The Teeth in the Tide

by Rebecca F. Kenney

  Kestra approached the Councilwoman. “That was amazing. How did you do it? How do you make them listen, and obey you?”

  The woman smiled. “I always wait until they grow tired of chasing each other around the problem. Even when they have thoroughly chewed a subject, they don’t know how to stop, so they keep circling, waiting for someone to voice the truth they all know. When I speak out, clearly and firmly, they listen. Speak with wisdom and act as if you expect to be obeyed, and the less confident will follow you.”

  “What about the over-confident?” Kestra spoke low, casting a sidelong glance at Flay who sat with legs carelessly askew, tipping back a glass of rum into his mouth.

  The Councilwoman followed her glance and smiled. “The over-confident need guidance even more desperately, but they require a lighter touch, not an open challenge.”

  Kestra nodded, remembering how Flay’s eyes had flashed when she commanded him not to touch the belt artifacts. He didn’t enjoy being ordered to do things. But given the right motivation or distraction, he could be persuaded.

  “Thank you for your wisdom.” She bowed to the Councilwoman.

  “One more piece of advice,” the woman said. “Don’t keep the Council out of your plans again. When you have more knowledge to share, tell us. What you’re doing could affect lives beyond those in our village, and we all have a right to know about it.”

  When the door closed behind the Councilwoman, Flay jumped up, legs braced and a triumphant grin on his lips. The light filtering through the window lattice softened the planes of his face and turned his hair to brilliant gold.

  “Well, Blossom,” he said. “We did it.”

  “Or she did.” Kestra jerked her head toward the door where the Councilwoman had disappeared.

  “I suppose we can share the credit.” A single dancing step, and he’d caught her by the waist and dipped her back, kissing her quick and wild. “I feel victorious, Blossom. How shall we celebrate?”

  “A party? Tonight, at The Three Cherries.” Kestra’s mind raced, calculating the advantages of such an event as if she were measuring the ingredients for a recipe. “It will draw everyone together, assure them that this new development is something to celebrate, not to fear.”

  “A night of reckless hope,” said Flay. “I like it. I’ll see you there, love. For now, I have ship’s business to attend to, cargo to organize, and a crew to cajole. They’ve taken a lot on faith, and I need to show my appreciation.”

  “Go,” she said. “I’ll tell Cawl and my mother about the party. Let Mai know where I’m going, won’t you?”

  He swept off his hat and bowed to her. “Anything you ask, love.”

  Smiling and turning away before he could see the blush overtaking her cheeks, she darted out into the street.

  The day’s warmth soaked into her skin, and she lifted her face to the blue spread of the sky. Sunshine meant her garden’s fruits would be sweeter and juicier, the herbs more abundant. But would it be enough? Already the extra festivities of the week had taken a toll on the inn’s cellars, despite the replenishments that the Wind’s Favor had brought. Yes, there was money in the coffers, but people could not eat money. And she worried that the villagers would spend themselves into poverty while the Wind’s Favor was here, and then suffer for it later.

  All the more reason to drive away the mermaids. No, not drive them away—destroy them. She wanted the ocean floor littered with their broken skeletons and tattered fins. She wanted an ocean surging with sea creatures—fat tuna, sleek kingfish, crabs and lobsters hiding nuggets of tasty meat in their shells. Plump scallops. Chewy squids in sauce, fried octopus, sweetfish and abalone, clams in rich broth. Some of those creatures she only knew from stories of the days when the fishing boats still dared to go out. Many of them were priceless delicacies now, inaccessible unless Takajo’s sea-hawks managed to snatch a few from the reefs or from schools of fish swimming too near the surface.

  Sometimes the Wind’s Favor brought fresh fish—but this time, the ship had sailed into the mermaid swarms before the crew expected it, before they thought to lower the lines for fishing. So the only fish they’d added to The Three Cherries’ storerooms was salted fish, packed in barrels. Useful, but not plump and sweet, fresh from the sea.

  Kestra pushed aside thoughts of dishes she could never make and spread her arms to the soft air. It flowed across the hill, salty and swift, a breeze racing from far across the waves, but sun-warmed and tame as it rippled over the grass.

