Karin was locked in a dream. She clung to it. Gold and silver runes were morphing into faeries, harp-playing faeries churning out heartbreakingly beautiful music. She did her damnedest to tune Leif out, but his insistent shouting intruded. “Wake up, Karin.”

“Huh? Leif? Aren’t you in the sea?”

“Karin! Pay attention. Please.”

She blinked, bleary-eyed, and understood she’d replied out loud, so she repeated her questions using telepathy.

“Yes. It’s Leif. Remember what I told you about Witches? A whole coven’s worth took over Invercargill. They’ve set their gunsights on us.”

She bolted upright and swallowed nausea. Her head pounded, and her vision wasn’t quite right yet, but it edged toward clearer focus. “Can you swim back to the ship? Or teleport here? Your magic will do that.”

“It would,” he corrected her, “but they netted us with a spell we can’t break through.”

“Can the whales help?”

Leif paused before answering. “Sorry, I had to check. They’re still free. If you look outside, you’ll see them circling the ship.”

She rubbed her temples. At least she wasn’t dizzy anymore. “What can I do?”

“Alert everyone. Talk with the whales. They know the whole story.”

“Will you and your dolphins be all right?”

A long sigh rattled from him. “I have no idea. We traded a lot for power. The Witches know it. They want something from us.”

Karin walked to the sink and positioned her cupped hands under a stream of cold water. She sluiced it across her face. “Don’t give anything away if you can help it. Last thing you need is more Witchy residue.”

“I’ll be back in touch if I can.”

The echo that meant they were connected disengaged abruptly. Karin’s clothes were still damp. Presumably her sheets were too since she’d been lying on them, but that problem was at the bottom of her list of priorities. Stripping to skin, she dressed again, stepping into her Wellingtons last.

“Ketha!” Karin called.

“Yup. We’re here. How are you?”

“Never mind about me. I’ll live.” Karin hurriedly sketched out what Leif had told her about Witches and sea Shifters. A startled intake of breath from Ketha told her all she needed to know. Apparently, none of them had the slightest inkling about the unholy alliance their sea kin had forged.

“I fecking hate Witches,” Zoe growled.

“Hey, Zoe. Is everyone listening?” Karin asked.

“All of us who can,” Viktor concurred.

“And maybe some who shouldn’t be,” Ketha tossed out. “We need to watch what we say.”

“Understood. Presumably I didn’t tell any nosy Witches anything they didn’t already know about our sea kin. I’m headed to the bridge to apprise Juan and whoever else is here about the situation. I presume you’re traveling back our way?” Karin sucked in a tense breath. She did not want more bad news. Not as shitty as she still felt.

“Working on it,” Ketha replied. “Over and out for now.”

Karin strode out of her cabin. Working on it wasn’t a yes, which meant Ketha and the shore team had run into trouble. Witch trouble. Karin doubled up a fist. She could relate to Zoe’s comment. Even though they kind of played on the same side, there’d never been any love lost between Shifters and Witches. For one thing, no bond animal had ever warmed to a Witch. Something about their magic felt dirty. Bottom barrel scrapings from the white magic side of the supernatural world.

She hadn’t been in very good shape when Leif relayed his humiliation-laden tale of parlaying with Witches when the sea Shifters’ backs were up against the wall. If she’d been firing on a few more cylinders, she’d have made more disapproving noises and tried to troubleshoot solutions. Surely, there was a way out of their predicament.

Even if it meant spending more time on land.

Running on instinct, she went outside, grateful the breeze was merely cold, not icy. Karin scanned the ocean, easily locating whale fins, and walked to where the gangway was still deployed. A quick trip down the swaying stairway brought her to the platform with the sea washing over it.

“Whales come close, please.” Rather than telepathy, she cupped her hands around her mouth.

Two of the fins headed her way. Amid water spewing out blowholes, they swam close. “What do you need, land Shifter?” the nearest whale asked in a deep, rumbling voice.

“Witches are in Invercargill. From the sound of things, they may control it.”

“We already know. Leif said as much. Do you have news?” The whale slapped the water with its tail, showering Karin with seawater.

She held onto handgrips as the platform canted from side to side. “The Witches trapped them with magic. Several of us went into Invercargill. Best I can tell, they’re trapped as well.”

