With her eyes shut, she couldn’t see the whirlpool, but she felt its rhythms beating the water harder as she was drawn closer. Two currents collided, creating a vortex. Humans didn’t truly believe the legend that said a witch was at the bottom of it.

Just as well.

When Hæra hit the vortex’s wall, the current released her. No more need of it. She was sucked into the water and slammed about. The whirlpool dragged her right down to the bottom, to the sandy pit where the witch spun with her victims. This time, Hæra didn’t fight it.

Instead, when she landed on the sand, she lay sprawled there as she had in the mud behind Madeleine’s cottage. Her fins twitched against the seafloor, and when she looked up, she could see the night sky.

The whirlpool slowed.

Before her, the witch stopped spinning and let her arms fall. The two corpses floated down to the sand, but neither released the witch’s hands. Instead, they slumped on the ground like puppets with only one remaining string apiece.

The water rushed in to fill the void. The surface closed and the sky disappeared. The witch looked at Hæra with eyes like a sky that never saw stars.

“How did you call to me in dreams? How did you pull me here?” Hæra asked. “You can’t even leave this spot yourself.”

The witch looked at the dead man who clung to her. “I cannot leave. But I can summon.” Her eyes sliced back into Hæra. “You owe me your life.”

Hæra dipped her head low in acknowledgment. She had made the bargain; she had created the debt. “I’m here,” she said. “I’ve brought you what you asked for. What will you do with it? With me?”

“Don’t know yet.” The witch walked forward, dragging the bodies behind her. Clouds of sand rose beneath them and her bare, knobby feet. “Won’t know until I taste.”

In Hæra’s dream—a vision—the witch had licked Asgall’s blood from Hæra’s human face. It wasn’t difficult to figure out her desire.

“His was bitter,” the witch said when she reached the place where Hæra lay. “It belonged to the sea.”

Between one breath and the next, she went to her knees, leaned forward, and sank her teeth into Hæra’s neck.

Even though Hæra had foreseen this, instinct kicked in again. So did her front legs as she tried to knock the witch away from her. But the witch was immovable as stone, and Hæra’s left front leg only hurt worse for it.

Besides, it was done. Blood floated from the wound the witch had just left in Hæra’s neck, right next to one from Asgall that had healed over. Yet again, the witch’s tongue passed over Hæra’s flesh.