the man I loved. But here, in my own world, I have the power to change things. I have the power to make this man love you.”
Don’t listen, I told myself. Don’t listen.
But her silky voice was mesmerizing. “Sing for me, Chantress, and I will keep him here just for you. You have my word on it. I need only a little of your power to finish my work, and after that I promise to give you what you want. He will forget the world above; he will care only for you. And together you will be happy—far happier than you ever could be on Earth.”
I tried to close my ears, but the pull of the voice was too strong. I couldn’t help imagining it—Nat in love with me, the two of us together always. . . .
“What is the Earth to you, anyway?” Pressina whispered. “Humans don’t trust you. They hate and fear you. You don’t belong there. It’s only here that you can be truly happy. Only here that he can truly love you.”
I found myself nodding. But then I saw Nat’s eyes above Pressina’s scales, wide open and angry. I froze, horrified. Even if Pressina was telling the truth, how could I sacrifice everything—Nat’s free will, his sanity, the lives of everyone on Earth—to gain love? No, not even love. Just some cheap imitation of it.
Pressina had seen only the nod. “Yesssssssss. That’s right, Chantress. Take off your stone and sing for me, and I will make you happy.”
I nodded again. My fingers found their way to the chain and started to pull. It was a terrible choice, but I’d made my decision.
“Yessssssssss.” The serpent tongue flicked, and the coils started to relax.
Yanking the necklace up, I screamed, “Jump, Nat!” As the Wild Magic of the place rushed in on me, I sang the shifting song at the top of my lungs, and I flung the stone at Pressina.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
LEAVING
As Pressina twisted and Nat leaped, I sang a variation on the shifting song—changing not myself but the stone. I poured all my anger and all my fury and all my love for Nat into the singing, and in an instant the stone expanded to hold them all. When it careened into Pressina, it was as big as a boulder, impossible to evade.
With a screech that rivaled the cacophony of the Wild Magic, she blew apart. The blast shook the whole cave. Still half-caught in her spirals when the stone hit, Nat flew up in a whirlwind of green scales.
As loose rocks cascaded from the rumbling walls, I screamed Nat’s name. Had I killed him, too?
The whirlwind let him go, and he fell to the cave floor. Dodging the rocks, I ran toward him, but my foot caught on something and I tripped. Reaching out, I found my stone, small and dull and more cracked than ever, but still in one piece on its chain.
When I flung it on, it did nothing to deafen me, but at least I was becoming more used to the music. Even if I couldn’t understand much of it, it no longer made my head swim.
Rising to my feet, I rushed over to Nat. He was unconscious, burned, and bruised, and his limbs were sticking out at odd angles. I started to weep. He was still breathing, but for how long?
Looking around for something that would help him, I caught sight of another body, that of the sea snake that had been my mother. And there was Melisande, half-buried under rocks, and Odo, at the foot of the rock where my mother had stood . . .
Death. Death everywhere.
And then singing.
The music poured out of the small caves and rifts and tunnels. I couldn’t understand the phrases, but it was entirely different in mood and tempo from what I’d heard from Pressina’s horde.
Moments later, starfish and sharks and squids shot into the cave, dancing around me in a dazzling rainbow of colors. Soon the whole place shimmered with vibrant creatures and their ever-changing speckles and stripes and spots.
“You did it!” a school of fish shouted.
“You killed Pressina!”
“You freed us!”
“And we helped,” a small shark-toothed creature said proudly. “We beat back the others.”
“The last ones gave up when Pressina died,” a squid told me. “Without her magic directing them, they seemed to forget why they were fighting us.”
A school of fish cheered.
“But you do not rejoice,” a starfish said to me. “You are sad?”
“My friend is dying.” I gestured at Nat, choking on the