“Hopefully just until morning,” I say. Then I remember I’m supposed to be here by choice. “I mean, unfortunately only until morning. I have a really important meeting.”
Mrs. Wentletrap turns to Peri. “What do you think?
“I think,” Peri says, pulling the sheet from the mirror and gesturing for me to take a look, “that it is going to be spectacular.”
The vision in the mirror, the girl with silky blond hair, fair freckled skin, and a fin-tight dress that hugs—and accentuates—all the appropriate curves . . . well, she doesn’t look like me. She looks like a grown-up with my features, and I definitely don’t feel like a grown-up.
With a sigh, I turn away from the mirror. “It’s beautiful. Truly.”
“Excellent.” Mrs. Wentletrap swims to my back and starts pulling out the pins that hold the gown form on my body. “We’ll get the dress pieced this week, and as long as you come back for a final fitting before your birthday, it will be as perfect as we can make it.”
As they peel the dress off me, I ask, “Have you thought about colors?”
I’m picturing the same water-inspired colors as my sixteenth-birthday gown, only in a more adult shape. Maybe more blue toned, with pale sapphires the color of home. The color of Quince’s eyes.
“Of course,” she says.
“But,” Peri adds, “we’re going to surprise you.”
My gaze drifts around the room. Just about anything they could choose will be amazing, and I definitely trust their sense of color and fabric. If they told me to wear brown, gray, and orange, I’d say okay. They have never sailed me wrong yet.
“I can’t wait.”
And I only let myself have a tiny melancholy moment thinking that this will be my last royal gown. Ever.
“I’ll be back next weekend,” I say to Peri and her mom as I swim out their front door. “I’ll come by for the final fitting as soon as I can.”
They wave good-bye and I disappear over the palace wall, intent on heading for my room and a good night’s sleep in my own bed. I push through the palace doors, hoping to sneak up to my room without drawing the attention of the (frequently oversolicitous) palace staff, and stop short when I see a merman admiring the mosaic in the entry hall.
There is something arresting about his posture.
He is near my age, maybe a year or two older, with cinnamon red hair and a flame-colored tail fin, and wearing a jacket of black and red—the royal colors of Acropora, a kingdom to the southeast of Thalassinia. Though I don’t recognize him, there is something extremely familiar about his profile.
He turns my direction, breaks into a grin, and exclaims, “Liliana!”
Liliana? Only one person ever called me that. A boy I haven’t seen in ages.
“Tellin?” I ask in disbelief.
“The one and only.” He swims the short distance between us and spreads his arms wide, inviting me into a hug.
I kick into his arms. “I can’t believe it’s you!” I throw my arms around his neck with the enthusiasm of the little mergirl I was when I last saw him. “You’re so grown up!”
I swim back to get a good look at my childhood friend. He is so very different from my memory. As a merboy, his hair was a brighter, more flamelike red and his fin was a solid orange. I once heard the terrible trio call him goldfish boy—behind his back, of course, because, after all, he is a royal prince.
Not only has his hair deepened into a more flattering shade, but so has the tip of his tail fin, giving the impression that someone dipped him in dark red ink. His body has filled out into that of a young man, and his facial features are a little more chiseled than a nineteen-year-old’s should be—a little more drawn in the eyes and beneath the cheeks. He looks like life has been hard on him.
The only thing that hasn’t changed is his eyes. They are still the palest blue I’ve ever seen, kind of like the sky right where it meets the horizon. And they still sparkle with a mischief that drew me into more games of what if than I can remember.
For a time it felt like we played together nearly every day, from morning until night. Then one day, he was gone, dis-appearing back to his home kingdom. Daddy told me there had been a disagreement with Tellin’s father and they wouldn’t be returning anytime soon. They never did.
“You’re grown up, too,” he says with a deep laugh. “It’s been more than a decade. You were seven, I think, and I was eight.”
“I can’t believe it’s been that long,” I say. “What are you doing here? I thought our fathers weren’t speaking.”
