Authors: Sarah Porter
Her parents couldn’t help dying, Luce told herself. They’d left her for somber regions she knew nothing about, but they hadn’t
wanted
to go. But Nausicaa had abandoned her here on this cold beach voluntarily, purely because Luce wasn’t doing what Nausicaa wanted her to do. Luce heard her own sobs merging with the larva’s wails.
***
Later that day Dorian met her in the rowboat, and she towed him through the daytime night to their secret shallow cave under the overhanging roots. But it hurt Luce to be there. It was incredible to think that only yesterday she’d sat on these stones listening to Dorian and Nausicaa talking, feeling annoyed and left out of the conversation. Now, of course, she would have given anything to have Nausicaa appear and interrupt their privacy. The sea seemed so brutal, so infinite in its rough indifference, like a monster that would only talk to itself. Dorian held Luce tight—she could hardly feel the shape of his body through all the winter layers—and stroked her hair while she cried.
“I was just getting to like her,” Dorian observed wryly. “At first I thought she was such a
bitch.
But, Luce, listen—
“Why didn’t she understand that I can’t leave you? It seems so
unfair
...” Luce was dimly aware that she was being a little childish, but she couldn’t help it. She felt as if her father’s ship had just vanished, as if she’d watched her mother dying a second time, as if Catarina had run away from her again, all at once. She just couldn’t stand to
lose
people anymore.
“Luce? Baby? Listen. I know you don’t want to hear it, but I swear it’s better this way.”
Luce looked up at him, outraged. Was he still resentful of the time she’d rushed off to save Nausicaa’s life? “Just because you had to row home that night, and you got, like,
jealous
—
“Not because of that,” Dorian sighed. He was still gently caressing Luce’s back and hair as he spoke, and her face rested on his shoulder. “I admit I was a jerk about that. Okay? But Luce, Nausicaa didn’t mean to, but she’s kind of been holding you back.”
Luce couldn’t believe what she was hearing. No one had ever taught her as much as Nausicaa had. How could Dorian not realize that? “She’s so brilliant, Dorian. And she knows so much...”
“She is, she is, she is. Brilliant. But Luce, Nausicaa’s also, like”—Dorian laughed—
“old-fashioned.
She just doesn’t get how different everything is now. Because, I mean, from everything I’ve been reading the ocean is really in danger. And I know you’d like to help, right? If you could. But the thing is, there’s not a whole lot you can do about it if you’re stuck living in some cave somewhere, and you can’t even let anyone know you
exist.”
Luce had a sudden queasy sense of where this was going. He hadn’t mentioned his idea of trying to turn Luce human in weeks. Why did he have to bring it up now? “Dorian, it’s crazy to keep
talking
about this!”
“It’s not crazy! You could do so much
more
if you were human again, Luce. I’ve been thinking, we could both become like marine biologists or climate scientists, and I’ll be an artist, too. Then we could work together to
change
things! It would be a lot smarter than splashing around getting chased by orcas. But Nausicaa would never be able to see that, and as long as she was hanging around...”
Luce understood. Dorian hadn’t bothered to mention his project of turning Luce human recently because he’d known he’d never be able to persuade her to attempt it. Not while Nausicaa was there urging Luce not to listen to him. But now...
“Nausicaa knew a bunch of mermaids who tried it. Changing back. She said she’s known
hundreds
of mermaids who left the water, and only two of them survived.” Luce tried to keep her voice calm and reasonable. Why couldn’t she make Dorian understand this? “So, Dorian, you really shouldn’t keep asking me this! Not unless you want me to die.”
“But those—” Dorian began. Luce looked up to see his eyes staring into the darkness. The indigo sky was crystalline with falling snow and with icicles that spiked from the roots above them. He took a deep breath. “Luce, those mermaids didn’t have any help, right? They just let their boyfriends carry them onshore.”
Luce was bewildered. What kind of help could a mermaid have in that situation? The best she could hope for was that someone would hold her while the pain lanced in from all directions, while she screamed in a blur of white, burning agony. Luce had felt that impossible suffering when she’d left the water to save Violet, and even the memory of it made her shiver. But if Dorian
did
have a better idea, well, then she might at least consider...
“Help?
