Immerse

by Tobie Easton

  “A little over an hour,” I answer between kisses.

  Casp scheduled a meeting with Ervin Zung as a reason to come Above, so as soon as the meeting is over, he’ll head here with the healing potions.

  “An hour, huh?” Clay raises suggestive eyebrows at me.

  I blush but resist the urge to duck my head. “At least,” I answer, locking the den door behind us. We’re hidden in the depths of the house now, where it’s completely private. I raise my gaze to his and bite my lower lip.

  Hazel darkens and hands run up my sides, a strong grip lifting me around the ribs and pressing me against a nearby wall. Clay’s warm mouth latches onto the side of my throat and my eyes close, my head falling back against the honey-colored wall. My arms twine around his neck and my legs wrap around his waist. This is what my legs were made for.

  Clay carries me deeper into the room and I dip my head, kissing him again.

  “Well, isn’t this romantic.” A cold voice pierces the quiet of our den.

  Then pain bursts against the back of my head and everything goes dark.

  Chapter Forty

  Melusine

  You’d think once you’ve tried to kill a person—two people—no words that happened to splash out of your mouth could make you feel guilty. I wish that were true. But ever since Caspian swam out my bedroom door, guilt has burrowed deep in my chest and I can’t dig it out. My own voice echoes through me over and over:

  “Go crawl after her, begging for any scraps of affection you can get like the fool I knew you were. I’ll be here laughing at you … I can’t stand to look at you anymore. Go! Leave.”

  I bring my hand up to cover my face even though I’m alone in my room with no one to see me. I should never have said those things. I could have just told Caspian what Jinju said about my parents; surely, if I had told him what I wanted to talk about, he would have sat with me, rested his arm around my shoulders, listened to me. Or maybe he would have left anyway. After all, Lia asked him to.

  Besides, I didn’t want to have to tell him shocking news to stop him from being at her beck and call. I wanted him to want to stay.

  But he didn’t.

  He left, trapping me alone with my thoughts.

  Thoughts I can’t stand, can’t tolerate as they rise up in a constant stream.

  What if Jinju wasn’t lying?

  She had to be lying. She had to be.

  My father loved my mother. When Ondine proposed the plan to have me help change the immortality curse, my parents worked out all the details together. They both agreed to teach me the siren song in case I needed it Above.

  But Dad didn’t tell you about it until after she died, a small voice whispers.

  That’s because they were planning to tell me together and then she was murdered.

  By him?

  I shake my head hard, but it doesn’t stop Jinju’s words from coming back, swimming up from the cave I buried them in.

  She was lying.

  Why would she lie when she was trying to impress you with her knowledge of the truth?

  Then Ondine lied to her.

  Why?

  I don’t know, but Ondine’s certainly capable of making up such a terrible lie.

  She’s also capable of acknowledging such a terrible truth.

  My father didn’t … he couldn’t.

  Couldn’t he?

  An image of my father’s face, twisted in rage the few times I really challenged him, fills every crevice of my mind.

  I hug my coral tail to my chest.

  Jinju was wrong. She was wrong. My mother always told me how disgraceful the Little Mermaid’s actions were, how someone needed to fix what she’d done to us when she’d valued human life too highly. My mother wanted me to siren Clay, so I could be the one to save our kind from death.

  Are you sure? Just because she wanted someone to restore Merkind’s immortality doesn’t mean she wanted you to be the one to put yourself at risk. And it doesn’t mean she wanted you to do it the way you did.

  Yes, she did. I did everything exactly the way she and my father had laid it out. She’s the reason I did it. All of it. Learned to get rid of my Mermese accent, mastered my leg control, moved Above … sirened Clay.

  If she didn’t want me to …

  I propel myself off the bed.

  I can’t sit here with these thoughts, not for a second longer.

  I’m letting myself spin out of control, and that’s unacceptable. My father isn’t a monster. He made wrong choices, but only because he wanted to help the Mer, like I did. So the wars would end and innocent people like my mother would stop being murdered for no reason. All this therapy and time away from him is messing with how I think of him. If I could just see him again, I’d know—know deep in my bones—that he couldn’t have done what Jinju said.

  He’s here in the palace right now. It doesn’t matter if they won’t let me visit him until after he’s been interrogated; all I need is a glimpse, just one glimpse of his face, to banish these horrible, false suspicions. I just need to see my dad.

  I wind my way through the coral hallways and down to the palace’s main level. The only place secure enough for the guards to put him would be the old dungeon. I swim across the main floor, heading toward the staff portholes in back to access the lower levels.

  I know how to get to the dungeon from the time my father and I spent hiding in the palace ruins when we were planning our ritual. But what I don’t know is how to maneuver past the guards to see my father. Maybe I can—

  I stop as the water ripples all around me. A large group is heading this way. Guards with spears held high round the corner. I duck behind a large pillar.

  More guards fill the hall, swimming in a clump around something.

  Someone.

  My father! It must be him.

  I press myself close to the pillar and peek around it.

