Chapter 33

Ophelia

“You’re a terrible, sadistic friend!” I shouted as yet another wave toppled me over.

I’d picked seaweed from my hair, seashells from my bra, and had even pried a tiny crab off the sole of my sneaker all within the course of an hour. Nova, as dainty and pretty as she was in her pink sundress, was a fucking savage when it came to utilizing her water affinity.

She’d hurled frozen sea-cicles at my head, animated a clump of weed so that it lunged at my face, obscuring my vision from her next blow, and had even willed the water deep within the sand to suck me down a solid foot.

Nova shouted back, “And you’re a soggy, sore loser!”

Meanwhile Coop stood on the shore, his hands cupped around his mouth, as he shouted words of encouragement at me.

I might’ve appreciated it at one point, but he was drawing an audience. Right now there were three—no, four—families watching me meet my untimely demise via a pastel-wearing, water-slinging witch.

My magic might as well have been a squid,