“They’re not,” Tellin answers, a worried look settling onto his face. “But my father has fallen ill, and I am acting king for the time being.”
“Oh,” I say lamely. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
I always liked his dad and never understood why the two kings, once the best of friends like their children, had a falling out.
“Then are you here in an official capacity?” I ask.
“Of a sort.” He presses a hand to his stomach. “I’m starved. Does your palace cook still make the best sushi in the west Atlantic?”
“The best in all the seven seas,” I boast.
Moments later, we’re on stools at the kitchen counter, with palace chef Laver serving up dish after dish of sushi delicacies. This alone is worth coming home for. Even under Dosinia-related circumstances.
“So,” Tellin says after swallowing a bite of maguro tamaki, “I hear you’ve been living on land.”
“I have.” I study the offerings on the platter and select a Philadelphia roll—I’m a sucker for cream cheese.
Tellin grabs the other Philly roll. “Me, too.”
My head shoots up. “Really?”
“Uh-huh,” he hums around his mouthful.
“Where?”
“Puerto Rico.” He captures a tako nigiri with his sea-sticks. “It’s the closest inhabited island to the palace.”
Puerrrto Rrrico. The words roll through my mind. I wonder how different human life is in Puerto Rico from in Seaview. It’s still tropical, still part of the United States. Still human. Maybe not different at all.
“My Spanish has definitely improved,” he says.
“I’ll bet.”
We spend several minutes devouring the sushi, with Tellin eating two for every one I take—he wasn’t joking about being starved—while I ask him about Puerto Rico. Other than a few day trips into Miami for flea-market shopping with Aunt Rachel, I haven’t been anywhere on land besides Seaview. I’m curious to know more.
The stories he tells of salsa dancing and scary caretas and cocina criolla make me want to explore more of the world above the water. Who knows what else I’m missing?
“It’s too bad,” Tellin says when we’ve finished off the last of the sushi and waved away Laver’s offer for more.
“What’s too bad?” I ask when he doesn’t explain.
“That our worlds have to remain so separate.”
“You mean Seaview and San Juan?”
“No,” he says with a sad laugh. “I mean the mer world and the terraped world.”
“Oh.”
I’ve wished things were different, too. That wish, that question has definitely come up more than once during my three years on land. Every time I had to lie to Shannen about where I was going for the weekend—thankfully, not an issue anymore since she knows the truth. Every time I had to check over my shoulder ten times before sinking beneath the waves at Seaview Pier, lest some overeager lifeguard try to save me from drowning. Every time Mrs. Ferraro complained about her coffee going cold and I had to fight the urge to say, “Hey, hand it to me. I can warm it up.”
Those were the times that made me wonder, Wouldn’t it be nice if humans knew? If I didn’t have to hide the truth about myself at all costs?
As nice as it would be, it’s just a dream. A very dangerous dream.
“Yeah,” I finally agree, “it’s too bad. But also necessary.”
Tellin absently swirls his seas
ticks back and forth over the empty platter.
“Is it?” His eyes have a faraway look. “I don’t know.”
“Of course it is,” I insist. “You know what might happen to us, to all the mer kingdoms. It’s just too risky.”
He looks up, his eyes sparkling with mischief. “What if?” he asks, starting the game we used to play as guppies. “What if terrapeds knew?”
“Okay,” I say, turning to face him. “What if. What if . . . we called a press conference with the kings and queens of all the mer kingdoms?”
“What if,” he continues, “our fathers stood side by side to tell the terraped world that merfolk exist?”
The what-if game is kind of like verbal chess, or math proofs. There is a starting point—what if terrapeds knew—and an end goal—the mer and human worlds coexisting. We have to alternate what-ifs to get from the starting point to the goal.
It’s not a game with a winner or loser. The journey is the game.
I ponder my next move, full of the fears about what might actually happen if this came to pass. “What if the governments of all the developed human countries sent troops to capture merfolk around the world and lock them away in labs for scientific study?”