  At first, all I see is a wall of guards. Then one of the guards shifts forward as he swims and I glimpse the regal puce of my father’s tail, which appears even darker in the white hallway. His hair floats around his head in choppy, uneven hunks, like he’s tried to give himself a hasty haircut, and worst of all, crusted scabs obscure his face.

  I squint.

  A guard yanks him roughly toward the throne room doors.

  “Use your words, man. I’m perfectly capable of moving on my own despite these wretched cuffs.”

  I suck in a breath.

  That voice!

  Cold fear pounds through my body.

  I have to get out of here now.

  Caspian is in terrible danger.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Lia

  The pain in my head is soon joined by pain in my wrists as ropes bite into them.

  “Hello, Lia. Did you miss me?”

  That voice.

  Like fine-cut glass.

  My eyes fly open, instantly intensifying my headache.

  An exquisite, porcelain-doll face stares back at me. Tiny crystals decorate the skin around her gray eyes, glittering like diamonds.

  I can’t help it; relief and joy flood my system at the sight of her alive. I’m seized by the urge to fling my arms around her in a hug.

  But I can’t. Because she’s tied my arms together with seaweed ropes.

  As she pulls them tighter, causing me to wince, I force myself to remember her heartless expression when she admitted she’d spent months playing me, gaining my trust so she could try to force me to work as her siren. Then threatening to kill me and Caspian when I refused. I remember the deranged, murderous gleam in her pale eyes as I fought her in the ocean, fought to take control of her magic before she could kill Casp.

  I almost died at her hands. Hands that apparently just knocked me unconscious. “I didn’t miss you,” I spit out with as much venom as I can muster.

  She rests a hand too gently on my forearm, above the ropes that now bind my wrists. “Yes
, you did.”

  The worst part is, she’s right. A part of me has missed her terribly. I miss the friend and confidant who saw how I was feeling when no one else did, who helped me when I needed it most, who understood me so deeply and became my role model in everything. But none of that was real. Ondine cast a net of deceit, and I swam right in. Never again.

  My head pounds, and my thoughts and muscles feel impossibly sluggish, like I’ve been drugged. The same type of seaweed rope that cuts into my wrists traps my ankles, too. I’m sitting with my legs stretched out in front of me on the floor of the den. At least she hasn’t moved me to some unknown location at the bottom of the sea. That’s good, right? A heavy warmth presses against my back—and begins to move.

  It groans.

  Clay!

  More seaweed rope twists around both our chests, binding us together back-to-back.

  “Clay, wake up.”

  At the urgency in my voice, he straightens against me. “Lia, are you okay?”

  “I’m okay. Are you? How’s your head?”

  Before he can answer, Ondine kneels in front of him and begins to tie his wrists the way she did mine. His ankles must already be tied like his chest is, and he’s probably feeling the effects of whatever potion she slipped us, or he’d be fighting by now.

  “So this is the famous Clay,” Ondine says in her tinkling voice. “We did not meet properly last time.”

  I expect him to say that’s because she was too busy attacking us in the middle of the ocean, but instead he bows his head and says, “Nii nai sillis suzallis.” The traditional Mermese greeting offered when you’re introduced to someone for the first time. Then he adds, the Mermese words slow and halting but firm with conviction, “Please, hurt her not.”

  I can’t see Ondine’s face, but her voice rings with approval when she says in English so he can understand, “I can tell why you fell for this one, Lia. Handsome, charming, too confident. I knew a human like you once.” For an instant, her voice travels far away and a question slogs through my sluggish, drugged brain, but then she says to him like it’s a challenge, “You know, you have me to thank for getting your memories back.” It’s as if she wants to get a rise out of him, to provoke him into shouting that she only helped him to trick me.

  “Tallimymee,” he says instead, thanking her. Then in English, “I mean that, even now.”

  “Your pronunciation is awful.” The ropes snick across each other as she finishes tying them. When she walks past me to the other side of the den, the fog hanging over my mind has cleared enough for me to notice her steps are stiff and slow.

  The last time I saw her with legs, she wore the same long, white maxi dress she wears now, but she walked so gracefully then that she seemed to glide along the sandy beach. Why is she … her magic! I seized her magic. All Mer, even those who never study spell casting, possess an innate level of magic, and it’s what enables us to transform between our legs and tail after puberty. When I sucked her magic out of her before she could use it to kill me, I must have depleted even that innate reserve of mystical energy. She must still possess just enough to access her legs.

  Indeed, she sits on the couch as soon as she reaches it, and although she tries to make the movement casual and elegant, relief momentarily passes over her face as her body sinks into the cushions.

  I might feel guilty if she wasn’t, y’know, a complete monster who thinks it’s an A-OK plan to steal humans’ freewill through mass sireny.

  But I can’t let her take my past actions against her out on Clay.

  “Look, whatever you’re planning to do to me, let Clay go.” I try to sound demanding instead of scared out of my scales.

  “Lia, stop,” Clay protests.

  “I’m the one you want revenge on. Not him. He’s never done anything to you.”

