by Tobie Easton
With my father’s restraints secured, his guards swim outside, leaving just him, me, and Hairy in the empty room. There isn’t a single piece of furniture in here, so we wade in the middle of the glass room like fish in a bowl. No real privacy. If it were only him and me, maybe I’d let my shoulders sag just a little. Maybe I’d tell him how alone I feel upstairs in my rooms, how even though we’re living in the same building, it feels like they’re keeping us oceans apart.
But with the guard eyeing us, what I say instead is “Dal deet roliiga.” “All the good,” short for “All the good of the new day be with you.” As I speak the traditional Mermese greeting, all I want to do is wrap my fins around him like a little girl, but physical contact isn’t allowed. Will I ever be able to hug my dad again?
“What’s so good about it?” he asks, twisting his wrists in his cuffs.
“I’m glad to see you,” I say, hoping to help shake off his sour mood.
“What are you doing here?”
I cock my head. “It’s our scheduled time.”
“I assumed you’d skip it today.” My father’s gaze snaps over to our chaperone, a different guard than usual. His sharp eyes take in the change, but he doesn’t comment.
“Why would I skip it?”
“So you’d have more time to get ready for tonight.” Now his gaze focuses on me, running up and down. “You certainly need it.”
I fight the urge to duck my head and hide my face. He’d like that even less. “I …” I would tell him that I haven’t really been sleeping—that that’s the reason for the bags under my eyes, the reason I look so drawn—but that’s not something I want to confide when there’s a guard listening to every word that comes out of my mouth. It was so much easier when Ondine was here to chaperone instead. I may not have known her well, but at least she was family. At least I could talk to my father the way I wanted to. I wonder again if she survived. If Lia killed her, I swear I’ll make her pay.
When I don’t finish my sentence, my father continues as if I haven’t spoken. “You look like a piece of refuse someone dragged across the ocean floor. When was the last time you put on makeup?”
I drive my left thumbnail into the side of my pointer finger and keep my face impassive. He’s right. I don’t look my best. I haven’t in a while. Not since … It’s good of him to tell me, even if his words make the backs of my eyes prick.
My silver-tongued father manipulates everyone else—and he’s taught me to do the same—but with me, he’s real. Would it be nice if he told me I was beautiful no matter what? That if I work hard and try my bestest, the world will reward my efforts? That if we’re all good to each other, we’ll live happily ever after? Sure, it might feel pleasant to hear those words, but he’d be doing me a disservice if he fed me pretty-sounding lies the way some parents do. I’m grateful for his honesty. I am.
I should be trying harder. But it’s not as bad as he thinks. “I wasn’t planning to go to the coronation like this,” I clarify. “I’m not going at all.”
I expect him to swell with pride at my show of solidarity, my refusal to celebrate the victory of our enemies. Instead, his lips thin. “Of course you’re going.”
“But I thought you’d want—”
“I want what I always want: for you to use your brain.” He taps his temple twice and narrows his eyes. “Despite your recent decisions, I know you still have a good one in there somewhere.”
I dig my fingernail in harder.
“What have I taught you since you were a guppy?” he asks.
I make sure to meet his critical gaze as I say the words that come as naturally as breathing. “Always have a long-term plan.” Though my voice is steady, my heartbeat picks up. Is he going to ask me for my plan? I’ve always had an answer before, but now we’re both convicted criminals, and everything has changed, so I didn’t think the old rules still applied. I should have known my father wouldn’t see it that way. I chide myself for my stupidity.
“Right now, all your focus needs to be on overcoming this setback, so you can make something of yourself.”
Setback? He makes it sound like I came down with a minor case of scale spots or got turned down for an internship, not convicted of a high crime, stripped of my voice above water, banned from the human world, and made a pariah in the eyes of our entire civilization. “Palian,” I say, using the most respectful term for father. I choose my next words carefully. “I don’t see how I can still make something of myself that you could be proud of. In the eyes of Mer society, I’ll always carry the shame attached to my conviction.” And yours, I think, but don’t say.
Unlike humans, with their short lifespans and their belief in clean slates, Mer have long memories. Once shame has befallen a family, it lasts generations.
My father’s face grows hard as sandstone. “You may not have a good chance at rising in society again, but you cannot afford to squander what chance you do have with petulance and self-pity.”
The accusation bites into me. How can he say that, especially when we’re not alone? “That’s not why I’ve decided against attending the coronation. I did it out of loyalty to you.” Surely he can respect that.
“Don’t delude yourself,” he snaps back. “You’re scared and you’re hiding yourself away. I haven’t said anything on your past visits, but I cannot hold my tongue any longer. This is my last chance to say something before,” he pauses, “before you’ve taken it too far and missed a crucial opportunity.”
His top lip is uneven, the left half of it twitching up in a sneer to rest slightly higher than the right. I tilt my head. He only ever looks like that when he’s lying about something or hiding the truth. It hardly ever happens when he’s talking to me. What is he keeping from me? With the guard hovering, I don’t dare ask.
