Immerse

by Tobie Easton

  “We’ve told you all we’re authorized to disclose,” the guard repeats, with a smile that says he takes a kind of twisted pleasure in denying me. “If and when the crown decides you should know more, someone will be by to keep you apprised.”

  Without another word, they leave me alone in my room once again, surrounded by homework I no longer care a cowrie about. If and when the crown decides I should know more? Screw that.

  No one said I had to stay in this room. If they won’t tell me where they’re keeping my father, I’ll find out myself.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Lia

  “Aurelia, we thought you deserved to be here for the full report,” my mother says.

  Did they really get him? I clutch Caspian’s hand where he wades beside me in front of my parents’ thrones. When I was escorted from the Magic Department, I insisted he be allowed to come with me.

  Now, as Uncle Kai swims forward, he glances at Caspian and sends my parents a questioning look.

  My father nods. “It’s fine. He can stay.”

  Uncle Kai clasps his hands behind his tail, in full professional mode. “One of our units has him in custody, Your Majesties.”

  I squeeze Casp’s hand harder. After all this time, the news doesn’t feel real.

  “We’ve received word that he was apprehended just outside New Paril, beyond the rebuilding site, among the ruins of the old village of Diskkana. He was living in squalor and he’s come down with some kind of pox, so his face is a mess. But he was found hiding in the home of a known family member, and we have sworn statements from two witnesses—kelp farmers who work the land nearby and saw him when he arrived. Plus, our unit was able to positively identify him by our description of his puce tail.” I remember that tail too well. He held me down with it as I struggled for my life in this very room. “It’s definitely him, Your Majesties,” Uncle Kai finishes.

  Relief floods my parents’ faces. They wear their first smiles since his escape. Smiles even spread across the faces of the usually stoic guards who dot the room.

  “How long until they get him here?” my mother asks.

  “There’s a storm brewing in the North, so they’re going to wait until it passes. They don’t want to risk another escape attempt in the chaos. Rashell is already on her way. She’ll escort him back personally.”

  “Then we’ll wait to officially announce his capture until he’s brought here,” my mother says. “But in the meantime, you can begin calling back the extra guards and reassigning them where they’re most needed.”

  “Already in progress,” Uncle Kai tells her.

  “And get a unit back on the Naiad case,” my father says.

  Ondine. Since all the officers are spread so thin right now, they had to pause their search for her while they focused on Mr. Havelock. Maybe now they’ll find her, too. An image bubbles up in my mind of her gray face as it slipped away from me toward the bottom of the sea.

  Or at least maybe they’ll find her body.

  “Right away,” Uncle Kai confirms.

  “What happens now?” I ask, drifting closer to my parents’ thrones.

  “Now your mother and I can go back to putting our full attention where it should be. On strengthening this kingdom and making life better for Merkind.” Then my father adds, “And your life can finally get back to normal.”

  My life was normal? I have the irrational, frantic urge to burst out laughing. Even so, I do feel like I can finally breathe as a vision fills my head of lying in Clay’s arms in our cozy, makeshift hideaway in Malibu, the way I so often did before Mr. Havelock’s escape.

  “And Leo and your sister can finally finish planning their wedding,” my father adds.

  “What about Melusine?” Caspian asks. “What will happen to her now?” Tides, why does he care so much?

  “That’s a good question,” my mother says. “We’ve sent word to her that her father was found and apprehended. I suppose in the next few days we’ll speak with her teacher and her therapist to decide the best place for her, moving forward.”

  Annoyance spikes in me that Melusine won’t immediately be sent packing, but I don’t say anything. A far more important worry weighs on my chest.

  My mother speaks to Uncle Kai again. “Excellent work,” she tells him. “Please give our deepest thanks and highest commendations to your entire team.”

  “Thank you, Your Majesties.” With the formal report concluded, my uncle’s posture relaxes.

  My father pats my mother’s hand where it rests on her opal lap, then swims off his throne to embrace his brother-in-law. “Great job, Kai. Thank you.”

  My mother swims up to me, placing a hand on my shoulder. “And thank you, Aurelia, for staying in the palace this entire time like we asked you without complaint. I know it can’t have been easy on you.”

  “We have more than that to thank her for,” Uncle Kai says. “Lia, do you know how we caught Havelock?” I shake my head. “By tracing the origin of an ingredient in his potions to his relative’s location, which told us the two of them must have still been in contact. We may never have done that if you hadn’t suggested reexamining the potions and all the other evidence from the trial.”

  “I helped?”

  “You more than helped.”

  “We’re so proud of you, seashell,” my father says warmly.

  “We certainly are,” my mother agrees, her face looking happier and less burdened than it has in a long time.

  I try to return her smile. “I’m so glad it worked.” I am glad. Of course I’m glad that an attempted murderer who was probably trying to kidnap me is off the streets, but the timing of his capture also means—

  “Wow,” Caspian whispers next to me. “Going through the evidence again was your idea? That’s awesome.” Casp only ever uses the word awesome when he actually means something “inspired awe,” so it’s a big compliment—one I don’t really deserve.

