by Tobie Easton
“Did you finish your assignment? How did it go?”
It destroyed everything I thought I still knew about myself. “Yes. Fine.”
“Um … good. That’s good.” His eyes search my face, then the room, like maybe he can find my conversational skills and give them back to me. We float in the water between the door and his bed, our fins swishing softly in the silence. “Was there something else you wanted?” he asks.
“Yes!” I say, too fast.
“Oh. Okay.” He waits for me to elaborate, but if I show him …
This is getting ridiculous. I dig my thumb nail into the side of my finger. “I need to ask you something.” Just do it. Don’t lose your nerve like a pathetic weakling. “Another favor.” He’s done so much for me already. I shouldn’t ask him to do anything else, but there’s no one else I can ask, and my father would say that favors cement friendships. Should I still be considering my father’s advice? Stop stalling, I scold myself. Before I can hesitate further, I reach in the bag and pull out a crisp scroll, stiff with wax and sealed with mussel resin. I hold it out to Caspian. “Can you get this to Clay for me?” Politeness is the key to eliciting obedience, so I add, “Please?” At least my voice didn’t shake. Much.
“What is it?”
“A letter. An apology letter.” I swim closer, nudging my outstretched arm toward him, the scroll shaking slightly in my grip. “Please?” I ask again. Once he takes it, I won’t be able to pull the words back. I won’t be able to deny I wrote them or … how they made me feel. Just take it, just frortik take it. “Take it!”
My tone startles him, and he reaches for the scroll. He pulls, but my stiff fingers don’t let go. He raises one blond eyebrow. What’s the matter with me? I take a deep breath. And release the letter into Caspian’s hold.
“I’ve got it,” he says. “I’ve got it.”
I drop my hand to my side and some of the weight goes with it. Decision made.
“I have to ask,” he pauses, staring at the scroll he now grips. “Nothing in here … it won’t hurt him, will it? Upset him?”
I shake my head. He has to ask that because, because I hurt people. That’s what I do. “I don’t think so. I tried to think about … about how he would feel reading it. How … I would feel, if I were him.”
Caspian’s eyes widen, and one corner of his mouth turns upward, just a bit.
“If you need to, you can read it before you give it to him.” I don’t want him to read it—the thought makes me fight to slow my breathing—but I need to make sure Clay gets it. Now that I’ve spilled the words out and handed them over, I need Clay to read them. I don’t know why, I just …
“I won’t read it,” Caspian says. “If you tell me it isn’t hurtful, then that’s good enough for me.”
“It is?”
“Shouldn’t it be?” He holds my gaze, steady.
I do another mental run-down of the letter. Every syllable has burned itself into my memory forever. “Yes.”
“I’ll make sure he gets it, then.” Unlike Lia and me, Caspian wasn’t referenced in my father’s letter, so he’s still allowed Above to visit his friends in the Community as long as he’s guarded.
“Thank you.” The words don’t feel like enough, but I’ve spent the entire evening searching for words and these are the only ones I have left.
Caspian nods, and understanding stretches between us, thick as Irish moss.
He ducks his head. “I have another Mermese vocabulary list to sneak him anyway. I leave them in a locker in the mall arcade, and Lia tells him the combination through the bond.”
She can do that? Her magic is that strong now, even without Ondine? I shake off the surprise; I have something much more important to worry about. “Just don’t—”
“I won’t say anything about your letter. It’s between you and Clay.”
He approaches a row of what I’d assumed were fancy dressing screens, a longer version of the ones in my room. But why would a Merman need dressing screens when the most he’d ever wear until winter is formal limpet shells?
Reading the confusion on my face, he says, “I like my privacy.”
