like stories, right? - you would, too, if you give it a shot.

How upset he must be, that this one time the world did not grant him his heart's desire on his first request.

Only an Imperial man would go to such lengths for something he wasn't even sure he wanted. Only an Imperial man would be so confounded by not having gotten what he wanted with ease. How upset he must be, that this one time the world did not grant him his heart's desire on his first request.

He smiled broadly, the easily confident smile of a young man entitled to the world. What a slappable face he had. She would enjoy that. Or, better, waking him up in the middle of the night, marching him for an hour in the cold with no shoes on, and then reminding him to be polite. Evelyn said nothing, and the lieutenant nodded at his men, who led Evelyn into her future husband’s keep.

For that was what magic was - it was understanding the truth of something, and then changing it. Reality, Xenobia said, was created by belief, and as such even its most fundamental trappings could be altered.

In the morning, she left a large gold coin in her wake, more money, she knew, than a man like him had likely seen in his life. It would not assuage his sadness, but it would keep him warm.

Yes," he said. His eyes were alight with desire. But he was not listening, not really. He simply waited expectantly in that way men sometimes did when waiting for their chance to talk." p270

It did not do to fear Death, only to welcome it.

I sat there with that dead boy's head in my lap, the smell of his death around me, and I cut off his ears. First his right and then his left.