The three other whales formed a circle nearby, and a cacophony of hoots, bleats, and honks filled the air. Karin waited for the outcome of their conversation. Water dripped down her head and face, and she brushed it away. Thank the goddess the crippling inertia was on its way out. She felt far stronger than she had when Leif ripped her from sleep.

A tail slap refocused her. “Yes?” She knelt on the platform, and a whale focused one of its laterally placed eyes right on her.

“We will attempt to shift. At least two of us—maybe three—are probably still strong enough.”

Karin perked up a few more notches. Treating whales was well within her ability. “I took part in all the dolphin healings,” she told the whale still staring at her. “I can probably determine what amount of the medication mixture you’ll need to attack the parasite infestations.” A thought snapped her head up. “I can use telepathy and talk with Daide and Recco too. They’ll know if my milligrams per kilogram conversion is right.”

She closed her teeth over her lower lip. “Do any of you have the slightest idea how much you weigh?”

The whale right next to her burbled laughter. Water erupted from its blowhole, getting her ever wetter.

Karin chortled. “Never mind. It was a stupid question. The vets will know.” She straightened. “How about it? Are you game for me to dose you?”

“Yes, but only the two weakest whales. You can treat the rest of us later. I don’t want to take any more time than we have to. While you’re doing your doctor dance, I’ll work on shifting. It’s been a long time, and it might take a while to get the magic right.”

She straightened. Water sluiced down her, and she wondered why she’d bothered to change clothes. “If you’re successful shifting, turn right at the top of the gangway and take the first door inside the ship. You’ll see three green metal lockers. When you open them, you’ll find an assortment of clothes.”

“Clothes,” another whale groaned. “I’d forgotten that part.”

“You’ll appreciate them if the wind picks up. I’ll be back here as soon as I get your drug cocktail mixed up.”

She fairly flew up the gangway. Where would she find an injection point? Would she use the same proportions? Inside Arkady, she trotted down one flight to the lab. “Daide,” she called, hoping his telepathy would be up to the task.

“Karin?” His reply was almost immediate, but he sounded stiff and subdued. “How are you?”

“Fine, but this isn’t about me. What dosage and drug mix for the whales? Where’s a decent injection point? Do I need to stick with intravenous, or will subcutaneous do? How about time for a response? Anything special I need to be alert for?”

“Hold on.” Daide stemmed the flow of her questions. “Give me a moment to confer with Recco.”

She’d begun gathering chemicals when Daide provided a set of concise instructions. She asked a few questions and then went to work. This wouldn’t be as difficult as she’d feared. No need to swim beneath the buggers and find some vessel buried beneath layers of blubber.

As she worked, she replayed the interchange with Daide. It had held a stilted quality. Was he angry with her for keeping her condition hidden? The more she thought about it, the surer she was that had to be it. Her misplaced confidence had nearly been her undoing.

“Not as if I’ll make that mistake again.” The acerbic note in her words steadied her as she prepared injections. Since they lacked needles long and thick enough to penetrate whale hide, she was planning to inject the drug mixture beneath their tongues. Daide had reassured her they’d scarcely feel it, but she wasn’t so certain. Karin said a hasty prayer to the goddess to guide her hand.

She’d just gathered her materials into a leather bag when two large men and one woman marched into the lab. They looked like Neanderthal throwbacks with thick, unruly blonde hair, stocky builds, and close to seven-foot heights. Not exactly heavy, they had barrel-chests and legs like oak trees. Clothing built for smaller people stretched across their girths, and they were barefoot.

Karin inclined her head. “Whale Shifters, I presume.”

“At your service, madam healer.” One of the men bowed formally.

Juan burst into the lab behind them. “What in the devil is going on? Vik didn’t say much, but I believe he fell into some type of snare in Invercargill. I can’t raise Leif. I was getting ready to launch another raft when I saw you three”—he jerked his chin at the whales—“trooping up the gangway.”

“Sorry,” Karin said. “I meant to find you first, but I got tied up with the whales. I’m off to dose the two weaker ones. Once all five have shifted, we’ll meet you on the bridge.”

“Hurry,” Juan said before adding, “Oh yeah. I’m glad you’re better, but I’m frantic about the shore team.”