Then he folds the screen to reveal an enormous desk that takes up nearly the entire wall. Everything on it lies just so. Three rows of konklilis stand along the back, organized perfectly by size, with even larger ones lining the two shelves above. My room here doesn’t have shelves—did he build those himself? On the desk’s leftfin side rests a tall stack of red algae leaves anchored by a beautiful, deep green malachite stone, next to a smaller stack of rarer pressed dictyota algae leaves. What does he use those for? Just behind the leaves sits a collection of antique ink pots, each one more unique than the last and filled with a different color of gently glimmering liquid. A gluss of—is that sea glass?—fits snuggly upright in a small, silk-lined cutout.
To the right rests a lidded amber box filled with finished scrolls. I don’t know anyone else aside from my father who writes in Mermese; I find myself itching to see what his penmanship looks like.
The middle is completely clean save for a smooth slab of warm brown jasper—a perfect writing surface.
A smile spreads across my face. Now it feels like I’m in Caspian’s room. The desk is so him.
“Oh, I’m jealous,” I say. But this time it’s the fun kind of jealous, the kind that makes me want to explore every drawer of that desk to discover all the treasures hidden within.
Pride shines on his face. “Thanks. I probably put too much effort into organizing it, but, well, I spend a lot of time there.”
“I get it,” I say. “That purple ink isn’t from murex, is it?”
He nods. “Ethically sourced. It took me forever to track it down. I asked my parents for it as a Lunar Day present.”
“May I?”
He nods again, handing me the crescent-shaped, blown-glass pot, which I take with careful fingers. I stare into the purple ink as it sloshes inside. Deep and fathomless within the glass. “Writing that letter was hard.” My words are a whisper, the barest gasp of air. “Really hard.”
I don’t know why I’m telling him except that if I don’t say it, tomorrow I might want to pretend it never happened—that I never thought those things I wrote in the letter. That I never cried with guilt over what I’ve done. Who I’ve become.
If I say it out loud to Caspian, it’ll be real, and once that letter is far away, I won’t be able to let it slip from my memory because Caspian will still be here. So, I keep staring into the purple liquid, which is easier than looking at his face, and say, “Putting my apology into words … there’s no justification for what I did. No reason big enough.”
“No, there isn’t.”
“You already knew that.” Of course he did. He’s a better person than I am. A much better person. I knew that before. I just didn’t know I cared.
“I was hoping you’d figure it out.” He tilts his head, dragging my eyes up from the ink to his face. “I thought you would.”
He did? I’ve always counted on my self-confidence to pull me through, but writing that letter earlier wiped it out, devastated it like a hurricane destroying a beach shack that fancied itself a mansion. At Caspian’s words, a glimmer of it returns, warmer than before.
I’m too busy repeating those words to myself to speak, so Caspian fills the silence. “It seems like your therapy is working.”
I roll those words over in my mind, too. “It just might be.” I thought I’d hate admitting that more. Hmm. But if it is …
“What is it?” Caspian asks. I must have grimaced.
I shrug, reaching past him to place the ink back in its spot on the desk. My body passes close to his before I straighten.
“You can tell me,” he says. “If you want to.”
Do I want to? I do, I realize.
“I’m …” I can’t say scared. Even here, with just the two of us in this quiet room. Trust me, I get the irony. I know sayin
g things out loud is the point right now, but … scared? No way. “I’m concerned.” that makes me sound like an eighty-year-old busybody, but at least I don’t sound weak; weak is worse. “Look, I know I have to let go of the reasons I did what I did, but if I do, I—” I stop. My tongue won’t form the sounds. My lips jam together.
“We don’t have to talk about this. But if you think it will help …”
I turn to the side, resting both palms on his desk and focusing my gaze on its smooth surface. I stay silent for a long time, but Caspian doesn’t say anything else. He waits as all the breath inside me builds.
“I feel like I’m disappointing her,” I whisper at last. “My mom. She and my father had this big plan for me, and after she died, I just wanted to make her proud.” Now that I’ve started, the words slop out on top of each other. “It was so hard, so hard to … keep going without her …” my voice quakes, and for the first time a part of me wishes the Tribunal had taken it away underwater, too, so I couldn’t embarrass myself like this, “and the only way that made any sense was to carry on the way she would have wanted me to.”
