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  She nods. “From all over the ocean, and from the Community, too! They started coming in after word spread that Stas and I … about our kiss at the coronation ball and that we’re a couple. To show support for us! We’ve been listening to them together all morning.” Staskia’s family came down from the Community for the coronation, and after news broke of Mr. Havelock’s escape, they decided to prolong their stay at the local inn since New Meris is better guarded right now than anywhere Above. That means Stas has been spending a lot of time here at the palace with Amy—and Amy has been spending a lot of time smiling.

  “Wow, that’s so viriss.” Without thinking, I use the Mermese word for salty, a slang word Below that approximates to “cool.” A twinge of sadness twists my chest at the sound of it; for a moment, I could be back in the lagoon at Sea Daughters Academy telling stories and giggling my fins off with … Is it weird to miss friends who were never really my friends to begin with? Whatever. I focus on Amy. “Really viriss.”

  “It is kinda viriss.” Her smile stretches almost to her ears. “Sure, a few of them call us selfish and unnatural,” Amy says with a dismissive flick of her tail, “but most are sooo sweet. This one Mermaid from Herakaliss said she’s sixteen and she’s known for a long time that she was glei elskee, but now she finally feels like she can stop hiding who she is from her family. There’re a bunch like that from glei elskee and voklell.” Voklell comes from an ancient word for folk, like Merfolk, that means anybody who doesn’t consider themselves strictly a female Mermaid or a male Merman. Like being glei elskee, it was pretty common and accepted for gender to be more fluid for some Mer before we lost our immortality, but once the curse hit and the wars broke out, decimating our population, being voklell was condemned as another potential risk to repopulating our species. “Most are from kids,” Amy continues, “but some are even from adults.”

  “That must make you feel amazing,” I say. “It should.”

  She blushes and ducks her head, but soon enough her excitement to tell me everything wins out and she’s gushing again, detailing one message after another with happy hand gestures and a smile that’s growing impossibly wider. “We recorded a few responses.” She reaches into the sack and pulls out some small, speckled conus shells from the top, slipping them into a smaller drawstring bag from her nightstand. “I was going to send them out on my way to the stables. Want to come?” Amy has been spending every possible minute in the stables since she moved here. My theory is it’s ’cause she misses Barnacle so much.

  “Sure. Wait, didn’t your dad say there are sharks in the stables right now?” The last thing I need is for some shark to bite my face off before I’ve figured out if my plan to get to the dagger will actually work. The thought of my plan makes me peer at Amy … could I really … would she—

  “Yeah, that’s why I want to go!”

  I stare at her blankly. I know Amy loves animals, but sharks? Seriously? They make my scales shake. I sure hope sharks aren’t one of the security measures Uncle Kai uses for the dagger. I shudder.

  “The officers are training the sharks to aid on missions out in the field,” she continues, as if that would reassure me. “My parents introduced me to them last weekend while my mom was here and showed me a few basic training procedures. They’re so awesome. They can see in the dark almost as well as we can, and they can hear prey from up to three thousand feet away.”

  I just stare.

  “Okay, okay. The sharks are in a whole separate wing of the stables, in a large pen all to themselves to keep the other animals safe. How about I visit them, and you stick with the sea horses?”

  Sea horses sound much more my speed. I nod, and Amy slips her hand into mine, practically dragging me toward the stables as she tells me the names of all the sea horses, sharks, and octopuses in residence there, her voice brimming with enthusiasm. Her life is so good right now. So happy and on-track. What right do I have to mess that up? For the next stage of my plan to work, I’ll have to tell her—and Em, Lapis, and Lazuli—everything. I’ll have to reveal that Clay has his memories back, and how he got them back. I’ll have to admit I was foolish enough to trust Ondine, foolish enough to join her circle and give them access to my magic (and my life) to help Clay. I’ll have to tell them what led to all that.

  I’ll have to confess … that I sirened him.

