by Tobie Easton
“Well, Clay is ready.” She takes a deep breath, and the defensiveness has been replaced with a surprising level of patience when she says, “He may be young, but he’s been through more than he ever should have, and it’s made him grow up. He knows his own mind, Casp. Maybe because he’s had it stolen from him so many times.” She rubs a hand over her face, and suddenly she looks so tired. Then her jaw sets. “This is what he wants, and I’m going to help him get it.”
“I love that you want to help him,” Caspian says. “I do, too. It’s just … what if he regrets it? I know he loves you, but giving up his whole world for you? That’s—”
“I’m not asking him to do that. I would never ask him to do that. He wouldn’t be giving up the human world, and I don’t want to give it up either. It’s where I was raised—it’s my home, no matter where I live right now.” She gestures around the undersea room. “Becoming Mer will give Clay more options about where he wants to live. The same options I have. And you do. I want that for him, too.”
Some relief swims across Caspian’s features. “That’s good, that you’ve both considered all that. But, I’m sorry, I still think you should wait. Just a few years, to see if Clay still wants this.”
“Don’t you think we would if we could? I may never be able to get my hands on the dagger again.” She scoots closer to him, and I feel oceans away even though I’m only sitting across from them. “This is my one chance.”
“I understand that. I do. But it’s too drastic to—”
Lia launches herself up from the couch. “He’s going to die!” She stills and says more quietly, “Clay will die.”
“Yeah, but not for another sixty to eighty years,” I remind her. Those tears stuck in her throat are making my fins twitch.
She snaps her head in my direction, but her words are sad instead of spiteful when she says, “It doesn’t matter. He’ll still die. That sounds really long, but now that we’re immortal, it’ll happen like that.” She snaps her fingers, then turns to Caspian again, who’s risen from the couch, too. “I’d have to … I can’t. I can’t watch him die, Casp. I can’t. I love him too damn much.” Her voice catches again, but she swallows it down. “Figuring out how to make this dagger work, it’s the only way the two of us will ever be happy.”
Her huge brown eyes look beseechingly at Caspian as they sparkle with unshed tears.
He stares at her for several long seconds. Then he nods.
And turns to me. “Melusine, you’re the only one those girls will talk to. They admire you—I’ve seen it. Your reputation, your leg control, your relation to Ondine. If you don’t agree to help, Lia won’t be able to make Clay a Merman.”
Lia sneaks a glance at me, then she sits and starts taking these deep, forced breaths to calm herself. So emotional.
Never mind that my own breathing has grown shallow. Caspian swims closer to me. “We need you.”
They need me. Caspian needs me. What am I supposed to do with that? It was easy to say no when I could tell Casp wanted me to refuse, when it was obvious he only told Lia the idea because she pressured him. But now, staring into his earnest face, I’m at a loss.
The water around us presses in on me until his rich, calming voice fills it. “I had the idea when I was telling you about how the queen and king still haven’t figured out where you should live now that your father’s been captured. Since you’re a minor, their main goal is your rehabilitation. And, let’s face it,” he says the next part as gently as he can, “they’re probably at least a little afraid of having you and your father living close together, either in the palace or at the Foundation again. If you were to say you wanted to visit Sea Daughters Academy and consider studying there, it would solve both problems.”
Lia is still breathing like a sea lion in labor and I stay speechless, so he keeps talking. “Providing they could keep you under surveillance there and that you still met regularly with a human-sensitivity therapist as well as your probation officer, they’d probably dive at the chance to have you attend boarding school. Especially one with a reputation as being sequestered and safe even during the wars, and one that the authorities have scrubbed clean of magic since Ondine’s disappearance.”
It’s a brilliant, elegant solution—that he came up with in minutes. If all my effort weren’t going to keeping my hands and voice from shaking, I’d be impressed at how his brain works. Okay, fine. I am impressed. Really impressed. But, “This is not my fight,” I say, sitting up straighter in my armchair. “You’re asking me to go back to a place where you yourself were almost killed and try to trick an entire group of vengeful, evil—”
“Those girls aren’t evil!” Lia finally finds her voice again. “They’re … well-intentioned and smart and,” a wistful smile softens her face, “nice. They just got sucked into Ondine’s influence, the same as I did. Except they were with her a lot longer.”
“I don’t need to hear about how ‘nice’ all those girls are,” I snap at her. “Do they or do they not want you dead for stealing their power away?”
“They might,” Lia admits.
“So, if I agree to help you, they’ll want me dead, too.”
“All I’m saying is they’re good people who got mixed up in something bad when they were too young to know the difference. Maybe now that they’ve had time away from Ondine, they’ve come to their senses or are at least starting to.”
“I thought they were sirens. Aren’t sirens evil according to you?” I throw at her. How can she want so badly to see the best in those girls when she …
“Ondine taught them the siren songs to preserve them, but they never sirened anyone!” She throws back.
“You mean like you did?”
A waterfall of guilt flows over her face. “I’m not denying it. I live with it every day.”
And she thinks I don’t? The presumptuous little twit.
