by Tobie Easton
The door creaks open behind me. Was I wrong about the guards? I can’t care enough to turn around from where I float, one hand on each side of the vanity, clinging to it with white knuckles. Whichever musclehead poked his head in will see I’m not in danger and leave.
The door clicks shut again, but ripples brush my back as someone approaches. “I came to check in and heard … Are you all right?” Caspian’s smooth baritone rolls through the water.
Why? Why is he here? Why is he here now? He just heard … everything. In case he wasn’t scared enough of me already.
“Perfectly fine, thanks,” I grind out through gasping breaths. “You can paddle on home now.”
“I’m actually staying here for a while. Since I helped Lia and Clay escape from … your dad and you … the authorities think I might be a target used to get to Lia.” He spaces out his words, overly careful, like any one of them might set me off.
“Are you staying near here?” I don’t know why I ask, why the idea of having him—of having anyone I know—nearby tonight takes a little of the edge off. An edge I might fall over any instant.
“I’m on the other end of the hall, in the east wing,” he says, haltingly again. “And up two stories.”
“Right.” Because why would they house any good, upstanding citizen anywhere near a dangerous criminal like me? I bet he’s staying near her. And why shouldn’t he?
“Wherever you’re staying tonight, just … go there.” Any second now, I’m going to break apart.
No ripples. He doesn’t move, just floats there. Silent. Constant.
Fine. I gave him an out. I don’t give a frort anymore. I can’t do it anymore. I can’t … I can’t …
Still gripping the edges of the vanity, I shake it as hard as I can, but it’s heavy, weighed down, so it doesn’t budge. I shake harder and harder, until my arms give out. I let go and pound my fists on the polished surface until it’s all too much. Huge, unstoppable sobs wrack my body. They tear through me, and I convulse like a wounded animal. In the back of my mind, I know that giving into this is ugly, weak, disgusting. But I can’t stop the anguish twisting through my stomach, shuddering through my chest, and pouring out my mouth in gasping cries—because the rest of my mind can only focus on a single thought.
“How could he leave me? How could he leave me? How could he leave me?”
I don’t realize I’ve said the litany out loud until Caspian swims closer, right up behind me. He doesn’t touch me, just wades there.
I don’t know how long I keep going like that, degrading myself. Until the exhaustion outswims the rage and I collapse, floating limp on the water because I can no longer even hold myself up.
Somehow, I make it onto the bed. I think Caspian guides me there, but my brain is too far away to be sure of anything. Time passes, and when I lift my head, it’s from the softest of pillows, made from what must be a high-quality sea wool sponge.
Caspian has pulled a chair up to the edge of the bed, like humans do in a hospital. Or a mental ward.
“I don’t know why he did it,” my voice scrapes out, hoarse after my display.
“Escape?”
“Not take me with him.”
We’re silent for hours or minutes or days.
“Maybe he couldn’t,” Caspian says. “Maybe he couldn’t figure out how.”
He figured out how to avert multiple guards, a surveillance system, metal wire, and a magical barrier to escape a high-security prison. “Or maybe he hates me for …” For not listening to him about Clay, for letting my sireny wear off, for not regaining control over him, for “… failing.”
“He doesn’t hate you.”
That’s one of those things people say without any evidence because they’re trying to be nice. I hate nice. Nice is worthless. “How do you know? Everyone else does.”
“I don’t hate you.”
I turn on my side, my head pillowed on my arm, and peer up into his face. “You probably should.”
“No. I’ve thought about it.” He shifts so his forearms rest on his silver tail, and he stares down at his clasped hands. “I shouldn’t hate someone for doing exactly what I might have if I’d been raised somewhere else, by someone else. Thinking other things were important. It wouldn’t make sense.”
More complexity dwells in those thoughts than I know what to do with right now. “Or you think I’m really hot.”
His cheeks darken. Well look at that. It wasn’t some big mystery, but I like having my suspicions confirmed. It makes me smile, just a little. On a whim, I grab the other pillow and toss it at him.