  Amy’s purple tail splashes me accidentally-on-purpose as we swim through an archway and she laughs. Family is supposed to love you no matter what, but “supposed to” doesn’t always hold up. If they know everything I’ve done, will they really still love me? More importantly, will they still like me? As a person? Amy, Lapis, Lazuli, Em, they’re not just my family; they’re my friends. Always have been.

  I need their help for my plan to work, but after months hoping none of them ever find out what I’ve done, I don’t think … even for Clay … I don’t think I can do this.

  Chapter Twenty

  Melusine

  “You can do this,” my new therapist, MerMatron Estrella, says, leaning forward in her armchair toward where I sit across from her in the snug office. Like all the rooms in the palace, the one I go to for my court-ordered human-sensitivity training has walls of white coral punctuated by amber windows, but it’s smaller and decorated with murals of rolling sand dunes, which makes the space feel calming and intimate. I bet that’s why she chose it—to trick me into spilling my secrets to her in these sessions. I narrow my eyes at her and her overly hopeful yellow tail. Won’t work.

  “I know I can do it,” I say. “The question is, why would I?” Why would I record a shell message to Clay that he could never hear? It seems utterly pointless.

  “Because words have power, and I think it would be a helpful way for you to put what you’re feeling into words. MerMister Seton had you reading human books and watching human movies and television while you were Above, right?” The words for movies and TV don’t exist in Mermese, so she approximates the English words with Mermese sounds.

  “I sat through seven teen television dramas.” I take it I was supposed to learn that human teenagers aren’t so different from me. What I actually learned was that human screenwriters are melodramatic. But I didn’t tell my therapist that opinion during my human-sensitivity sessions Above because it would have led to a negative evaluation. I didn’t tell him that watching Schindler’s List made me cry, either. It was none of his business that it kept replaying in my head for a week. At least it kept other things from replaying for a while.

  “And you’ve been keeping up nicely with the konklilis I’ve assigned.”

  Since I moved down here and stopped having access to TV and movies, this new therapist has been assigning me the few Mermese translations of books written by humans that we have in the palace library, along with accounts by Mer of interactions with humans from before Merkind went into hiding.

  “But now it’s time to get personal,” she says.

  I swallow. “We’ve gotten personal.” I keep my words even.

  She nods. “We’ve talked a lot about what you did to Lia and Clay, and why you did it.” I want to shift in my chair, but I force myself to stay still. “I’m confident that you now understand why what you did was wrong—from a logical standpoint. But I don’t think you feel it yet on an emotional level. I don’t think you’ve let yourself.”

  “Yes, I do—and I have. When we talked last week about the first time I sirened Clay, I cried.” I hold up my wrist, brandishing the bracelet I made from those very pearls as proof.

  Without a word, she raises an eyebrow.

  Damn. Maybe my tears weren’t as convincing as I’d thought. It’s not that I didn’t feel bad when we talked about it. I just thought pushing myself that extra lap to show how bad I felt would help ensure I get a good progress report and don’t go back to jail. A miscalculation, I guess.

  I don’t say anything; if I don’t admit it, she can’t prove my tears were forced. But she holds my gaze with knowi
ng eyes. I’ll have to be more careful with this one.

  “Your father was a smart man,” she says. “Maybe a brilliant one.” What angle is she swimming at? “But even someone brilliant can be wrong. What he taught you was wrong. And I don’t just mean what he taught you about humans. He taught you that the way to get what you want is to manipulate people.”

  I remain passive. Agreeing with her—letting her put the blame for my actions on my father the way everyone does—would be easy, but it feels like … like I’d be betraying him. My stomach tightens. He may have left me here with no explanation, alone and surrounded by people who despise me, but he’s still my father, and I refuse to bad-mouth him to some touchy-feely therapist. Even if she’s right on this one. Because he did teach me to manipulate people—so I could restore immortality to our kind the way my parents had planned and end centuries of warfare. So I could stop innocent Mer from dying violent deaths. Mer like my mother.