“I understand.” Karin crossed the room and gave him a hug. “We’ll get Aura back. Your mate is tough. Don’t underestimate her.”

“Never.” He grinned wryly. “She’d flay me alive.” Turning, he ran out of the lab.

The whales hooted and honked and gestured for her to get moving. “Did you reach the vets?” the man right behind her asked.

“Yes. They told me what to do.”

“Will you require our help?” the woman asked in a low, musical voice.

“Maybe. I’m not sure. Recco and Daide are standing by in case I need them. What are your names?”

“Unlike the dolphins, we don’t have human names,” the woman said, followed by a musical trill. “That is my whale name.”

Karin reached the gangway and hurried down to water level with the others lined above her on the stairs. The male who’d spoken with her first joined her on the platform. He sang a few notes and a whale swam close.

Karin knelt and withdrew what she needed from her medical bag. “Open your mouth, please. I’ll be injecting this beneath your tongue. Shouldn’t hurt at all.”

“A needle inside my mouth?” The whale stared doubtfully at her.

Bleats and clacks rose around her, mostly from the Shifter on the platform, but also from the whale in the water. After a heated run of honks, it made a pathetic squealing noise and opened its mouth.

Karin bent forward but reached a tipping point fast. The Shifter sharing the platform with her wrapped his huge hands around her waist. “I’ve got you.”

Hoping she wouldn’t have the bad luck to hit a nerve and scare the reluctant whale into clamping its jaws around her head, she probed with a gloved finger. When the whale didn’t react, she traded her finger for the large syringe and slowly injected the medication.

The man hanging onto her pulled her back onto the platform from where she’d been sprawled half in the whale’s mouth. “All done,” she said brightly.

The whale shut its mouth and produced a series of chirps.

“Everything all right?” Karin asked.

“Yes,” the whale answered in English this time. “Thank you. I never even felt it.”

Thank god and all the bloody saints for small favors.

The next whale’s treatment went off with far less fanfare. She was dropping her used syringes into her bag when Daide’s voice rang in her head. “Well?”

“You gave me excellent instructions. All is well.”

“You have to keep an eye on them for at least the next hour,” he cautioned.

“Someone will. Not trying to be short, but I promised Juan we, er, I would meet him on the bridge as soon as I finished here.” She stopped shy of telling him about the shifted whales. No reason to give the Witches additional ammunition—assuming any might be listening. “Any changes on your end?”

“Not a thing.”

Karin stared at the whales in the water. They seemed okay, but she should listen to their hearts, take their pulse—if she could find a pulse point. Both were coughing and blowing. Worms spewed from their blowholes.

“It’s all right.” The man who’d held onto her patted her shoulder. “I will watch over my kin. If anything appears amiss, I’ll summon you.”

Karin stuck her hand out, and the sea Shifter shook it.

“Please come to the bridge with me,” she told the other two and skirted around them on her way up the gangway. “We’re throwing a war council, and all of us must be part of it.”

“I’ll be along as soon as these two have shifted,” the man standing on the platform said.

“Sixth deck—” she began.

“I’ll find it. I’m no stranger to ships.” The whale Shifter nodded curtly.

Karin ran lightly up several sets of risers with the whales right behind her. She pushed open one of the doors onto the bridge. Everyone was there. Seven humans, four from McMurdo and three from Arctowski, stood in a tight circle looking worried. Six female Shifters she’d spent a decade sitting out the Cataclysm with in Ushuaia were bent over Tarot spreads. Juan stood at the helm.

“Any news?” Juan’s tone was casual, but the way he stood wasn’t. Tension streamed from his upright posture and white-knuckled grip on the wheel.

Karin gestured to the whales onto the bridge. “Welcome. I’d do introductions, but you’ll figure it out.”

“We already know who you are,” the whale who’d helped her said.

“Could you sketch out the high points of what power the Witches hold over you?” Karin asked.

A muted gasp rose from Tessa and Becca. “Gawk. What power? How come we never knew anything about it?” Tessa made a sour face. “We hate Witches.”

The female whale Shifter stepped forward. Color rose to her ruddy face. “Better me than a man for this task. They’re still appalled.” Her nostrils flared. “You know how the male Witches died out before the Crusades?”

“I didn’t realize they’d totally vanished,” Karin said.