My father straightens his spine, the movement making his chains clink. “You will attend the coronation today.” He voices the command with full expectation that he’ll be obeyed, as if his current state of imprisonment makes no difference. Because he knows it doesn’t. “You will go out in public today, and on every possible occasion hereafter, and you will show remorse for your crimes.”
A show of remorse is what led the court to grant me a lighter sentence. Though he doesn’t actually expect me to regret what I did for an instant, pretending I do is my best shot at regaining any kind of respectable life. He doesn’t say anything so unscrupulous in front of another set of ears, but I hear him loud and clear.
“By attending today’s coronation, you will show everyone that you recognize the authority of the new monarchy.” As if to prove my father’s point, the guard’s eyes shine with approval. I wonder, as I do several times a day, how people can be so laughably gullible. “Prove you are no threat,” my father says, and I hear his voice continue inside my head: so you can be the biggest threat of all.
The thought of going to the coronation and subjecting myself to the entire populace’s gossip, glares, and insults makes my stomach swim into my throat. My next words are hard to force out. “Surely, all anyone will care about today is the Nautilus family. My presence won’t make a difference one way or another, so I might as well not go.” His nostrils flare; he hates when I disagree with him, so I rush to make him understand. “If I show my face at that ceremony, all I’ll be doing is opening myself up to ridicule all over again—and opening our family up to ridicule all over again.”
“Let people think what they want about me,” my father says with a shrug that sends his chains clinking again. “I only tried to create the future your mother and I wanted for you. And now I’m being punished for it. So be it. But I will not have you punished or shunned any more than you already have been. I want to see you forge a life for yourself in this new era.”
His words touch me, and for a moment it’s like the guard doesn’t exist. It’s just me and my dad, like it was before we came to this accursed place.
“Ten more minutes,” the guard says, breaking the
spell and puffing up with an authority he takes too much pleasure in. The potion that allows my father to move through the magical shield at the mouth of his cell will wear off soon, so we need to wrap it up.
My father doesn’t acknowledge him, probably out of principle. Instead, he keeps his focus on me. “You do whatever you have to in order to resurrect your future,” he says, and there’s an urgency there he hasn’t had during our previous visits. Then, perhaps to make this advice more palatable to the guard, he says, “Make friends. A very tight spot requires a very good friend.” He spaces out his next words as if he wants to ensure I hear each one. “Everyone needs friends, Melusine. The more well-placed, the better. Start making some today at the coronation.”
“If we’re being realistic, I don’t think—”
“It doesn’t matter what you think. You’ll listen to me. If you’d listened to me before, we might not be in this situation.”
He means with the human boy. When he told me I should sleep with the human boy to cement my siren bond. I remember every word he spoke back then: “Don’t be so prudish, girl. Sex magic has a long and venerable history. The ritual to get back our immortality and make us the rightful rulers of Merkind requires that he be in love with you when we kill him. The further you take your relationship now, the more likely it is to pass as love during the ritual, like siren bonds have in the past. Do you have any idea how much I’ve sacrificed to make this ritual work?” He swam closer then. Stroked my hair like he had when I was a little girl. “You’ve done such an excellent job of sirening him. I’m so proud of you. Don’t you want to finish what you’ve started, hmm? Do it. Trust me, it’s the right decision.”
Now, as I look at him, at the face of the only person who loves me, I know hiding somewhere behind his eyes is resentment. I tried. I want to assure him now. I tried so many times to obey you. But I just … couldn’t do it. I told my dad it was because he was human, because humans were lesser life forms that disgusted me. My father said he understood, but that he still recommended I swallow my distaste and take the boy to bed.
My mind flashes to the image of that boy begging me to do just that after I’d sirened him. “Come on, Mel, don’t you want me? I’ll be gentle, promise,” he’d say, but his eyes … his eyes would be dead. I’d stare into them, and I just couldn’t …
I clench my teeth. I couldn’t because of how weak and human and susceptible to magic he looked. Disgusting. That’s why I couldn’t. Like I told my father.
When Lia managed to siren him and I couldn’t siren him back no matter how hard I tried, my father was livid. He blamed me. It was the first time he ever really yelled at me. Screamed in my face. “How could you be so stupid? So weak?”
Is he thinking the same thing now? If he is, is he right?
If I had listened to my father and slept with the human, would that have kept Lia from sirening him away from me and foiling our plan? Would we be decked out in our finest for our own coronation today?
My father shifts in his cuffs again.
“You listen to me this time. You go to that coronation with your head held high, like a Havelock.” Without another word, he nods to the guard, who calls in the others to retrieve him.
As he disappears back into the cave of his cell, I wish I could collapse right here in this glass room. The emotional crests and troughs of our conversation have left me feeling like a mussel whose insides have been scooped out and swallowed.
Next time will be easier.
On the way back to my rooms, I inform the security outside the residences that I’ll be attending the coronation and will be back by the curfew imposed as part of my probation.
I don’t know if, by going, I’m listening to my father or to Caspian.
Chapter Five
Lia
We step into the black, moonlit ocean, one after another.
“Not so fast! I’m going to trip,” Amy warns Lapis.