  On her way to the kitchen, she paused to check her garden. The plants had taken their fill of water, thanks to yesterday’s rain, and the beds overflowed with lush emerald leaves. She cupped one of the young lettuces in her hands, relishing the smooth coolness of its shape, almost tasting its crisp crunch.

  Crunch. The word in her mind prompted an involuntary image of Rake consuming one of the precious raw fish that Takajo’s hawks had retrieved. The fish’s skin had stretched as he tore out a chunk, the bones bending and snapping between his pointed teeth. She’d nearly lost her breakfast watching him eat. Disgusting. All of him was disgusting, from that flat indigo hair of his to the gills in his throat, to the claws at his fingertips. The very smell of him made her cringe—salt, and old metal, and desperation. Even his smoothly carved muscles were tinged with unnatural blue shadows, and his beautiful face was too acutely edged, too savage. She pictured the blade-sharp cheekbones and tapered ears, the immense dark blue eyes, the slitted nostrils.

  But his lips—now those were softer than they had any right to be.

  “Kestra?”

  Kestra started, confused and unaccountably guilty. “Mama. I was coming to speak with you.”

  “Were you now?” Lumina strode past her and began plucking herb sprigs and leaves fiercely, dropping them into a basket.

  “Mama! Not so roughly. I’ll do it.” Kestra reached forward, but Lumina elbowed her aside.

  “You’ll do it? Like you helped with dinner last night, and breakfast this morning?”

  “I was there at dinner.”

  “Barely. And you returned with him. Spent the night in his room. In his bed.”

  “You didn’t forbid it.”

  “That doesn’t mean I’ll permit it! You have no business serving a man’s pleasure unless you are his wife. I don’t like to think of it.”

  “Then don’t.” Kestra snatched the basket, sending a few of leaves fluttering into the sunlit air between them. “Don’t think about it. But it has happened, more often than you know, and it will happen again. It’s my choice, not yours. Maybe you can go without love and pleasure for years, but I can’t, not when both are close enough to touch.”

  “This is not about me,” Lumina snapped.

  “No. It’s about Papa.”

  “It’s about you, and your neglect of your duties, and the example you’re setting for your cousin. Mai sees what you do, and she’ll do the same. I won’t permit her to crawl into bed with any traveler who stops by the inn. I won’t have The Three Cherries becoming a brothel.”

  “Brothel?” Kestra frowned. “What is that?”

  Lumina rolled her eyes. “They have one in Nishvel. It’s a house where travelers can pay for a lover for an hour or a night.”

  “Ah. Like Yulie charges for time in her bed.”

  “Like that, only there are more men and women to choose from, and the place is presided over by a madam. And I won’t have guests thinking they can choose a daughter or niece of mine to sleep with when they come here!”

  “You’re being ridiculous.” Kestra’s voice shrilled with her rising frustration. “No one thinks that. Flay told you himself—he loves me. And I love him. And Mai doesn’t even care about men or women in that way.”

  “Good, because she’s too young for that nonsense.”

  “She’s only two years younger than me.”

  “That is not the point, Kestra. The point is, you’re ignoring your tasks to gallivant with that boy captain, and I won’t have it. I’
m overworked here, and I can’t count on Enree and Lilu like I can count on you and Mai. At least, I used to be able to count on you, before all this.”

  The slump of her mother’s shoulders, the wrinkles across her forehead, and the tension of her mouth speared Kestra with sudden guilt. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were so tired.”

  “I’m overworked,” her mother snapped. “Abandoned by lazy children who think they are adults.”

  “I’m here to help now. Flay wants to have a party tonight, to celebrate—” She stopped, remembering how much her mother didn’t know. Torrent and tide. This was going to make things worse, not better.

  “Let’s pick the herbs first,” she said, handing the basket back to Lumina. “And then I’ll tell you everything.”