  Her laugh clinks around the room where I used to feel safe. “You think this is about revenge?” What else would it be about? “Don’t insult me. When have I ever cared about something so petty?” Her gaze locks onto mine, the crystals around her eyes glinting. “Think, Lia. What have I always cared about most?”

  It’s like I’m suddenly back in the classroom with her instead of tied up on the floor with Clay. Before I can stop myself, I’m attempting to give her the right answer. “Preserving ancient Mer magic.” I get a grip on myself and add with more bite, “Even if it’s dangerous and illegal.” Clay nudges the back of his arm against mine. He’s right: I should keep my anger in check, keep her talking, get as much info as possible.

  “Preserving magic for what purpose?” she probes.

  She wants to fall back into this student-teacher act? Fine, I’ll play. If it keeps her from slitting our throats for another few minutes or reveals something we can use, I’ll play. Every minute we talk is another minute for the potion weighing down my limbs to wear off.

  I keep my voice respectful and pensive, the way she likes, and draw the conclusion I know she wants. “You’ve dedicated your life to preserving spells and magic that could protect Merkind.”

  “From what? Young man?” She calls on Clay as if he’d raised one of his bound hands.

  “From, um, discovery by humans?”

  I told Clay about how Ondine had planned for me to siren an endless stream of human scientists and government officials to ensure Merkind isn’t discovered. Ondine nods at Clay’s answer. “Every day, your kind’s technology improves. Every day, we are in more danger of discovery. It is only a matter of time.”

  I can feel Clay’s back expand and contract against mine as he takes deep, steadying breaths. He doesn’t know what to say to that. What could he say?

  Ondine’s voice takes on a hard edge. “I cannot allow that to happen.” I recognize the cold determination in her eyes. It makes me shudder.

  She walks toward me with slow steps and bends down, her face too close to mine. Gray tinges her skin. She caresses my cheek, and it’s all I can do not to jerk away from her touch. “I didn’t want to do it this way, Lia. Remember that.”

  “Do what?” I ask. She strokes my hair and sighs, then walks away. “Do what?” I call after her.

  Across the room, she hefts a large kelp bag onto the couch that clinks like her voice. She brings out vial after vial of potions and powders in sickly greens and inky purples, and sets them on the coffee table. I swallow and pull against the ropes that bind me.

  So much for getting information out of her. Damn it!

  Lia! Lia, can you hear me? Clay’s voice rings out in my head. The bond! It’s harder to access it without closing my eyes, but all that practice in front of the mirror has helped hone my focus.

  I’m here, I tell Clay.

  Can you move your arms and legs?

  Much more than I could a few minutes ago. Whatever she gave us has almost worn off, but it doesn’t seem like we were out very long. Do you think she needs us awake for something?

  Let’s hope we get out of here before we find out, Clay answers. How much give do you have in your ropes?

  I push against them again. Not a lot. You?

  My ankles are bound pretty tight, but my wrists are much looser.

  What? How?

  Why do you think I was so polite to her? As long as she was focusing on insulting my pronunciation, she wasn’t focusing on how far apart I held my elbows while she tied me up.

  Wow, go Clay. Why didn’t I think of that? I like to believe I would have if I hadn’t been so groggy, but it doesn’t help me now either way.

  Clay’s voice rises up in my head again. I’ve been using the extra leverage to loosen them more while you two were talking. I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to get my hands free. The first hint of hope flares in my chest. The ankle ropes are harder. But if we tighten our leg muscles and then flex one foot while we point the other, we should be able to loosen them up.

  That’s smart. I’ll try it now, while her back is still turned, I tell him. Unlike Clay, who’s in jeans and hi
s high Doc Martens boots, I’m in a miniskirt, so the seaweed ropes dig into the bare skin of my ankles. They’re drier than they would be underwater, making their fibers sharp as needles. But they’re also more brittle than they would be underwater. As I fight through the pain, the ropes start to give. It’s working!

  Good! What about your wrists?

  I shake my head against his. They’re way too tight. No give at all.

  Shit.

  Then I get an idea and have to fight not to smile in case Ondine turns around. Clay, you have a pocket knife on your car keys! They’re in his front jeans pocket. I felt them earlier when we were … If you can get the ropes around your hands loose enough to reach your keys—

  She took them.

  What?

  They’re gone.

  My whole body deflates. Then panic seizes me. Clay! Clay, does that mean she has, did she find—

  The dagger? No. I still have it. Hiding it was the last thing I remember doing before I got knocked out. I still don’t know how she got a jump on me so fast. She knocked you out, I hid the dagger right away, then … everything went dark.

  If she took the keys, why didn’t she take the dagger? I think back. I guess I never mentioned the word dagger when I gave it to Clay in the other room, while she was lurking in here waiting for us and eavesdropping. So maybe she figured he’d have keys but didn’t know to look for the dagger. Thank the tides for that at least.

  I can’t use the dagger to free us, Clay tells me. Even if I could reach it—

  We can’t risk her seeing it and taking it. The thought of one of the most powerful objects in history falling into her hands because of me … I should never have taken it from the palace, from the vault. I should never have snuck away from my guards to come here. Now no one knows where I am.

  No one except …

  Caspian!