The Savage Blue

  “Come on. I was just curious. You must remember being my age.”

  “Here.” Greg fights a smirk. He holds out a stack of ancient crumbling paper. “I hope you’re smarter than you look.”

  “Thanks?”

  “Don’t thank me just yet.” Greg sets a finger on the top of the stack. “Now let me return to my peace and quiet. No more court will come to my doorstep. I’ve given you my last secret.”

  He shoos us out into the backyard, and the whole house shakes when he slams the door shut.

  •••

  “Drunk old pervert,” I mutter down the street. We walk until we find a train station. “Let’s head down to the boardwalk. I have to meet Sarabell soon. We can eat and go through these papers before they crumble any more than they already have.”

  “That was…different,” Kurt says. “Why did he remember my birth? I wonder what was in those bottles.”

  “Do I look different, the way he did?” I stand on the sidewalk and try to take on my best superhero pose.

  Kurt tugs on his chin. “No.”

  “Buzz kill.” But when I look at my hand, my knuckles are healed. There’s the faint trace of a scar. Even my hickey bruises are fading. “Look.”

  Kurt rubs the back of his neck, more worried than impressed. “I’ve never seen that before. We don’t heal that quickly.”

  “I wonder. Maybe that’s why he’s got the traps in his backyard. For someone who’s supposed to be long gone, he seems really protective of his stuff.”

  In the subway, a fat rat scampers across the platform. Its eyes glow, reflecting the light of the arriving train. Kurt steps into the opening double doors. “With all the things crawling around this shore, we should figure out traps of our own.”

  Kurt and I sit on the Coney Island boardwalk against the metal railing. I lean my head back and tilt my face up to the sun. Despite the police tape and warnings to stay out of the water, the beach is packed with people. I dig into my hot dog, ketchup and mustard dripping down my chin. I wipe with the back of my hand and wash it down with root beer.

  I’m not enjoying it as much as usual.

  Honestly, I kind of miss the seaweed chips Blue makes. The noise of the boardwalk makes me jumpy. The snap of the toy guns in Luna Park, the pop of cars backfiring. Every girl with curly brown hair giggling past me makes my heart jolt in an I’m going to regret this later way.

  “You should read some of this too.” Kurt arcs an eyebrow. “It’s mostly about the kings and their accomplishments. King Karanos built the first great prison for the merrows.”

  “Too bad all it did was provide a massive nursing room for the sister he couldn’t kill.”

  A fat man, covered in baby oil and reading a beat-up paperback, glances over at us from his bench like we’re making too much noise. He ignores me and keeps reading, just like Kurt.

  “Plus, my hands are dirty with oil. It could damage the paper.” I dip the last bit of my hot dog in mustard. When I bite down, bits of sand are mixed into the sauce but I swallow it anyway. I dust my hands and hold them out to my guardian. “All right, I’ll take over. Your dogs are getting cold.”

  I set the papers in my lap, but I can’t concentrate. I wonder where Sarabell is. What if she stands me up and I never get to find out anything about Adaro? Sitting down here, I can watch the crowds without being noticed. Tons of young hipsters with top hats and clothes that don’t match on purpose. A mother tries to keep all six of her kids from killing each other over a volleyball. Some photographer directs a model to pout as she contours herself across a hand-painted garbage can. An old man power-walks in nothing but neon-green spandex shorts.

  Then there are the things not everyone can see. I rub my eyes and squint against the sun. There’s a girl with tattooed wings on her back. At just the right angle, I can see that the wings are real, white feathery things retracted against her snowy white shoulders. She holds her ice cream cone to her boyfriend’s lips, the vanilla rolling down his brown skin.

  I rub my eyes again and see what he really is, with skin like copper blood. His lips smile and take a giant bite of her ice cream with sharp teeth. Two small horns poke out of his forehead. Something passes over his angular face, and he finds what’s troubling him— me. He can feel me staring. To my surprise, he doesn’t flip me off. Instead he nods once, as if to just acknowledge me, then slings his arm around his angel girl, grazing the down feathers as he leads her farther down the boardwalk.

  “Are you paying attention?” Kurt asks.

  “You see that?”

  He follows my stare to the heavenly hellish couple and shrugs. I guess he’s too cool and has seen everything under the sun.

  A familiar boy runs down the boardwalk. When I point out, “Hey, is that Timmy?” a new horde of beachgoers barrels past us, obscuring our view.

  “Timmy!” I call out, but my voice is drowned out by a boom box strapped to the back of a bike zooming by. Timmy runs into his mom’s arms. His mother, Penny, scoops him up and rubs the hard shell of his back. From here, he seems to be a kid with a weird backpack. When I met them on Arion’s ship, I discovered it’s a part of him. Penny, on the other hand, has arms that shift into tentacles. They’re the landlocked. Here in Coney Island, they don’t seem so out of place.

  Penny shields the sun from her eyes, scanning the crowd for someone. I shout her name, but she doesn’t see me.

  Kurt buries his nose back in the papers. He’s not exactly a lover of the landlocked. But Penny clued us in on what the merrows were after they attacked my school. Penny and Timmy embrace a green-haired girl. “What’s Thalia doing here?”

  When I mention her name, Kurt snaps to attention.

