Free Children of Poseidon: Rann by Annalisa Carr Page B

know where she came from.”
    “Your mother didn’t kill her?” Lykos let his bitterness over his run-in with Cyclops colour his voice.
    “Get over it.” Rann forced the smile off his face. He needed Lykos’s help. “That was more than fifty years ago.”
    Lykos grunted.
    “Why didn’t you ask her?” Lila said. “This seawitch?”
    “She was catatonic. My mother had her wrapped in chains. I’ve never seen so much nullsilver in my life. I replaced them with bracelets, of course, but she’s still not connected with reality.”
    “Catatonic?” Lila chewed a finger, and Lykos absently slapped it away from her mouth. “Have you tried taking the bracelets off?”
    “I don’t dare,” Rann said. “My mother said she was leaking dark magic when she found her, and a trail of dead bodies marked her passage. Fish, seals, seabirds. A dead mermaid washed up in the kraken’s trench. All the marks of death magic. I don’t know what would have happened if I’d taken the nullsilver away. I’d be all right, but everyone else on the island . . . and the sea . . . not worth the risk.”
    “You think she’s being used as a vessel?” Lykos asked.
    “A vessel?” Two vertical lines appeared on Lila’s forehead.
    Lykos squeezed her shoulders. “You know what a magic vessel is.”
    “No.” Lila’s tone said she didn’t want to know.
    “It’s when a living creature is used as a sink for more magic than the original user can manage by themselves. It’s what witches used familiars for. Black cats and things.”
    Lila gaped at him. “Familiars? I know what those are. They’ve been banned in the covens for years. Even with animals. And to use a human? It’s an automatic death sentence.”
    “It’s still done.” Lykos shrugged. “By renegade mages, and occasionally talented pure humans work out how to do it.”
    “But there’s a limit, surely?” Rann had no idea how Lykos knew all of this. It was human magic. “This witch has been leaking death magic for a while. It should have leached away by now, but it hasn’t. Maya saw the aura surrounding her, even with the bracelets.”
    “Why didn’t you kill her?” Lykos reached forward, and picking up a couple of biscuits, he gave one to his wife. “You can’t believe she’s still in the body. It must be just a shell by now.”
    “I don’t know.” Rann took one of the shortbreads and contemplated it for a second. “I thought I saw a flash of awareness when I brought her out of the sea. Fear. I made a snap decision not to kill her.”
    “Where is she now?” Lykos asked. “You left her on your island?”
    “No,” Rann sank his teeth into the shortbread. “Maya and Jewel took her back to London. She’s staying with them.”
    “You left my sister with her?” Lila sat bolt upright. “A dangerous witch? Lykos, we’ve got to go to London. Now.”
    Rann did his best to look unmoved, but he’d left his island because he couldn’t shake off the sense of foreboding. He knew he couldn’t blame Lila for overreacting. “Tamsin had a dream. Seawitch should go to London. And if anyone can take care of herself, it’s Maya.”
    “She’s young.” Lila chewed her fingers again.
    Lykos pulled them away from her mouth, kissing her hand and keeping it in his. “She’s the most powerful witch your coven ever produced. You told me so yourself. And she’s an adult now.”
    “I know, but—”
    “I’m going to London.” Rann interrupted before Lila spiralled into open panic. She’d always been ultraprotective of her younger sister. “I’ll make sure she’s all right.”
    Lila gave him a look he interpreted as uncertainty.
    “I’m going anyway. I don’t like a lot about the situation. I don’t know what I was thinking letting them go alone in the first place.”
    “Too lazy?” Lykos suggested.
    Rann didn’t take the bait. He smiled instead, the lazy smile that always irritated his half-brother. “So you don’t know how to fix her?”
    Lila shook