Chantress Fury by Amy Butler Greenfield

was utterly unlike the mermaid’s song. Indeed, it was unlike any music I’d ever heard before. But there was something about the phrasing and the cadences that made me think of Chantress song-spells.
    Could it be another Chantress?
    In my shock, I must have made a sound, or moved in an odd way, because Nat said immediately, “What’s wrong?”
    A year and a half apart, and yet he could still read me plainly. Another time, that might have made me happy. Right now, however, it added to my sense of strain.
    Should I tell him—tell everyone—what I thought I’d heard? No. Not yet. I’d heard too little to be sure of anything. Instead I focused on what mattered most—finding out where the limits of my power lay. Would the river still do my bidding in other matters? Quickly I sang to it, a simple spell for creating spouts of spray.
    It responded immediately, even enthusiastically, shooting off small fountains in all directions. I sang a spell to calm it, and they vanished. But when I tried again to call back the mermaid, I hit the same wall. I strained forward, listening for the strange new music. This time I heard nothing.
    Behind me, Captain Ellis lost his temper. “I’ll tell you what’s wrong. Look at her!” I swung around to face him, but it was the men he was speaking to, not me. “The mermaid’s gone off to shipwreck other vessels, and all the Chantress does is blow bubbles. And yet not one of you will speak a word against her.”
    “With reason, Captain,” the King rebuked him. “She’s earned our trust many times over.”
    “And we’re not exactly blameless ourselves,” Nat added. “Some of us should have worn earplugs, just to be on the safe side. I had mine in my pocket, but that wasn’t good enough, not when she was singing just a few feet away.”
    I was grateful that Nat was helping to shoulder the blame. Yet when he turned to me, his eyes were full of questions—the same questions that were in everyone else’s, even the King’s.
    What I had to tell them wasn’t going to help matters.
    “I’m afraid Captain Ellis is right.” I steadied myself against the rail as the ship swayed beneath me. “The fault is mine. I meant only to keep the mermaid from choking, but it all went wrong.” As dispassionately as I could, I explained how she had told me she was dying, how I’d tried to save her, and how I’d made a mistake with the ropes. “I chased after her, and just now I tried to use my magic to sing her back. But she outwitted me. I’m sorry.”
    My admission of guilt didn’t take the edge off the captain’s anger. Sir Barnaby also looked none too pleased, and Sir Samuel and the Admiral and Dr. Verney gave me reproachful looks. Nat had stepped back into shadow, so I couldn’t even guess at what he thought. But at least the King, Penebrygg, and Gabriel were nodding sympathetically.
    “I’m afraid there’s more.” I told them what the mermaid had told me: The sea is coming. We are coming. And we will drown you all.
    “What does it mean?” the King wondered.
    “Nothing good,” Captain Ellis growled under his breath.
    Sir Barnaby jabbed his cane at a bit of the broken barrel. “If you ask me, it’s a pack of nonsense. She was lying to you, Chantress. Just as she lied about choking and dying.”
    Had she been lying about the gag? I still wasn’t sure. And the vicious words of warning had felt like the unvarnished truth. “It didn’t feel like a lie.”
    “You were fooled before,” Sir Barnaby said.
    To that, I had no good answer, except perhaps to mention the faint song I’d heard, so powerful and so full of ill will. But then I was unsure of that, too. I’d heard it for only a moment, and it was hard to remember now exactly how it had sounded, still less why it had put me in mind of a Chantress. Most likely it was more mermaid magic—and Sir Barnaby was right to point out that I’d been taken in by that before.
    Before anyone could say anything more, the King