Being angry at Lia feels good. Familiar. Much better than the knot in my stomach when I think about the fact that Caspian is asking me to do this. That it’s his idea I’m saying no to. I push down my doubt and embrace that anger. He must notice it boiling in my eyes because he jumps in. “After Lia seized their power—”
But she cuts him off. “For the record, I seized Ondine’s power, not theirs. They were just using it. And I did it to save Caspian’s life.”
Caspian shares a small smile with her, his gaze brimming with gratitude. Why did I ever come in this room? I wish I could slither out of it right this second.
“The girls never saw Ondine after that,” Caspian says to me, picking up his explanation. “So as far as they know, Ondine really did send you to guard me. They might still think of you as someone she trusted, an ally. That’s why this could work.”
“Might” and “could” being the parts I’m worried about. I look at Lia. “Didn’t you say they all had some mental link with each other? Couldn’t she have communicated some message to them before you seized her magic?”
Caspian shifts in his seat, his brow lowering over concerned blue eyes as he turns to Lia for an answer; he hadn’t considered that.
Lia’s face twists up in confusion, making her look like more of an idiot than usual. “The link didn’t seem to work that way. It was more for sensing magic and each other’s locations than for talking. And Ondine’s powers were spread way too thin at the end—that’s the only reason I was able to defeat her.” Oh, goodie, some false modesty, just what this conversation about putting my life on the line needs right now. “I don’t think Ondine would have been able to communicate any message to those girls.” Caspian’s shoulders relax at Lia’s assurances, but mine stay up by my gills.
“You don’t think so. But you don’t know.” I shake my head. “You want to convince yourselves those girls are harmless without Ondine’s magic? They could have joined their remaining powers together, they could have taught other girls at the school who have more natural magic … You don’t know,” I repeat. “You have
no idea what I’d be swimming into. Neither one of you would even consider going in there yourselves, but you’re fine risking me.” My life just isn’t as valuable as theirs, huh? That’s what they think. If I die, it’s no big loss. “I have it coming anyway, right?”
“Melusine—”
I’m up from my chair before Caspian can muster some lackluster excuse. I thought he cared about me, I thought … “How could you ask me to do this?” I hurl at him.
His answer is quiet: “You went there before.” To save his life. His meaning floats there between us, heavy and true. I pretended Ondine had sent me there to guard him so I could try to help him escape.
“That was different,” I say. Caspian’s life isn’t in danger now. “They thought I was evil then, too. Plus, I thought Ondine still cared about me and would never hurt me.” It’s hard to push the words out as my throat tightens around them. I was wrong. She never cared about me, never loved me. She was using me. When I found out Caspian might get hurt … I risked my probation, risked an eternity of imprisonment, which was probably stupid, but “I never put my life at risk.” Lia saved him anyway, not me. I should have just stayed away.
Lia pipes up. “After everything you did to me and Clay, I thought you wanted to …” she uses Caspian’s words from earlier, making it sound like this is some giant test, “make amends.”
Make amends? With Clay, maybe, if there was a less insanely dangerous way to do it. With Lia, who has repeatedly treated me like some nuclear waste product humans dump in the ocean? “No.”
I don’t conceal the malice from my gaze as I look at her, and it must dawn on her that she bears some of the blame for my refusal because her face crumples with what could only be shame. But then she squares her shoulders and addresses me again. “Then will you do it because it’s the right thing to do?”
I scoff without thinking. “Have you met me?” I say it as more of a reflex than anything else, but she pulls back, offended. Good, let her be. She sits on the far end of the couch, staring at nothing on the floor. She’s given up. Finally.
She seems so small sitting there. For the first time she looks … hopeless. More hopeless than she did when she came down to the bottom of the sea to find Clay bound by my father’s magic and close to death. More hopeless than she did on that beach after she’d faced off with Ondine and the sirens were coming for her. Because now, there’s nothing left for her to do. She has nothing left to try.
But I do. The initial satisfaction at sticking up for myself—at refusing her—wears off in a receding tide, and as it leaves, I feel … empty. Hollow. Wrong. What was it Caspian said when I asked him why he kept helping Clay even when Clay was the one who ruined his happiness? I decided, if I can help, I should.
It’s true those girls would most likely still consider me an ally. And if they didn’t, I’d have guards with me, since there’s no way I’d be allowed to travel without them. Caspian’s right that I’m probably the only one alive who Ondine’s former protégés would ever consider opening up to.
As I stare at Lia, huddled in the corner of that couch, something tugs at my insides. Before I can banish or bury whatever it is I’m feeling, a hand grazes my upper arm.
Caspian fills my vision, his caring face as open and imploring as I’ve ever seen it. Caspian, who has withstood bullying for me, who has defied the wishes of his best friend to spend time with me, who has risked his reputation over and over to stay by my side. Caspian, who has confided in me and trusted me. Caspian, who I …
His gaze locks onto mine now, blue to blue. “Will you do it because I’m asking you to?”
And then, the hardest word I’ve ever spoken—but also the easiest: “Yes.”
As soon as it leaves my lips, I want to swallow the word back. But Caspian’s face breaks into a smile as bright and optimistic as a cresting wave. It lights up every part of him with hope. Hope that we’ll get the answer about the dagger—or hope in me?