  -18-

  Rake

  Rake found Takajo’s house incredibly fascinating. Last night he had been too exhausted and sick to notice much about the front room, but as the physik smeared ointment roughly onto his bite wounds and slapped bandages into place, he gazed around at the space. Dark beams crisscrossed the pale plaster ceiling overhead. Clean white walls were hung here and there with strips of painted fabric depicting houses with tiered roofs, rivers, trees, and mountains. A long shelf halfway up one wall held about a dozen chunky objects, similar to the flat sheaves that Mai liked to scribble in. He’d heard her call them notebooks. Perhaps these were Takajo’s notebooks.

  A few more objects lined the walls of the room—a low bed spread with white fabric, a table set with a bowl and pitcher, and a rack with fluffy cloths hung over its bars. Shipwrecks in the Realm Below often held items like the pitcher and the bowl. They weren’t useful under the sea; anything he placed inside would float right back out again. He preferred bags, satchels, or baskets with lids. Much more secure.

  Jewel scampered about the room on his new legs, touching everything and emitting over-excited squeaks. Mai followed him, grinning, and though she didn’t write in her notebook, Rake knew she was observing his son closely, soaking up every detail in order to record it later.

  “Finished.” The sallow-faced physik collected his supplies and left without another word.

  Rake drew himself up, wincing as pain flickered over his torso. Those last few minutes in the sea had been terrifying—he’d been sure they were dead meat. But somehow they had made it into the basket by the wall, and Rake had stabbed and clawed until the remaining merlows released their grip and tumbled away.

  All that terror was over now. He took a moment to savor the sensation of his legs, solid and real beneath him. The sound of his son’s voice was still too sharp and strident for the surface world—but it shrilled with excitement, not fear. Jewel would learn to soften his voice, to smile without showing too many teeth. He would be safe.

  The sheer weight of his relief almost knocked Rake over, and he braced a hand against the wall.

  “Are you all right?” Mai turned to him.

  “I am.” He smiled at her. “Very all right. I can’t believe I made it back. I’m alive. And he’s alive.”

  She nodded. “He’s adorable. And smart, too. I’ve been telling him the words for things, and he’s absorbing it all so quickly.”

  “Would you tell me something?” Rake touched the edge of the shelf. “What are these?”

  “Books,” she said. “They contain information, stories—any words that humans want to keep safe, or pass along to others.”

  “We don’t express our knowledge like this,” he said, tracing the edge of a book. “The sea washes away such records. We pass on our history by spoken word, long poems recited and repeated. The one civilized product we’re capable of, it seems.”

  “Is that why you speak the way you do? You sound so—educated.”

  “I’ve had the benefit of being at Court, hearing the high mermaids recite elaborate historical doggerel for hours,” he said. “And the queens like flattery, so I learned how to speak in a way that pleased them.” Even Bruta, with her penchant for impetuous violence, seemed to like it when he called her “illustrious sovereign, reaver of my heart, blinding star of my worship.”

  “So you’re good at flattery. Go on, let’s hear it.” Her eyes sparkled mischievously, invitingly.

  Rake surveyed her. With Kestra, flattery would have been easy—she was everything he’d imagined the perfect human female to be. Mai was so much thinner, shorter, and bonier. Eager, like a gull—bright-eyed, like Jewel—with short, shiny black hair that brushed her jawline. Her eyes weren’t black from corner to corner like a mermidon’s, but they were still darker than he liked. Too deep, too unfathomable.

  But he could find something to say. As the words formed in his mind, he spread his arms and bowed his head to her, looking up from beneath his lashes—a trick that seemed to work on Calla. “Mai, my treasure, I find your curiosity charming, your thirst for knowledge tantalizing. You are exquisite, irresistible. I crave your mercy, for you are the new queen of my soul and heiress of my heart.”

  Mai’s black eyes widened and her cheeks flushed pink.

  “Of course, flattery is seldom truth,” he said, straightening again. “Do you think you’re beautiful?”

  He asked, not only because he was curious, but because he wanted more of that warm blush on her skin, more of the way her lashes fluttered and her breath quickened. He liked her this way, soft and uncertain, not so sharp and earnest.

  But at his question, she recoiled. “No,” she said shortly. “I’m not beautiful. I don’t need to be.”

  He cocked his head, considering her. “I suppose not.” And then alarm raced through his chest. “Where is Jewel?”