He catches it. Silence again, but it’s calmer this time. I turn on my back and stare up at the intricate carving of an octopus on the ceiling.
“If you, um, want to see his letter,” Caspian says after a while, “I can ask Mr. Zung to show it to you. I know you won’t be able to read it, but—”
“I can read it.”
“You can read written Mermese?”
“You thought you were the only one?” His dropped jaw tells me he did. Mermese has been an exclusively oral language since we learned to seal our voices in seashells centuries ago and forwent the complex problem of preserving writing underwater long term. Only a few scholars and historians still know written Mermese—and those who study ancient, forgotten magic, like my dad. “My father taught me. I asked him about it when I was little.”
“Me, too. After I started learning the English alphabet, I asked my teacher in the Community about the Mermese one. She didn’t know it, but I guess I wouldn’t let it go, so she got me a konklili on written Mermese. When I finished that one, I asked for another and just sort of went on from there.”
“So, you taught it to yourself?” I don’t know if I could have done that. On second thought, if Caspian did it, I’m sure I could, too. Still, it must have taken a great deal of determined work on his part.
“Mostly, yeah.”
“I’ve always thought the characters are so elegant.” I’m talking about nothing, but it feels so much better than thinking about all the awful somethings that have been swirling in my head all day. “My favorite character is the one for tortoise. The crisscrosses look like the pattern of the shell.” Wow that was stupid. I glance over at him, daring him to laugh.
“They do! I never saw it that way before.”
“I have this theory that the ancients designed it by drawing the shell first, then adding the wavy line down the center to represent the tortoise’s body. It could have just gotten streamlined over time.” I never told my father that. He’d think it was pointless speculation.
“Whoa, I can see that. Imagine if that’s really how it was.” An odd note colors his voice, replacing the excitement. “When you look at the letter, maybe you’ll catch something we missed about the spell. It sounds like it could be really dangerous.”
I don’t want to think about this right now. If my dad is planning to cast a spell that will impact our species, then maybe it’s for the best. Everyone seems to have forgotten that it was our ritual that restored immortality. Lia and Clay couldn’t have done it without the months my father spent preparing, and the years of research he did before that. If he has another spell in mind now, should I be trying to help him? Does he want me to find him? Why didn’t he give me some clue?
“Did your father tell you anything that might help figure out what the spell is?” Caspian asks, as if reading my mind.
“No.” Not that I can think of.
“You visited him every week, right? What did you two talk about?”
“We …” Wait. I sit up. “Why did you come here tonight?”
He straightens in his chair. “I wanted to make sure you were okay. I can’t imagine what today has been like for you.” The words ring true, but something flashes in his eyes. Guilt.
Realization collides into me. “She sent you in here, didn’t she? To get me to admit to something.” Oh storms, I should have known
. I was just so tired, and I let my guard down, but I should have known as soon as he swam through that door.
Caspian doesn’t say anything, but his expression—instantly contrite and pleading—says everything. How dare he? “You want to know the only thing he told me on our visit yesterday? ‘Make friends.’ That’s what he said. What he meant was do whatever I could to manipulate people into caring about me to elevate my reputation through association and forge a future. ‘Make friends.’” I hurl my next words at him. “It’s the only reason I accepted your foolish, puffer-eyed invitation. The only reason I talked to you at that ball at all. That’s the truth.” I cross my arms and level him with my worst scowl. “Are you happy?”
Hurt shadows his face. “I’m sorry. I really did want to come check on you.”
Yeah, right. He did this for her. “We’re not friends,” I say. “I’m using you, just like my father wanted me to.” One of my hands starts shaking, but with my arms still crossed, he can’t see it, so I keep going. “But if my father can leave me here, alone with people who despise me, then I’m done listening to him.” I push the next words out before my voice starts shaking, too. “I don’t need to pretend to be your friend. Just leave.”
He rises from his chair and swims to the door. Halfway there, he turns.