Tellin shakes his head. “Out of bounds,” he claims, accusing my what-if of going off track. “We’re thinking positive.”
“Okay,” I relent. “What if the governments of all the developed human countries”—I force myself to think positive—“invited the mer kingdoms to join the United Nations?”
“Better.” Tellin nods. “What if finfolk around the world walked out of the oceans, rivers, and lakes and shared their knowledge and culture with the terrapeds?”
“What if,” I say, imagining this utopian paradise, “humans treated merfolk as equals, rather than mutant creatures?”
“What if . . .” Tellin shakes his head. “Sounds like a dream world to me.”
I sigh. “Me too.”
“Why don’t we do it?” he suggests. “Why don’t we come out of the ocean?”
I give him a you’ve-got-to-be-kidding look. “You know why.”
“I know it’s fear that keeps us trapped in the water,” he says, slamming his seasticks down onto the counter. “The fear of what might happen. But we don’t know. It might unfold just as we said.”
“That’s the dream, Tellin,” I say sadly. “But the fear, the thing that might happen, that’s too terrible to even think about. It’s not worth the risk.”
“I know.” His anger washes away, and he gives me a glowing smile. “But it’s a lovely dream.”
“It is,” I agree. “A lovely dream.”
Unfortunately, the dream can only exist in our what-if game. Too many lives are at stake to reach for the dream and risk facing the nightmare.
Chapter 8
I wake early the next morning to find Daddy sitting on the edge of my bed, gently nudging my shoulder to rouse me from sleep. I blink him into focus before wrapping my arms around him in a fierce hug.
“Good morning, Daddy.”
He smiles, making little crinkles around his eyes. “Good morning, daughter.”
“How have you been?” I ask, even though I’ve only been gone a couple weeks.
A distant look starts to drift into his eyes, but he shakes it away. “I have been missing you, of course,” he says. “But I understand you have had your fins full with your cousin.”
I groan and roll my eyes and make a tsking sound with my tongue, all at once. “Holy Capheira, yes. You know how she can be.”
“I do.”
There is an ocean of subtext in that tiny phrase, and I can guess what it’s about.
“Why did you send her to me in exile?” I ask. “What did she do? It’s not like she hasn’t broken rules before.” And laws, I add silently, because Daddy might not know about those. I’m taking the high road again. Doe owes me double.
“This was . . .” Again he shakes his head. “I think this is a matter best kept between Dosinia and me.”
“Okay.”
Daddy has on his king-of-the-seas persona, which means there’s no negotiating. Besides, the way everyone is fin-dipping around the issue, I’m starting to think I’d rather not know what Doe did. It might scar me forever.
“Cid tells me you have brought another boy for separation,” Daddy says.
“He’s not mine,” I explain, even though Daddy should know I would never cheat on Quince. “Dosinia kissed him.”
Daddy heaves a deep sigh, his chest rising and falling beneath his uniform jacket. “I guess I didn’t take away enough of her powers to keep her from getting into trouble.”
I’ve seen that sigh before. Doe lives with our aunt Bells and uncle Portunus in a big manor house at the center of Thalassinia’s historic district. But she’s spent enough time in the palace that Daddy and I have both experienced plenty of her antics. Like the time she burst into the throne room in a panic, claiming there was a great white on her tail. Or when she hid stinky lobsters beneath the mattress of every bed in the palace—everyone had to sleep in the halls for a week. Or, most famously, the time she convinced the male members of the palace staff that Daddy wanted them to appear shirtless at a royal ceremony involving the heads of several other kingdoms. I was amazed Daddy didn’t fillet her alive then.
So hearing that, within her first week on land, she’s gotten herself bonded to a human boy is not exactly a shock.
“Meet me in my office,” Daddy says, pushing away from my bed. “Bring the boy so we can discuss how to proceed.”