  “There’s a little more to it than that,” I whisper back. It isn’t until we’ve thanked Uncle Kai and left the room that I can explain to Casp what I mean. The hallway that leads to his door is no longer packed with guards. Still, I keep my voice down as I say, “My main reason for asking them to reexamine the evidence was that I needed to get it here. To the palace.”

  “Why?” Caspian asks.

  “Let me start by saying that I’m fine. Everyone’s fine and no one got even a teensy bit hurt.” Then I launch into telling him about Clay’s realization that we needed the dagger and about how my sisters, Stas, and I set out to get it.

  He asks questions like “From the high security vault?” and “Really? Magnets worked? Huh.” and “Lazuli actually said that to them?” That last one makes him blush as he holds open his bedroom door and shuts it behind us.

  We stop just inside the room, and I have to remind him of my none-of-us-got-hurt disclaimer when we get to questions like “Wait, how big was the jellyfish?” and “Lia, a shark?”

  Worried blue eyes run over my body, as if checking for wounds I forgot to mention.

  “Casp,” I say, placing a hand on each of his upper arms so he focuses on my face and I can look him directly in the eye. “I’m okay.”

  Our gazes hold until he nods.

  He shifts out of my grasp then. Right. I’ve been so good about being careful lately—no touch that could be construed as anything besides friendship. I drop my hands, my fingers fidgeting by my tail. “Um, anyway … the point is, I have the dagger, but when I cast the revealing spell that I thought would show me how to use it to transform Clay, the spell … didn’t work right.” I don’t want to worry him further by detailing the visions of murder and bloodshed. “It didn’t show me anything about the dagger that I didn’t already know. I tried it every way I can think of.”

  “Is that why you weren’t really smiling when you heard about Mr. Havelock’s capture? I couldn’t figure out why you still seemed so worried.”

  “Y
eah,” I answer. I’d expected to shake my fins in a happy dance the second I found out we’d captured Mr. Havelock. After all, it would mean I was safe, not to mention that I could finally go outside again. But … “It’s the timing that has me all tied up in knots. Arresting him now means they’ll be sending all the evidence back to the Foundation, maybe in just a few days. I’m thinking a week, tops. When they go to catalogue all of it before transport …” I look up at Caspian and bite my lip.

  “They’ll find the shell Em recorded for you in the crate where the dagger should be,” he fills in, remembering what I told him about my plan to keep all of this legal. “And they’ll question you and take the dagger back before—”

  “Before I can use it to help Clay. Whatever I’m going to do to turn him into a Merman, I have to do it now.” I can’t wait any longer, or I’ll miss my chance. “But I don’t know how.”

  I hate the tears and desperation that have crept into my voice. At least now Caspian knows what I’m up against. My best friend knows what I have to do. Maybe together, we can figure out a way for me to do it.

  I turn to face the inside of the room, so I can sit in one of those armchairs and we can figure this out.

  But someone is already sitting there.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Melusine

  They might refuse to tell me any info on my father, but I know who they will tell. They’ll give their little golden girl every last detail.

  And the first person she’ll want to unload all her emotions on is Caspian.

  Maybe she already has and he’s back in his room by now.

  But when I get there, no one answers my knock.

  “Caspian?” I call out in case he didn’t hear me. The door is partway open, so I peek my head in. “Caspian?”

  I could leave a note on his desk, but the screen is drawn in front of it, so he may not check there. He wouldn’t mind me waiting in here for him. If I stay in the sitting area, which feels more public than the space around his desk and bed, that should be fine. Since staring at the door hoping he’ll swim through it will just make me antsier, I settle into a chair that faces a painting of a blue whale on the opposite wall instead.

  My thoughts are swimming so fast. How did they find my father? Where was he? Was he doing anything illegal when they found him that will add to his charge? Did he try to fight them off? Did they hurt him? When he got caught was he … was he on his way here to get me? And the undercurrent that runs through them all: why do I still care about him?

  Now that I know how wrong what he did was—how wrong it was that he convinced me do it, too—why do I still care about him?

  Because he’s your dad, a voice whispers inside my head. A weak and whimpering voice, but an honest one. Then, even more quietly: Because he was just trying to achieve the life she wanted for you. Thinking about how my father did all this because he was fueled by love of my mother, the same as I was, makes pity and forgiveness swell inside me.

  And just like that, the worry starts anew. If it ever really stopped. It’s all that keeps me company as I wait for Caspian.

  I’m lost deep in the dark cave of my thoughts when a voice echoes inside, rousing my attention.

  Make that voices. Plural.

  The excitement and relief that bloom in my chest as Caspian’s low baritone reaches me from the hallway wither just as quickly when her self-deprecating whine follows.

  “Lazuli actually said that to them?” I can practically hear his blush.

  Said what to whom? I wonder. I shift to get up, so I can let him know I’m here and relish the unexpected but undeniable pleasure of seeing the look on her face at just how comfortable I am waiting for him in his room.

  But then I catch a hint of something in his voice. He sounds so different—so young—when he talks to her and they’re alone. Or at least think they’re alone.

  Is that the only behavior that’s different? He’s said over and over that he’s accepted there’s nothing between them, that he’s moved on, but has he? Or has he just convinced himself he has? This may be the only chance I ever have to see how the two of them interact alone.