  “The sooner you stop trying to manipulate me when we’re in this room together, the sooner you can make real progress.” MerMatron Estrella leans forward, folding her warm beige hands in her bright yellow lap. “These sessions aren’t for me. I’m not the one who needs them. They’re for you. Stop performing like some trained seal. It’s a waste of your potential.”

  How dare she? “I am not a trained seal,” I hiss through gritted teeth.

  “Exactly,” she says. “So stop putting on this act. Stop showing me whatever you think I want to see. It’s not good for you, and it’s hindering you from making the emotional strides I know you’re capable of.”

  Like she knows what I’m capable of. She doesn’t know me. But she keeps talking as if she does.

  “That’s why, you know what? I’m not even going to check your message to Clay. I’ll ask you if you’ve completed it, but that’s all. I don’t want you saying what you think I want you to. It won’t help you. Instead, I urge you to use this exercise to let out whatever you’re really feeling.”

  The solemn timbre of her voice tells me she considers this futile exercise important. So why wouldn’t she check it? I purse my lips. “How do I know you won’t insist on listening to it when I’m finished?” I ask.

  Her face softens. “Because I said I won’t.” I let my doubt seep out of my every pore until she adds, “You can smash the shell afterwards if you want to. Destroy the message completely.”

  If she has no way of checking it, I could just say I did the exercise and then skip it entirely. She knows it, and I know it. “Why should I record the message to Clay at all?” I challenge her.

  She settles against the back of her plush, green chair. “How have you been sleeping lately?”

  I don’t answer.

  The first thing I do once I reach my room is check the silver mirror by the door. But the makeup I put on this morning to hide the circles under my eyes still looks flawless. Mer-made cosmetics laugh in the face of a little salt water. So how did she know I’m not sleeping? My eye hasn’t been twitching lately, the way it did right after … Did I slump in my chair? My reflection straightens its posture.

  Whatever. However MerMatron Estrella knows nightmares keep me up all night, she knows. That doesn’t mean I’m going to take her little “assignment” any more seriously. She knows I’m not sleeping? That I’m trying to manipulate her? Well, I know she’s trying to get me to record some bogus message to Clay because she thinks it’ll get me to pour out my feelings in some big, emotional purge. Recording what I did into some seashell won’t take it back or make it better. What the storms am I supposed to say? Sorry I drove a cursed dagger into your stomach so you’d bleed to death in agony on the ocean floor? I thought it was worth it? Saying those words out loud into a shell isn’t going to be any different than thinking them inside my head—and thinking them over and over only makes the nightmares worse. Trust me on that one.

  No, my only hope of getting any sleep—without guzzling sleeping potions that will destroy my body, not to mention dull my complexion—is distraction. I push my conversation with MerMatron Estrella out of my mind with both fins and grab the spiny carrier shell that floats at the top of my bedside drawer. I draw a stylus along the bottom to max out the volume, then press the rim to my ear until it bites into my skin, and blaring music blasts away any other thoughts from my mind. The booming tortoise shell drumbeat pulses through me, taking over my body.

  I stay like that for hours, until my eyelids droop and my head falls heavy on the sea sponge pillow. Rolling onto my side, I close the spiny shell back in the drawer, then close my eyes and let sleep claim me.

  Some nights, I drive the dagger into Clay’s stomach over and over, his blood a red cloud around us in the water. Some nights, I drive it into Lia’s instead, the way I’d intended before Clay catapulted in front of her. Her body bows backward with the impact, her long brown hair rushing forward on the current toward my face. I see us both from far away, Lia screaming as I twist the blade in deeper.

  But not tonight. Tonight, no dagger rests against my palm. Instead, Clay’s hand lies there as I pull him up the stairs to his room. I laugh, but he doesn’t. His hazel eyes are cloudy, empty—sirened. In a blink, we’re sitting on his bed with the door closed. I lean toward him, but he doesn’t smile, doesn’t move. He’s stiff as stone. I shake his shoulder, then open my mouth to tell him to talk to me, to say anything, but my voice won’t work. Fear creeps up the back of my neck as I try to speak. “Clay? CLAY?” Nothing. Not a single sound. They’ve stolen my voice.

