Because You Love to Hate Me(44)

The dread that struck me at these words was immediate and painful. I had been too rash. I had ruined everything.

But he continued, “But I will return on the night of the next full moon. I want to find a way for you and me to be together. Some means that will allow you to be by my side forever, so we may never again be parted. I . . . I hope this is what you want also?”

Weak, tenuous joy trembled in my chest. “Yes,” I said. “I want this also.”

“Then I will find a way, my darling. Will you promise to be here when I return?”

My heart was pounding, my pulse running as hot as if I had his human blood in my veins. I nodded and did not shy away when he kissed me again.





I returned to my cave for the first time in weeks. It was just as I had left it, all destruction and mayhem, but no longer did the sight fill me with agony. No—now there was only willful determination.

Two weeks.

I had two weeks before I saw Samuel again, and I knew what I would do.

I loved him for his optimism, for his belief that he might be able to find a way for us to be together, but I knew he would never find such a way, not unless his human witches had magic like we had beneath the sea. No—if we were to be together, it would be my doing.

I began to search for the book. Digging through the scattered bones and skulls. Shoving aside piles of lobster claws and abalone shells. Pulling curtains of kelp and seaweed away from the dark basins where hot air erupted up from the earth below.

I found the book beneath a crush of broken bottles and sea glass, half sunken in sand. As I wiped the mud off the giant clamshell pages, it became clear that some of the spells were missing. I flipped through them hurriedly.

Ah—the love potion. Of course.

No matter. I no longer wanted the love of Prince Lorindel. I no longer needed to trick anyone into loving me at all.

My heart raced as I searched for the spell that I did need. The shells clacked as I turned through them again, skimming through the book once, then twice—

There. A spell carved into the pearlescent pages by some sorceress of ages ago. The spell that would turn my fish’s tail into a pair of human legs.

I read through the ingredients. The skins and organs of water snakes. The spinal cord of a sea otter. Fish eyes and squid tentacles and a single black pearl. Blood given willingly from a merfolk’s chest.

All ingredients that could be harvested easily enough.

Then I began to read through the warnings—for where there was magic, there was danger.

Upon drinking the elixir, it will be as if a sword were cutting through the merfolk’s stomach. Once transformed, the merfolk will maintain all manner of grace, though each step taken upon these legs will be as an abomination walks, and it will be as though daggers were being thrust into the soles of these human feet.

Let it forthwith also be known that if a merfolk sacrifices their natural life in pursuit of a land-dweller’s love, then only through marriage may they obtain an immortal soul and a share of man’s happiness. If that human should rather choose to marry another, then at the sun’s first light following the marital vows, the merfolk will perish and become naught but foam on the crest of the ocean’s waves.

This fate can be eluded if the merfolk chooses, instead, to take the human’s life before sun’s first light. This shall be done by plunging a dagger of carved bone into the heart of the human who once was loved. By this act, the merfolk will once more become a creature of the sea and nevermore will they be permitted to venture to the world of man.

I read the warnings with interest, if not fear. Surely Samuel would marry me and we would be joyful together for eternity, but I did not relish the thought of feeling as though a sword were cutting through my stomach or daggers were being thrust into the soles of my human feet. Imagining it made me feel faint, but I thought of Samuel and his kiss, and resolved myself.

After all, what was a lifetime of pain when coupled with a lifetime of bliss?

I set aside the book of spells and began to gather my ingredients. Two weeks was a long time to wait. An eternity to wait.

But when Samuel returned for me, I would forever leave this miserable ocean behind.





The elixir was black as squid ink, though when it caught the light, it shone as if a sky full of stars were captured inside. I used my dagger—recovered from the ship’s wreckage—to scoop the pasty liquid into an empty snail shell and tried not to imagine it sticking to my throat as I drank. Trying not to imagine anything beyond Samuel’s arms around me.

Clutching the shell in one fist and my knife in the other, I took one last turn around my cave. I had done little to clean it up. There was no point. I would never see it again, and even now I felt no sadness at its loss. There was nothing to miss. No one to say good-bye to.

I flicked my tail, pushing myself toward the surface.

The moon was drooping near the horizon when I burst out of the waves. It was as bright and round as the gem on the Sea King’s scepter, and the water around me was alive with green glowing algae. It was a perfect evening to be ashore. I swam to the beach, my stomach feeling as if I had swallowed an entire school of herring.

Samuel wasn’t there yet, which was for the best. I didn’t want him to witness my pain as the spell undid my body and wove it back together.

Setting the knife on a rock, I cradled the shell in both hands. I looked into the swirling, inky liquid, then down at the tail that was not as strong or graceful as some of the other merfolk’s, but that I had always thought a fine sort of tail.