“Yeah, there were rumors for years about Warlocks running amok. They’re even memorialized in some of our Shifter history tomes,” Tessa added.

“The rumors had no basis,” the female whale muttered, her tone caustic. “The last one died somewhere around 1200, perhaps 1250.”

The other whale Shifter blew out a noisy breath. “It was in the Witches’ best interest if folks didn’t realize how tenuous their grip on survival really was.” He sent a pointed glance at the female in a mute plea for help.

She nodded briskly. “Witches are far from immortal,” she began. “They don’t even live as long as we do. When they breed with humans, most of their magic is lost in the mix. Human-Witch hybrids barely have enough power to light a candle.”

“And they lose even a prayer of living past a single century,” the male cut in.

“Do you want my help, or no?” The female rounded on him, followed by a few bleats and clacks.

He hooted her way and gestured for her to continue.

“It’s easy enough to extrapolate,” the female went on. “Within the span of a single generation, Witches would have been a thing of the past if they couldn’t unearth a way to pass their power to subsequent generations. They trolled through other magic wielders, but no one volunteered to serve as sperm donors.”

She stopped to take a measured breath. “Whether it was the luck of the draw or simply desperation on both parts, we needed an infusion of power to avoid genocide. Working together, we discovered a way to strengthen our magic. Some of our men lay with them.”

“The children?” Karin leaned forward. Genetic mixtures had always intrigued her.

“More Witch than Shifter.” The woman rolled her eyes. “Thank the goddess for small favors.”

“We never saw any of them in the sea,” the male broke in, “so we assumed none of them had the ability to shapeshift.”

“The next hundred or so years slipped by,” the male continued in a low, musical voice. “But then they used the Witch magic that was a part of us to reel us in. They wanted more children.” He swallowed hard. “That was when it sank in we were roped into the bargain from Hell. We’d stupidly assumed we’d provide a stopgap, and they’d figure something else out in the meantime.”

Karin narrowed her eyes, not liking the sound of any of this. “They want Leif and the other male dolphins to serve as a stud service?”

“About the size of it.” The female nodded sadly. “But it gets worse. Something about breeding with Witches sows the seeds of madness. The Shifters who were unlucky enough to be selected the first time turned into raving lunatics. They drowned themselves to avoid living with whatever demons tormented them.”

“And subsequent batches?” Juan asked.

The whales exchanged glances. The male coughed, and an uncomfortable expression washed across his broad, flat features. “We developed a lottery. Whichever man lost became the sacrificial object. He serviced all the Witches, and then he had a choice.”

“Some choice,” the female muttered. “Either we killed him or let him wait until the madness grew so oppressive he took his own life. The problem only cropped up every hundred years or so. We did everything in our power to find a solution, but never did.”

“We were hoping the Cataclysm wiped Witches off the globe,” the male said.

“No such luck.” The whale who’d been down on the platform marched onto the bridge with the other two trailing behind him, one male and another female.

Karin trotted to them, eyeing them closely. “How are you feeling?”

“We’ll live,” the female said. “Thank you.” She bent her head to Karin’s level. “You have no idea how close you came to me snapping your neck when your head was in my mouth.”

Karin chuckled. “Then you wouldn’t have gotten the medication. Beyond that”—she glanced from one whale to the next—“there must be some way to break the Witches’ hold on everyone.”

“If we could take on the Cataclysm—Tessa shuffled tarot cards—“surely we can manage a few Witches.”

“No one knows how many a few translates to,” Juan said. “We need a bombproof plan, folks.” He stopped shy of reminding them his mate was one of the prisoners.

“Hang on,” Karin held up a hand. “Let me raise Ketha. See what they’ve figured out. Presumably, our sea Shifter kin are stronger than the Witches.”

“Yeah, we thought so too,” the male who’d remained on the platform said.

“Never panned out that way,” the female who’d made the crack about biting Karin’s head off said, sounding bitter.

“Witches are sneaky,” Becca said.

“Yeah. I bet if we scratch the surface, we can find the loose block,” Tessa squared her shoulders.

“Loose block?” Juan looked her way as if she’d lost her mind.

“You know.” She smiled coldly. “The one where when you drag it out from its spot, the whole edifice comes crashing down.”