I spend a few minutes getting dressed and freshening up before going to find Brody. Margarite, the palace housekeeper, placed him in the South Pacific room—a casual space decorated in black pearls and giant abalone, with wallpaper made from woven sea-palm fronds. It always makes me want to swim to Bora Bora. I’ve never been, but in my imagination it is as close to paradise as you can get.
I find Brody studying the ceiling of inlaid abalone that almost exactly represents the sky over Thalassinia at dawn. It’s a masterpiece—and it’s only a ceiling. Even though I grew up here, I’m still in awe of the palace’s majesty.
The same awe I see in Brody’s wide eyes.
“This place is amazing, Lil,” Brody says, echoing my thoughts as we make our way through the palace to Daddy’s office. “I can’t believe you never told me about this.”
“Yeah, well,” I say softly, “I’d always planned to.”
Thankfully, he misses my double meaning. He doesn’t know that for three long years I wanted to bond with him, bring him home to Daddy, and eventually take the throne with him at my side. He also doesn’t know that I’m insanely happy that never happened. We are nowhere near as compatible as I always fantasized.
“You know,” Brody says, his voice dropping to a serious tone even though he keeps looking excitedly around the hall, “I knew I wasn’t good enough for you.”
“I—” I choke on my response. He doesn’t mean what I think—what I fear—he means, does he? “You—what?”
He stops gawking long enough to face me. He flashes me a heartfelt smile. “I’m glad you connected with Fletcher—he’s a great guy.”
“He is,” I whisper. He didn’t come right out and say it, but I definitely get the feeling my secret crush wasn’t as secret as I thought. Embarrassment burns onto my cheeks.
“Did you know the roof is covered with living sea life?” he asks, turning away, his golden brown eyes wide with excitement as he swims off ahead of me. Even with me in mer form, I have to increase my speed a little to keep up.
I focus on ignoring my sudden humiliation. It’s a good thing I didn’t find out while I was still crushing on him, because I might have flat out died from mortification.
“Yeah,” I answer, making myself pretend that nothing has changed. Apparently Brody is forgetting that I actually grew up here. “Awesome, isn’t it?”
By the time we reach Daddy’s office, I think my cheeks may have returned
to their normal, pale, freckled selves. The royal guards outside the door salute as I approach. I return the salute and briefly wonder how they will greet me when I’m no longer a royal princess. Will they still salute? Or just wave and say hello? Or will they not greet me at all? Will they, like Doe, see me as a traitor, abandoning my kingdom for myself? I can only hope they see I’m trying to make the best choice for both.
They open the doors so Brody and I can enter.
Daddy is at his desk, bent over a stack of papers, studying intently. When his secretary, Mangrove, clears his throat, Daddy finally looks up.
“My apologies,” he says, waving us into the seats across from him. “I was just reading over separation law to confirm my suspicions. I’m not called upon to perform separation very often, and I needed to refresh my knowledge.”
“Suspicions?” I ask, not liking the sound of that.
Daddy nods gravely. “In order for a separation ritual to work,” he says, running his finger along the paper, “both parties need to be present.”
“That’s dumb.” And a definite problem. I think about the missing portion of Doe’s mer mark and can come up with only one solution. “Well, you’ll just have to lift Doe’s exile for a day.”
“I’m afraid that is not an option.” He doesn’t explain whether it’s because he can’t lift her exile . . . or if he won’t. The icy edge in his voices tells me not to ask for clarification.
Like I said, I don’t want to know.
“Well, then what?” I ask. There’s a human boy sitting next to me whose life will permanently change without his permission if the separation is not performed by next weekend’s new moon. “It’s not like they can stay bonded. They’re not in love, and Brody can’t become a merman.”
“Why not?” Brody asks.
I roll my eyes and ignore him. He doesn’t know what he’d be getting himself into. Besides the whole stuck-with-Doe-for-life thing—something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, except maybe the terrible trio—there’s the whole allergic-to-chlorine thing that would make his swimming career pretty much fatal. Nope, even though Brody obviously loves the water and is enthralled by Thalassinia, I can’t let him make that naïve choice.