Dorian, what are you talking about?”
“We can’t do this on our own, Luce. I know that. You’ll die if we try it. And I don’t ever want to live without you.” His voice was grim and settled. This wasn’t some sudden impulse, Luce realized, but an idea he’d been mulling over for weeks. But there was only one entity she could think of who might be able to do what Dorian wanted.
“But ... you said you didn’t want to ask Proteus for any favors. Even if we could find him.”
And what if Proteus agreed?
Luce thought. Would she really give up the sea, the wild free sky, and her own astounding voice for the tedium of a normal human life? Even a life with Dorian?
Maybe. Maybe she would. Since he was warm and kind and brave enough to accept her, forgive her, even after Emily ... Luce owed him something for that. She owed him so much...
And he was right, anyway. It was the only way they’d ever be able to sleep beside each other; the only way that nagging heat could ever flare high enough to quiet again. Maybe. If she was really positive he’d still love her...
Dorian twisted to look into her face. “I wasn’t thinking of asking Proteus.”
“Then who?”
Dorian’s eyes fixed on hers. They were full of secretive glimmers, passing shades. For the first time it occurred to Luce that there was something he wasn’t telling her. He hesitated for a few more moments, his hands sliding through her jagged hair. “Ben Ellison.”
“WHAT?” Luce screamed. Ben Ellison the FBI agent, Ben Ellison the enemy, always out to break Dorian’s will. Luce felt the sudden panicked certainty that Dorian must have betrayed her and she began thrashing violently, wrenching her body out of his arms. She splashed back a few yards and slumped with her tail coiled tight, ready to whip away into the distance. Dorian was leaning toward her with his legs folded under him, his hands spread on the stones.
“He’s not a bad guy, Luce! I swear to God if we just talked to him ... he’d do whatever he could to help us. I
know
he would. And he’s really smart, and he has to know, like, scientists and people who could figure this out. He just doesn’t understand what it’s like for you, but if you
told
him—
“Told him
about the mermaids
?” Luce’s voice was so bitter she thought she might choke on it.
“Well, I guess you’d have to, yeah.” Dorian almost sounded like he thought this was funny. “He’d probably notice the tail. But Luce, I’m pretty sure he already knows. He said some things ... I can’t explain exactly, but I think the FBI knows you guys are out here. He said something about—that him and me are both in a
select society,
that almost nobody alive has heard what we’ve heard—
“If they know,” Luce snarled, “then it’s probably because somebody
told
them.”
“I knew you’d think that.” Dorian sighed. “But it’s totally unfair. I didn’t tell them shit.”
“But then—”
“Jesus, Luce. It’s not like I’m the only person who ever got saved by a mermaid! Maybe there aren’t a lot of us, but ... And the FBI might have other ways to find stuff out, anyway. I mean, all those
ships
your tribe sank. Did any of you ever think that they might have surveillance cameras or something?”
The camera,
Luce thought. The words were like a slow-motion explosion that obliterated the world around her. Dorian was still talking, but she couldn’t make out what he was saying. That black, furtive boat and the black-suited diver planting the camera she’d smashed. How could she have been stupid enough to believe it was the only one?
“They’ll try to kill all of us,” Luce said breathlessly. Her own voice was part of the white burst still spreading through her mind.
And if the mermaids were threatened, how could she even consider changing into one of the creatures that wanted them dead? She’d have to do her best to defend her own kind. Not that Dorian would be too happy with her if she announced her intention of fighting on the mermaids’ side.
Some evil is coming to this place,
Nausicaa had said.
War.
“That’s exactly why you should talk to Ben Ellison,” Dorian answered coolly, and Luce struggled to focus on him again. “Look, Luce. He needs to know that you’re not all the same. You’ll be a lot safer that way. And if we can figure out some way to turn mermaids back without killing them...”
Luce had never felt so angry with him. Did Dorian actually believe that she would abandon her fellow mermaids, even give the FBI information about them, simply in order to save herself?
“No.”
“He said he wants to meet you, Luce. I think he might be pretty ... open-minded about the whole thing. If you just gave him a chance.”
Luce was leaning back propped on her hands, trying to think through everything Dorian was telling her. Her fingers curled over the pebbles of the seafloor, and she felt a subtle disturbance in the water. Maybe there were seals playing nearby?