  Mai whirled. “Oh, no.” She darted through another set of doors, and Rake followed, catching his breath as the next room revealed rows of cages and perches, lit by sunshine pouring through windows in the ceiling itself. Sea-hawks and other birds of prey perched throughout the room or fluttered from tethers, some hooded, others watching him with keen round eyes. An unfamiliar smell hit Rake—a scent of waste and oil, dry feathers in sunlight, and under it all, the salty, gamey aroma of warm flesh. His stomach growled.

  “Oh!” Mai clapped both hands over her mouth.

  Jewel stood beside an open cage, his mouth full of feathers. The bird’s broken neck hung from one corner of the boy’s lips, and its curled talons dangled from the other.

  “Rake, take it from him, take it,” said Mai. “Hurry. Takajo will be furious!”

  Swallowing his own hunger, Rake stepped forward and gently extracted the dead sea-hawk from his son’s mouth.

  Jewel spat feathers and frowned. “It doesn’t taste as good as it smells.”

  In the sea, Rake could swim at eye level with his son, but on land, he had to kneel to face him. “My Jewel, we are guests here. You must not eat the humans’ pets, or anything that belongs to them. They will give us food, but we must wait for it, not take it. It should come from their hands, and we must accept it with gratitude.”

  Jewel’s gaze darted beyond Rake, to Mai’s stricken face. Understanding settled in his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

  “So am I.” Rake rose. “I will apologize to Takajo myself.”

  When Takajo came from the other room, he stood silent and expressionless as Rake explained what had happened.

  “You’re the one who did this?” said Takajo, his eyes on Jewel.

  Jewel squared his small shoulders and nodded.

  Rake’s heart pulsed with pride, and with apprehension. “I’ll take his punishment.”

  “Punishment?” Takajo frowned.

  “Whatever pain or torture is considered just reparation. I’ll take it myself, if that’s allowed.”

  “I see.” Takajo’s brows hardened into a fierce ridge above his deep-set eyes. “Well, you cannot take his punishment. As for reparation, the boy shall help me here, in the aerie and in the training yard, for the next week, until he learns how to properly respect and care for the birds. And he will give me his word not to kill one again. Yes?”
He glared at Jewel.

  “Yes.” Jewel risked a shocked glance up at Rake, who felt stunned himself. If he had damaged something belonging to the Queens, or even to another high mermaid, he’d have been tortured painfully.

  “You are a merciful man,” he told Takajo.

  “Nonsense. You’re used to the whims of your vicious sea queens,” Takajo muttered. “Come, child. Let’s get you a long drink of seawater and some food, and then you can begin learning.”

  After the meal, Takajo began to teach Jewel about the sea-hawks, their life-cycle, and their hunting habits, while Rake and Mai looked on.

  “Shouldn’t you be writing these words in one of your notebooks?” Rake asked her.

  Mai chuckled. “I’ve been here with Kestra many times and I’ve taken more than enough notes on the sea-hawks. I could probably run this place as well as Takajo.”

  Takajo snorted. “Unlikely, child. It takes more than a head full of knowledge—you have to truly be master of the birds.”

  “Whatever you say.” Mai squeezed the older man’s arm playfully. “I’m going across the street to help Umi for a while. I’ll be back later to walk Rake up to The Three Cherries for the party. Flay said he should make an appearance.”

  She returned shortly before sunset, as Rake was settling a drowsy Jewel into a nest of blankets for the night.

  “Come,” she whispered. “We have to make you presentable.”

  Rake followed her into the front room, where she shoved him down onto a cushion and knelt behind him.

  “What are you doing?” He twisted, trying to see.

  “Be still. I’m going to comb your hair.”

  Experimentally, Rake touched his head. In the sea, his hair had always been smooth and silky, swirling in a soft cloud or bound in a long braid down his back. His plait had fallen out in the battle with the merlows, and now his hair was knotted, tangled—he tugged harder and yelped at the pain.

  “Stop, stop!” Mai knocked his hand away. “That’s what the comb is for, you big idiot.” She waved it in front of his face. “Surely you have these in the ocean.”