“Speed up already. And hold it higher!” Lazuli tells the rest of us.
“Not all of us are that tall, y’know,” I grumble, going up on my toes to inch the slippery plastic higher over my head, trying to get it even with Lapis and Lazuli’s side.
“Just a little farther,” Em reassures me. That’s easy for her to say; she’s next to her fiancé Leomaris, who’s taking up all her slack.
The only way for us to make it out into the ocean behind our house without any of our human neighbors seeing our crowns and elaborate hairdos was to huddle beneath one of those inflatable rafts. It’s turned upside down, so it arches above us; from far away, it’ll look like we’re carrying it out for some stargazing on this mild night. My parents, Amy’s parents, the event coordinator, and our guards are under another, larger raft right ahead of us, and my sisters and I hurry to keep up.
It smells plasticky and damp under here, like the inside of a shower cap, and the air has grown warm with our trapped breaths. Glamorous, right? Ah, the life of a princess.
“Lia, you’re letting the back end sag. Hold it—”
A loud pop! interrupts Lazuli when one of the spokes of my crown punctures the raft. Air escapes in a hiss.
“Sorry!”
By the time we’re far enough out in the ocean to avoid being seen, the raft hangs limp and heavy around our shoulders, and my sisters want to fillet me. With my parents’ help, we manage to get the raft off us and stowed away in its bag without ruining our coifs.
“All right, everyone,” my mother says with a nod.
Eyes fall shut all around me, and I let my own close. I connect to the whispering call of the ocean that beckons me deeper out to sea. The familiar sensation of crashing tides pushes and pulls against my legs until my tail stretches beneath me. I wiggle out of my skirt, which my mom then stuffs in a bag along with my sisters’. In the moonlight, my tail gleams gold against the rippling black satin of the water. No matter how fancy-shmancy my hair, makeup, and outfit might be, at least my tail looks the same.
“This might sting,” says the event coordinator, before her brunette head disappears below the water in front of me.
“What? Ow!” I yelp as something bites into my tailfin. Curling my tail forward, I flick my fins into the night air in front of my face. Pinched to the corner of my right fin is a polished oyster. Undeterred by my sudden movements, and apparently my pain, the coordinator pops out of the water clutching her lidded pail of oysters. Ow, ow, ow! She attaches seven more in quick succession, four on the edge of each fin.
“Stop shaking your tail, Lia,” my mother calls. “You’ll dislodge them.”
“And that would be bad?” I ask. Through the biting pain, a factoid Caspian once told me floats to the surface of my memory: wearing oysters was a long-ago symbol of royal status. Oh, great. I’m not going to have to wear these from now on, am I? Because that might be a deal breaker.
As if reading my thoughts, my father swims over and rests a warm hand on my shoulder. “They’re just for today, angelfish. For the ceremony.”
This is archaic and suuuper creepy. And I thought high heels hurt!
“Don’t worry, Your Highness. Soon the oysters will cut off the blood flow and the rims of your fins will go numb. Then you won’t even notice they’re there.”
I’m still reeling too hard at the coordinator’s use of what will soon be my new title to show adequate shock at how uncomforting her words are. Before I can speak, she and her pail have moved on to the twins, who shoot me an apprehensive look before they start cursing—and my mother starts scolding their colorful language.
When the basket lies empty, the twins each wear eight oysters on their tails, same as I do. As heir to the throne, Em wears ten, and my parents each wear twelve.
“The highest possible that etiquette allows,” the coordinator informs us with a satisfied smile.
Even Amy’s fins smart with the sting of six oysters, as do her parents’—a so-called honor as members of the extended royal family. Leo also wears s
ix on his topaz tail as Em’s betrothed and the future king. The American in me wants to protest all this royal-status B.S. as needlessly hierarchical and unfair, but I know the Mer Below will take these traditional visual cues as signs of stability and respect for our shared heritage.
“Am I going to have to wear these to your wedding, too?” I ask Em and Leo, as they swim up next to me.
“Most likely,” Leo answers, adjusting the double strand of striped umber limpet shells across his chest. It complements his wavy, latte-brown hair. “I’m betting we’ll all have to dance in them.”
I shudder.
“Our wedding still may be a P.R. circus, but at least it won’t determine whether Mom and Dad get the throne,” Em says. “We have you to thank for that.” She squeezes me from the side in a little half-hug.
That’s kind of true. Because my parents left the ocean for the world Above so they could found the Community of Landed Mer nearly twenty years ago, many Mer Below questioned whether they still valued their Mer culture enough to be the new monarchs. Em and Leo agreed to have their wedding Below as a big show of Mer tradition even though Em had originally wanted something much simpler and more intimate. When I enrolled in Sea Daughters Academy and moved Below, what appeared to be my parents’ preference for a Mer education spiked their approval ratings. Mer take education extremely seriously, so when Ondine, the school’s headmistress, vanished without a trace and I continued to study traditional Mer subjects Below with a new tutor at the palace instead of moving back Above, the public took it as a sign that my parents had a vested interest in re-embracing Mer ways.