“If you were pretending … if you only came to that ball to make a big show of our friendship to society … then why wouldn’t you dance with me?”
I press my arms tighter to my chest. His question hangs in the water between us, unanswered.
“I thought so.” Caspian wades there for a moment. “I believe you about the advice your father gave you, but I’m not through being your friend. I think you need one.”
He turns around again, his hand on the doorknob.
“Don’t kid yourself.” I say to his back. “You came here as Lia’s obedient little spy. You’re not my friend—because you’ll always be hers first.”
His shoulders tense, and he swims out the door.
The guards lock it behind him, leaving me alone in this room fit for a queen. Yes, yesterday, all I wanted was to live here, among all this splendor. Now, lying in the luxurious bed with my tail curled up to my chest, I close my eyes and pretend I’m back on my thin mattress at the Foundation with my father sleeping just a few stories below me.
Chapter Seventeen
Lia
She lurks just a few stories below me. It makes me want to swim out a window, all the way back to Malibu. Thoughts of Malibu make me miss Clay. At least I can communicate with him more easily through the bond now. Ever since I had to push so hard to get him the message about Mr. Havelock’s escape and that barrier between us shattered, my thoughts have flowed as easily to Clay as his do to me. It kind of rocks.
And it’s the only thing that’s kept me from jumping out of my scales now that I can’t see him in person. Because the longer it takes for the authorities to find Mr. Havelock, the longer I have to wait to go Above for a secret visit.
News of Mr. Havelock’s escape last week has spread across the ocean like a sandstorm. The fact that he escaped during the coronation, which was supposed to mark an era of safety at long last, means my parents now have a severe drop in public opinion looming.
“One rebellion could throw our entire civilization back where it was before—with someone challenging our rule and building up an army. If we don’t find him soon, it could catapult us right back into war.” My mother’s words reach me through the not-quite-closed door to my parents’ bedroom. “Edmar, everything we’ve built.”
Only half an hour ago at breakfast, they reassured us they had the situation under control. They said they have all the best investigators searching for him; they even pulled investigators from Ondine’s disappearance case to look for him, since hers is at a standstill and she isn’t considered violent, just missing. Damn the Havelocks. Their scheming could endanger our kind—again.
I’m sure Melusine’s in on it. And right when the palace had started to feel somewhat like a home. Ugh. I shake it off. Today is not about her. Today is about research.
The library doors are my favorite in the castle. Unlike all the other doors, made of sculpted sea glass in colors ranging from pastels to deep jewel tones, the doors to the varellska (Mermese for library) are made of the coated wood of a sunken Victorian ship. Mounted to the frame between the double doors is a handcrafted mermaid from the ship’s prow, her wooden hair blowing around her in carved curls, her face proud. She puts a smile on my own face as I open one of the doors and swim into the room that may hold the answer I need among its secrets.
Shelves stretch up the walls high above my head, each lined with shells of every conceivable size and pattern, from short volumes of poetry in tiny sundial shells to hours-long research tomes in giant diadema shells. Between the shells stand various treasures for decoration: an antique spyglass, a bronze-rimmed compass, an old brass lantern. I inhale the scent of shell polish and whalebone styluses.
I’ve come on the librarian’s day off and have the whole place to myself. I swim up to the highest shelves, where there rests a large, gilded starfish, the symbol of balanced justice. What’s happened to Clay at the hands and fins of Merkind has been anything but just. I’m hoping that means justice is on our side throughout our quest to make him a Merman. I rub the starfish for luck. “Help me find a way,” I murmur into the varellska’s quiet stillness.