Suddenly Dorian was scrambling to his knees, throwing himself behind a snarl of roots and jumbled shards of rock. Luce gaped after him, confused. He wasn’t completely hidden, just huddled back in a gloomy corner, but he was obviously trying to get out of sight as best he could.
“Luce!”
Violet screamed behind her, and Luce swung around in shock. Violet’s sleek brown hair was streaming, her gray-green eyes bright and wild with some combination of exhilaration and terror. “Oh, God, Luce, she tried to
kill
us! I guess she heard the way we were practicing singing and got worried, because she actually pulled the air hose away! But I ... but we ... we’d gotten good enough at moving the water, and we managed to sing so that we shoved the bolt up just in time! Dana! Dana, she’s here! I
found
her!”
Luce was so overwhelmed that she could barely understand what Violet was saying to her, but one thing seemed clear. The
she
who’d tried to kill Violet could only have been Anais.
And Violet was so beside herself that she hadn’t spotted Dorian yet. But that couldn’t last. “Let’s go talk somewhere else,” Luce hazarded. If she could just coax Violet out of this shallow cave, around the bend of the cliffs, then she could come back for Dorian later.
“We’ve got to get away
now,
Luce! When Anais finds out we’ve escaped ... we’re swimming south before they start searching for us, and you
have
to be our queen now! You can’t say no anymore!” Even in her bewilderment, Luce couldn’t help but notice how different Violet suddenly seemed. The shy, cringing little mermaid who never even made a suggestion was actually ordering Luce around. “And, Luce, I can move the water by singing! Just like you! I’m not as good yet, but I will be! But you’ll always be my queen because I learned it from you!”
Luce had Violet’s hand, and she was gently tugging her farther out. They were just moving beyond the jags that enclosed the cave and into the rough, high waves of the open sea. The darkness was speckled white with fine eddies of snow, and Dorian was behind them. As long as he stayed quiet Luce might be able to stop the other mermaids from discovering him.
Dana’s luminous brown face burst out of the water, blocking their way. Her hair was loose and matted and, Luce saw, she looked utterly drained. However giddy Violet might be, she and Dana had clearly been through a terrible ordeal. Dana glared at Luce as the three of them pitched in the darkness. Through the black glass waves Luce could see that Dana actually had her hands on her hips.
“Why didn’t you do anything to
help
us?” Dana demanded fiercely. “Why didn’t you even
try?
Okay, we’re alive, but it was way too close.”
“I didn’t know you were in trouble,” Luce objected. It sounded horribly lame. “I just thought you didn’t want to talk to me anymore because of Jenna...” Was Dorian visible from this angle? It took all of Luce’s willpower to keep from glancing over her shoulder to check. Dana stopped glowering at Luce, and her eyes fixed on something back in the direction of the cave.
“What’s that rowboat doing here?” Dana’s voice was suddenly much quieter, stunned and airy.
Luce’s heart stopped, and she struggled to hold her voice steady. “Probably it just drifted here.”
“It didn’t drift! I can see the rope, it’s tied up to that fallen tree!” Violet was whispering, too. She’d spun in place to stare back the way they’d come, and her sleek brown hair gleamed in the darkness. “There’s got to be a human here, Luce! And they’ve been listening to us, and maybe they’ve even
seen
us...”
Dana’s face took on a weary, incredulous look, as if she just couldn’t believe that there was one more problem she had to wrestle with. “Luce has this thing about not killing humans,” Dana explained to Violet, loudly enough that Dorian could almost certainly hear her. “I’ll take care of this. Luce, sorry, I know you don’t like it, but you’re just going to have to deal.” Dana and Violet were swimming back toward the cave now and Luce followed along beside them. She wasn’t about to let Dana hurt Dorian, and she knew she had to at least try to explain, but she had no idea where to start. Dana would be so
hurt
...
Dorian stepped out from behind the roots and walked calmly to the edge of the water, stopping five yards away from them. He looked strangely beautiful standing there, almost princely, with the golden tint of his wide, high-boned cheeks and his tangled brown-gold hair framed by the shadows behind him. “Hey,” he said. “That’s not going to work.”