“Isla would make a powerful friend.”

Coco clutched my arm so hard that I nearly lost sensation in it. But her voice didn’t falter. “Whatever you’re trying to say, maman . . . say it.”

“Very well.” She waved her hand at the waters once more, and streaming tendrils shot forth, weaving midair to form a liquid lattice. They looked much like the roots of a glass tree, clear and bright and shining. Twining beneath Reid, they lifted his body and suspended it at waist level. I reached out to seize his hand with my free one. When Angelica motioned him down the path, the waters obeyed. He floated away from us, and I darted to keep up, dragging Coco along with me. “Stop it! What are you—?”

Her mother spoke in a strained voice. “I wish I could offer you a choice, fille, but truthfully, you have already made one. When you called upon the waters, you asked of them a favor. Now we must ask one of you.”

Coco dug in her heels, incredulous. “But I didn’t know—”

The waters began to close behind us, blocking our path to the beach. We stared at them in horror. “Isla wishes to speak with you in Le Présage, Cosette—you and your friends.” Angelica’s beautiful face pinched with regret. “I’m afraid you must all come with me.”

A Magpie’s Nest

Lou

Le Présage.

I’d heard the name once, spoken amidst breathless giggles at the maypole. Another witchling had suggested we seek it out as we’d twirled and danced in the sweltering midsummer heat. Manon had refused, repeating a story her mother had told her about melusines drowning unsuspecting witchlings. We’d all believed it at the time. Melusines were bloodthirsty, after all. Treacherous and uncanny. The boogeyman hiding beneath our beds—or in our backyard, as was actually the case. Some days, I’d been able to see the mist from their shore through my window at sunrise. It wasn’t until I’d first played with Coco that I’d realized melusines posed no real threat. They held dominion over an entire world below—a world apart from the rest of us, greater and stranger than our own. They had little interest in the affairs of witches.

Until now, it seemed.

I shot surreptitious looks at the black waters as we trudged along the footpath. They twined beneath Reid, towing him forward, while more water flooded the path behind, forcing us deeper along the seafloor. Within the waves on either side, shadows moved, some small and innocuous and others alarming in their size and dexterity. Beau appeared to share my disquiet. He nearly clipped my heel in his haste to flee the serpentine faces pressing in on the pathway. “Fish women, eh?” he muttered at my ear.

“Legend says they could once walk on land, but I’ve never seen it in my lifetime.”