On the way back down, I flip myself into a somersault for motivation. I’ve got this. Unlike at the Foundation, there’s no computer system here, so I start by swimming over to a shelf by the librarian’s desk used for new arrivals before they’ve been sorted. I’ve spent every spare minute since moving into the palace listening to whatever I could get my fins on about ancient history, legend, and (when no one else is around) advanced magic. I could read about advanced magic out in the open—it’s not illegal—but I’ve seen the librarian in conversation with my parents before and I don’t want to raise a single scale of suspicion. If they knew I’d restored Clay’s memories, seen him on a regular basis since I was forbidden to do so, and planned to make him Mer, they’d be forced to choose between reporting me to the Tribunal for immediate imprisonment or breaking the law to protect my secret. I can’t put them in that position. They can’t have any inkling of what Clay and I are planning until we’ve succeeded.
I pick up a shell from the new arrivals shelf and smile as I turn it over to reveal a small, circular magnet fixed to the bottom that corresponds to a matching, larger magnet on the shelf. A little eddy of pride swirls in my chest. That was my idea. Mer have long used many methods to store fragile konklilis—baskets, bags, roped-off shelves—but one strong seaquake or tsunami can still destroy countless shells, wiping out centuries of knowledge. I thought about the way Clay’s mom still has his second-grade finger-painted dinosaur masterpieces on her fridge, stuck in the same spot after over a decade of Clay’s afterschool-snack-door-slamming, and it struck me how useful magnets could be to us under the waves. My parents loved the idea and even presented it to the council as an example of the type of innovative thinking we should be putting into practice as we rebuild.
Now, every time I hold a konklili to my ear to hear the recorded words inside, my fingers stray over the magnet on the bottom and I get a little rush of happiness knowing I contributed something important, even if it’s something as small as a fridge magnet.
The first konklili I lift to my ear is a blue-gray moon shell. Instead of the ocean waves a human would hear when placing this shell to her ear, I’m met with a pleasant, professional voice speaking formal Mermese. “Magic of the Ancient Mer, first recorded by Circe Cyan and voiced here by Sarassa Mollo.” Oooh, promising! With the shell still pressed to my ear, I grab a whalebone stylus from one of the lidded bowls on a nearby table, then settle into a tufted sea captain’s chair tucked in an alcove to listen.
I run the tip of the stylus along the shell’s natural spiraling groove un
til I reach the first small indentation, then press the Merbook back to my ear, having skipped over the introduction. “Chapter One: Moon Magic.”
After listening to chapters on tidal spells, enchanted talismans, and ritual modifications, I rest the konklili on my golden lap and roll my neck.
I need a break—and I know the best kind. Since I’m still alone, I close my eyes and let my consciousness sink into the bond at my center. Warmth suffuses me—no, heat. Wherever Clay is, it’s hot, but not sunny hot, more …
Mmm … yeah. Oh, I love you. Clay’s thoughts come through but they’re in … my voice? Huh? Soft, dim light and … me … up close against him, my voice breathy. Yeah.
Oh! He’s dreaming. Pleasure rushes up my spine at the thought that he’s dreaming about me. About my lips pressed to his neck, and …
I melt deeper into the softness of the cushioned chair, getting lost in the conjurings of his mind.
Far off in the distance, waves crash and classic rock rumbles alongside it as the image of Clay and me fades. His alarm coaxes him to consciousness, and instead of my arms wrapped around him all that’s left are his flannel sheets. As for me, my hand has found its way up to my breastbone and I’m biting my lip.
As the fog lifts from my mind, guilt crawls in. I should have nudged him already to let him know I was here. I just got so swept up in … Clay’s dream. As Clay wakes up enough to turn off the alarm, I do just that.
He chuckles, rich, deep, and knowing. How long have you been there, Nautilus? When I don’t answer right away, he thinks, I can hear you blushing. He stretches. What a nice way to wake up.
Hi, I think. Sorry I didn’t let you know I was here earlier, but I got so … caught up.
I bet you did. Pride wells up in him, although I’m not sure what for. I mean, he was asleep. But if anyone would take credit for his own dreams, it would be Clay. Where are you right now?
Before I can answer, I try to focus on why I tapped into the bond in the first place. I move my hand down from where it migrated to my chest and place it on my … legs? Oh, Tides!