  Clay smiles at me, sinister as some demon. “You deserve it.” But it’s not Clay’s voice; it’s mine that bubbles from his lips in a sickening syrup, his face contorting into my own. My sapphire gaze bores into me, cold and gleeful, as my hands reach across the space between us and wrap around my throat, strangling me. I cry out, but my voice still won’t work. Silently, I scream and scream and scream.

  I jolt up in bed, gasping.

  Not again. I collapse back in exhaustion, but fear of what I might see keeps my eyes from closing. In the privacy of my room, I let my coral tail curl up to my chest as pearls roll down my cheeks. I can’t keep this up. I can’t stand another night like this one.

  Lying there alone in the darkness, with only my quickened heartbeat to focus on, creating some moronic message to Clay doesn’t seem like such a terrible tradeoff for a good night’s sleep.

  If I knew it would work, I would do it. But I still can’t get over how ridiculous it seems to record a message he could never actually listen to. I don’t think I could take myself seriously enough to finish it—or even start it. But I know something MerMatron Estrella doesn’t: Clay has his memories of Merkind back.

  If I wrote my message in English in a letter, even one I never give him, maybe it wouldn’t feel so fake and pointless. Then it might actually work.

  Wiping my face with my blanket, I make a decision. I’ll do the assignment, but I’ll do it my way instead of hers. There are just a few things I’m going to need.

  The librarian refuses to look at me.

  “Just a few leaves.” When she doesn’t respond, I fight to maintain a tone that neither bites nor begs. “One leaf. One red algae leaf will be fine.” I can always write on both sides. After she gives it to me, I can bring up the ink, pen, and wax I’ll need to finish the letter. She continues to sort styluses into baskets by size with a sour expression, her gaze fixed firmly on her desk.

  “The crown has instructed me to provide you with the konklilis you need for your schooling while you remain here at the palace. Any other requests you make are not my responsibility to fulfill.”

  I want to shake her until she loses every last hint of that haughty superiority. “It’s for an assignment,” I say instead.

  “It isn’t my job to give you anything other than konklilis, and I have no intention of doing so.”

  “I don’t believe for a second that if Lia came in here asking for writing materials, you’d turn her away.”
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  Now she does look at me. Glares at me, with such unconcealed hatred I jerk backward in the water. “If Princess Aurelia asked me for anything, I’d twist my tail trying to procure it for her. That you would even dare compare yourself to a hero—a savior—like her is despicable.” Venom laces her voice. “If it were up to me, up to a lot of us, you’d be in prison, not in this palace. And certainly not in my varellska. Now get out.”

  I open my mouth, but don’t know what to say. All the vitriolic responses that spring to my tongue would make me sound as vile as she thinks I am. I lift my chin high and head for the massive wooden doors.

  As I leave, she draws a turtle shell in the air—an old superstition to ward off evil.

  I keep a tight hold on myself until I’ve swum far away from the library and into a narrow, little-used hallway, where I press my back against the cool wall, breathing hard as I shake the tension out of my trembling hands and fins. If I can’t get red algae leaves and the rest of what I need in the library, where can I get them? Written Mermese is all but extinct now, so it’s not like I can find the supplies lying around an office or common area. Now scrolls are only used for drawing and painting. Does the palace have an art studio? If it does, I wouldn’t know where to begin to look for it. I could ask that linguistics scholar who translated my father’s letter, but I bet he’d greet me with the same scorn as the librarian. The same as the guards and the kitchen staff and the gardeners and anyone else I’ve tried to talk to since I arrived here.

  But the linguistics specialists and I aren’t the only ones who know written Mermese. For the first time since I woke up in the middle of the night too terrified to sleep, a smile tugs at my lips.