“It makes sense that—”
You mention your dead mom and people try to make everything okay. I have to get this out before Caspian tries to do it, too. “You know how I felt when my father first told me that they’d wanted me to seduce and sacrifice Clay?” I turn my head so I’m looking straight into Caspian’s eyes when I say it. “Happy.” His eyes widen when I hurl that at him, the way I knew they would. “I was so happy to have a way forward that I knew my mom had planned for me. It was the first time since she”—I swallow—“died that I could feel her next to me.” I look down at the desk again. “I know how stupid that is.”
Before he can offer some comforting, inane platitude, I rush on, desperate now to get the words out. I’ve never said them before, and something tells me that, after tonight, I never will again. “I just wanted so badly to still feel like she was in my life. During each step that brought us closer to the ritual—getting rid of my Mermese accent in English, perfecting my leg control, learning the siren song, immigrating Above, starting school in Malibu—she was with me for all of it because I knew she’d dreamed of me doing it to free our kind from the curse. She wanted me up on that throne, so as long as I was working toward that, it was like she was next to me.” Tears tumble out with my words, so many. Damn, what’s with all the crying today? I can’t stop. But Caspian doesn’t comment on it, doesn’t tell me to toughen up.
All he does is ask, “So you never questioned if what you were doing was wrong?” His voice is too neutral; it must’ve been hard for him to ask that without judgment.
“All the time!” It’s the truth. “Sometimes I’d look at Clay’s eyes after he was sirened—after I sirened him—and they’d look so empty and dead that it would make me feel,” my hand gestures in frantic circles in front of my chest and stomach, “awful inside. Ill. But the only person I could tell was my dad, and he told me I only felt that way because Clay looked like a Merman, from the waist up at least, so I shouldn’t trust the feeling. He said everyone knew that humans were less intelligent and felt everything less deeply. He explained that’s why they could be sirened in the first place and Mer can’t. So, I wasn’t supposed to feel bad. That made sense, but …”
“But what?”
“But I still felt like maybe we should stop, so he reminded me that my mom was with me. She’d told me about all the trouble humans cause, about how pathetic it was that we had lifespans like theirs when we were entitled to so much more. I knew she’d want me to do anything necessary to save Merkind from that.”
“Your mom was udell? Like your dad’s family?”
I nod. “I thought that’s how all Mer felt. Growing up, she’d tell me the story of the Little Mermaid’s infamous disgrace while I sat in her lap or she tucked me in. When I was with Clay, the last thing I wanted was to feel sympathy for a human the way the Little Mermaid had because I knew how shocked and disappointed my mom would have been. I pushed it down as far as I could, and every time I sirened him I reminded myself that my mom was with me.”
I pause, lost for a moment in those long-ago hours with Clay. “Then afterwards”—I shake my head—“after the trial, I kept telling myself I’d done what she wanted. I’d kept her with me.” I let my arms fall by my tail. “I realized tonight while I was writing that letter, that if I want to really feel what I did the way MerMatron Estrella says I need to …” What am I trying to say? I angle myself so I’m facing Caspian again. Nowhere to hide. “My father is gone now to who knows where. If I, if I accept that my reasons for hurting Clay and Lia don’t matter, that what matters most is what I did and not why I did it—if I let that sink in, it means I’m not on the path my mom set for me anymore.” Something inside me caves in. “It means I’m really alone.”
Strong arms fold around me, holding me so tightly that they keep me together when I think I’ll break apart. My forehead falls against a solid chest as I blubber like a guppy. “It hurts. It hurts so much. I want it to stop.”
When that small space curled against Caspian’s chest has grown so full of my pearls that they threaten to fill my mouth and choke me, I pull back. But not much. I need to feel his nearness. His presence is the only thing anchoring me.