  Besides, even though I’m facing the wall, it’s not like I’m invisible. As soon as they turn toward the room, they’ll see my coral fins out to the side or my forearm on the armrest. It’s not like I’m hiding; if anything, not announcing my presence will only buy me a few short seconds of information. But it’s information about what they might really mean to each other, so I’ll take whatever I can get.

  Lia’s telling some over-the-top story about … a giant jellyfish? Words spill out of her mouth in a rush before she has any time to reflect on them or deliberate. I tune it out as much as I can and peek around the back of the chair so I can use my precious seconds before they see me to analyze if they angle their bodies toward each other, if she touches her hair, if he takes her hand. I’m focusing much more on body language than her stupid story until she says, “But we still hadn’t reached the inner high-security vault.”

  The inner high-security vault? Maybe for once, whatever’s dribbling out from between Lia’s lips is worth listening to. So, I do. I listen intently.

  Wait, her little cousin hypnotized a shark? Is she making this entire thing up? Maybe she’s just trying to get Caspian’s attention.

  If that’s her goal, it’s working.

  “Lia, a shark?” he asks, his eyes wide with concern. My grip tightens on the armrests of the chair as his gaze runs up and down Lia’s body. She’s wearing a pale yellow siluess and a matching citrine necklace. It makes her skin look sallow. Does it really? a little voice whispers in my head. Maybe Caspian loves yellow. Maybe it’s his favorite color. You don’t know his favorite color, but I bet Lia does. Lia’s known it forever. Ugh. I have to admit the siluess is cut well and manages to show off what little she does have up top. The realization makes me wish I could kick my tail right into her side, like she did to me when we fought over the dagger.

  What happens next makes the urge grow stronger.

  She puts her hands on him! She rests a hand on each of his upper arms, practically stroking his triceps, and fixes him with a smoldering expression. “Casp, I’m okay,” she whispers in a baby voice. Does she think that’s seductive?

  Does he?

  He looks deep into her eyes as he nods, and I wish I were anywhere else. Fine. Let them have each other. What do I care? Let them make perfect little guppies with sparkly, metallic tails who have no sense of moral complexity. I told him how wrong they are for each other, and I was foolish enough to think he’d actually listened, but if he wants to—

  My jaw drops in an open-mouthed smile as Caspian twists out of her grip. Yes!

  I expect her to swim closer, to try to touch him again, maybe more subtly this time. Instead, she immediately drops her hands and offers him an apologetic look that seems … sincere. The awkwardness that permeates the water between them is definitely real.

  Even though no one’s watching me, a grin spreads across my face.

  “Um, anyway …” Lia says, “the point is, I have the dagger.” What dagger? She was in the inner high-security vault … could she mean …? No, she couldn’t mean the obsidian dagger. Why would little goody-goody Lia want anything to do with that? “But when I cast the revealing spell that I thought would show me how to use it to transform Clay,” Oh. Oh! “the spell … didn’t work right. It didn’t show me anything about the dagger that I didn’t already know. I tried it every way I can think of.”

  I listen hard as their back-and-forth continues. Then Lia says, “Whatever I’m going to do to turn him into a Merman, I have to do it now. But I don’t know how.”

  So that’s her plan.

  I roll it over in my mind. Could it actually work? I hadn’t thought there was enough magic under the waves to turn a human into a Merman. But the dagger was designed by one of the greatest sorceresses in history for exactly that purpose—to turn the Little Mer
maid from a human back into a Mermaid. And it is one of the most powerful magical objects ever created; that’s why my family went to the trouble of finding it and safeguarding it for generations.

  My father’s scales would crawl if he knew she had it.

  But to me, the knowledge is leverage. The question is, now that I know what Lia’s plan is, what will I do with that information?

  It’s the same question that etches itself across Lia’s face the instant she spots me reclining in the armchair.

  “What are you doing in here?” Panic lives in every word.

  I don’t get up. I just stretch out and smile innocently at her from around the side of the chair’s backrest. “I was waiting here for Caspian,” I say, like it’s a regular occurrence. Lia’s lips thin. “And it would have been rude to interrupt.”

  Her glare hurls a thousand spears.

  But it’s Caspian who says quietly, “You should have let us know you were here.” No malice or accusation laces his statement. It’s just that—a statement. I seek out his gaze, and when our eyes meet, an apologetic expression springs to my face before I can even try to stop it.

  “What did you expect?” Lia poses the question to Caspian, but her gaze never leaves me, tracking my every micro-movement like I’m that shark she mentioned. But she talks about me like I’m some sea slime stuck to the bottom of her fin. “All she cares about is exploiting her time at the palace for her own advantage.”

  I’m out of the chair quick enough to startle her. “You going to look out for me instead, princess?” Her nostrils flare, but she doesn’t answer. Yeah, I didn’t think so. I drag out the next part so it registers. “Shouldn’t you be really nice to me right about now?”

  “If you tell anyone what you’ve just heard, I’ll—”

  “Calm down, Lia,” Caspian says, voice steady. “Melusine won’t tell anyone your plan.”