Suddenly, he’s coming closer, closer … what? Caspian wraps me in a hug, completely enveloping me with his larger form. I’m stiff and unsure, but the warmth of it soaks into me until I soften, letting his bare chest support me as I lean against it, my own arms jerkily finding their way around him in return.
It’s been so long since I hugged anyone, especially a guy. Am I doing this right? At first it’s profoundly soothing, like the rich, sweet honey humans pour into steaming tea. With Caspian holding me, a deep comfort calms the frenzy of my indecision, my doubt, my fear. But it awakens something, too.
Because in the next instant, I grow intensely aware of his skin, everywhere against me, alive with sensation. His naked back pressed against the sensitive skin on the inside of my arms, his clean-shaven chin resting smooth over the spot where my neck meets my shoulder, his large forearms and hands warming my shoulder blades even through the thin gossamer of my siluess, his chest burning above my neckline, making me press in for more.
It isn’t until we separate that I know he feels it, too. In those scant seconds when his skin leaves mine, when his cheek nearly skims mine as he pulls back, his breath catches the same instant mine does, and the spark in his cobalt gaze tells me he fights the same magnetic draw I do as our bodies part.
He clears his throat. I don’t know what to do with my arms now that they’re no longer wrapped around him, so I run my fingers through the hair at the back of my head. I hate not knowing what to do.
I turn to Lia, who looks at me like she’s trying to figure out how I’m planning to screw her over.
“Don’t you hug me,” I snap at her.
She raises both hands palm-out in front of her chest, as if to say, “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
After we leave his room, Caspian goes with me to ask the Nautiluses’ permission to visit Sea Daughters Academy. As much as I hate to admit it, facing them intimidates me. Queen Nerissa and King Edmar, up there on their thrones, in the same room where I nearly killed their daughter.
Fortunately, Caspian has known them all his life and has trouble thinking of them as any different than they were before the crowns. Seeing their warmth toward him makes it clear he’s the son they never had. Probably the son-in-law they expected to have. He does most of the talking while I wade there schooling my features to look as respectful and remorseful as possible.
I have to fight to keep admiration from creeping onto my face the longer Caspian talks. That boy can be persuasive when he wants to be. Steady determination blended with irrefutable logic is a dangerous combination. He explains that at boarding school I would be under supervision and could keep up human-sensitivity sessions, as well as get regular visits from a probation officer, but I’d be getting a better education while improving my socialization. Besides, wouldn’t it be helpful from a political standpoint, Caspian points out diplomatically, to have me tucked away at a boarding school instead of at the Foundation or in the palace? That way, I’d slip quietly from the public’s imagination, instead of contributing to court speculation and feeding people’s fears.
That part resonates with the recently coronated couple. It’s key in this new era of peace to foster a sense of security among the populace. They understand the stakes.
I contribute my one carefully planned point: “I want to get as far away from my father’s corrupting influence as I can. He isn’t good for me.” Uttering those words wasn’t supposed to cause tightness in my chest. They were supposed to be a lie like any other lie. But I feel them, deep and sour with truth. I don’t have to manufacture the sadness on my face now.
Caspian says that’s why it’s so important I visit the school as soon as possible. So I can make my decision before the authorities bring my father back. He also points out that my going sooner would mean my father and I aren’t en route at the same time, since he still needs to wait out the northern storm before he’s transported back here. The implication is clear: this way, neither of us could attempt to evade our guards to collude with the other. The sooner
I go to Sea Daughters, the better all around.
By the time Caspian bids the Nautiluses a good evening, my visit to the academy is set for tomorrow.
Tomorrow? Tomorrow … Okay, if I’m really doing this, I can’t focus on the fear. I push it down into the depths of my stomach and force myself to concentrate on what I need to do to stand the best chance of success.
I don’t know much magic, but I do know a general protection ward my mother taught me when I was small in case we ever came upon raiders during the wars. I practice it a few times now. If anything goes wrong tomorrow, this should buy me a few minutes to figure out how to get out of there.
What else could give me an edge?
I run through Caspian’s plan again. He said he noticed those girls were impressed by my leg control. I don’t doubt it. Having lived Below all their lives, they were pitiful at it the one time I saw them on land. My legs could come in handy tomorrow, whether I end up showing off my control to the girls or running from them into some secret island cave where they wouldn’t think to look.
I’m fabulous at leg control. Or, I was. I haven’t practiced in ages. The best place to practice in the palace is a small ballroom that was converted to a dry room specifically for that purpose. It’s staffed with volunteers who help anyone—palace staff or residents of New Meris and the surrounding towns—who wants to practice leg control.
But if I avoid that room and all the other dry rooms that litter this place, I can go days without remembering what the Tribunal did to me, without remembering how I screamed and screamed until my screams turned silent as they stole away my voice.
I can still speak underwater, but (since sireny only works on humans) I can’t utter a word on land to prevent me from ever sirening again. The dry room’s magic works by tricking the surrounding environment into believing the space is above water, rendering me as silent there as I would be if I surfaced.