He grips my upper arms in his large hands. “You’re not alone.” We’re so close together now—closer than we’ve ever been. It makes it easier to believe what he’s saying is true.
Energy crackles between us, warm and electric. Caspian must feel it too because the look in his eyes shifts from concern to awareness. He swallows. “I mean …”
I’ve spent all night thinking about what I did to Clay, what it means that my parents’ reasons weren’t enough, what it means that I need to break away from that. Now, all I want is to stop thinking.
Even if it’s just for a little while.
All it takes is a single flutter of my coral fins and I’m rising upward in the water. Caspian may be much taller than I am, but soon my lips are level with his. I lean in—into the warmth, into the energy sparking between us. Into connection and not being alone. Soon I’ll be able to turn off my whirring thoughts and just taste him.
My mouth meets his clean-shaven cheek.
He’s turned his face to the side, turned it away from me. “Melusine,” he says, half censure, half apology.
“What? Tonight’s been hard enough. I just want to feel good.” I keep my face—my mouth—up close to his.
“Look, we don’t have to do that. We can talk for as long as you want, about whatever you want.”
“I’m done talking.” I want to lose myself in his body for a while, lose myself under his hands. Is that so wrong?
I move my lips to the side of his neck. Finally, something I’m good at. But I’ve barely tasted the smooth salt of his skin when he uses his grip on my arms to haul me backward, hold me away from him. “This isn’t how …” He stops, then tries again. “You’re in a bad place tonight.”
I know why he’s hesitating, and I can fix it. “It’s soon for you—I get it.” I lean closer again, and he lets me. “Just close your eyes,” I say, my voice low, husky. “You can picture”—I don’t want to say her name, not right now—“anyone you want.”
Caspian drops his hands from my arms. “What? No.” He reels backward fast, like a fish that’s just realized it’s bitten a hook. “You don’t deserve that. Melusine, you need to know you don’t deserve that.”
Why is he making such a big deal out of this? Is the idea of spending even a single night with me really that repulsive to him? Does he really think he’s that much better than I am? He is that much better, a slithering voice whispers in the back of my mind.
“Whatever,” I say, keeping tight control over my voice. “I was planning to picture someone else, too.”
“Oh.” Is that hurt slashing across his face? Frort. I don’t even know what prompted the lie.
I can still save this. Caspian likes honest, so I tilt my head just so, try to make my words sound as honest as I can. “But I’ll picture you if you want me to. I’ll keep my eyes open the whole time.” I never have before. But, with Caspian, it might be nice. I take his hands and put them against me, backing up until he’s holding me against the hard, coral wall. “I’ll do whatever you like.”
This time he doesn’t move away. How could he? “I’d like …” His hands shift against my skin, one on my hip, one searing right below my collarbone above my siluess. “I’d like …” His breathing is shallower now. So is mine.
“Yes?” I whisper.
“I’d like to get something to eat. I was headed to the qokkiis before you got here, so I’d like to go grab a snack.” Slowly, like it takes all his concentration, he pries his hands away, but I can still feel them on me. My skin burns and my head swims. I blink and he’s crossed to the door in one fierce kick. He disappears through it, leaving me alone, all alone in his empty room. I wrap an arm around my waist and the other around my chest.
Caspian peeks his head back through the doorway. “Aren’t you coming?” Big blue eyes beseech mine not to be mad. “Come on. I’ll make you a snack.”
A snack? I should shout at him for rejecting me, scream in his face. At least three deliciously cruel, biting comments—about his lack of sexual experience, how he couldn’t call up his legs if he tried, how Lia could never want him—dive into my mind, ready to be unleashed. But then he smiles, just a tiny, questioning quirk of his lips.
“Yeah, I could eat I guess,” I say, swimming toward him where he waits.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Lia
Now it’s my turn to wait. Wait for them to process my words, for wave upon wave of questions to hit.
Lazuli’s crashes down first. “But that’s not possible.” Her gaze roves around our small circle for confirmation. “Right?”