  “What? Where?” He gets up for a better view of them, but in the shifting crowd, I’ve already lost them.

  Suddenly a man gets in my face. He’s stick skinny with skin like used charcoal. He nods at the food on my tray. “You gonna finish that?”

  Kurt rolls the parchment papers into a tube and tries to catch up to Thalia, but he’s going against the current of beachgoers.

  Then the man looks at me. I mean, really looks at me, and backpedals. “I’m—I’m sorry, my lord. I didn’t mean—”

  There are scabs around his neck and ribs. They could be scars or dried acne or, in his case, leprosy, but I know better. They’re what remain of his gills. His eyes are sharp sapphires framed by a face that is gaunt and poreless. His ’fro is untamed. His pants are filthy and ripped, and right at the center of his chest is a keloid in the shape of a trident. Just like my mom’s scar. Just like the tattoo between my shoulder blades.

  “I’m sorry,” he repeats louder, still eyeing my food.

  I hand my tray to the old man in a hurry. “Take it.”

  “I couldn’t.” His voice is hoarse and dry like paper.

  “Please, take it. I’m not hungry.” It’s not exactly what I want to say. I want to say, “I’m sorry that this happened to you. I wish I could fix it.” I should sound nicer, soothing.

  The man takes the food, ripping bread and meat and shoving it into his mouth. Between swallows he manages, “Thank you, sire. Thank you.”

  Kurt has stopped in the middle of a crowd, shielding his eyes from the sun. People shove him out of the way, but he keeps standing his ground. The boom-box bicycle speeds back the other way. More children are crying. The photographer is snapping away. I stuff my garbage in a plastic bag.

  “I lost them,” Kurt says.

  The fat, oily man on the bench beside me taps my shoulder.

  “What?” I don’t mean to sound so exasperated, but that’s how it comes out.

  “You shouldn’t do that, you know.”

  “Relax, I’m not littering,” I say, showing him my bag of garbage. But he grabs my hand. If people keep grabbing me, I’m bound to start chopping off hands—like a real king.

  “I meant feed them. You shouldn’t do that. They’re like pigeons.”

  I pull out of his hold and start walkin
g to where Kurt is waiting with a worried look on his face. The fat, oily man keeps shouting after me. “You give them a little, and they just keep coming back for more.”

  Kurt pulls me away, farther into the crowd. “I don’t want Thalia with those people. I have to find her.”

  I hate the way he says this, like somehow we’re better. I keep a steady pace beside him, weaving through the throngs.

  Suddenly I flinch. A hand comes out of my blind spot and smacks me across the face. I stumble into a group of angry dudes who push me back. I fall at her feet. I follow the slender ankles, the bare legs beneath a sheer dress. Her hair billows wildly in the breeze, framing radiating amber eyes.

  When I stand, I’m a foot taller than her, but somehow she makes me feel small.

  Her full lips part slowly and growl, “You’re late.”

  How am I late?” I press my hand to the hot sting on my cheek. “We said afternoon.”

  She points at the sky. People are starting to look. I grab her as lightly as possible by the shoulders and walk her toward the railing separating the boardwalk and the sand.

  “It was high noon two hours ago!” She crosses her arms over her chest. “I’ve been here surrounded by the beastliest of creatures. I’m hungry. My legs hurt. Do you know what that feels like?”

  “Sara—”

  “Do you even care?” She presses a slender hand over her chest. “Oh boy.” I look to Kurt who can’t do anything more than scratch his head.

  “Well?”

  This girl, this incredibly beautiful girl, is seething in my face.

  Her shoulders are hot under my hands.

  “Of course,” I say. “Of course I care.”

  Her eyes soften. “You do?”

  “I was just looking for you.” I run my hands through my hair.

  “There are so many people, you know?” I try my most charming smile, the kind that’s gotten me in (and out of ) trouble in the past. I pretend I’m smiling at Layla and it becomes easy. Sure, there’s a nasty knot in my gut, but I have to push through. Since leaving the Vanishing Cove, I’ve felt like I have a bunch of broken pieces in my hands. If Sarabell can point me in the right direction, I’m going for it.

  “Come.” I take her hand. She crosses her fingers with mine, and I resist the urge to pull away. “Let’s swim.”

  •••

  This is the girl who’s supposed to get me closer to Adaro and the next oracle?

  They might as well lock me in a cage with a hungry tiger. Sarabell is all smiles now, raising a proud chin to the sky and turning her mischievous eyes to me. “You appear nervous, Lord Sea.”

  “I’m not nervous,” I lie. The sand is boiling hot under my calloused feet. Sweat seeps through my T-shirt against my backpack. I’ve never seen the beach so deserted on such a perfect day to cool off.

  “Don’t worry,” she says, and in that moment, I’m lulled into a calm I haven’t felt in days. Somewhere I know this is the effect of her voice, but the dulcet melody reminds me of the guy I used to be. That Tristan didn’t get sweaty palms. That Tristan didn’t think twice before leading a girl under the pier. Somehow, it’s easier to be him…

  Sarabell pulls her dress over her head and throws it on the wet beach. Her long brown hair tumbles to her hips in waves. She smells like the sea, not Coney Island water but like salt and rain and the turquoise, warm waters of Vanishing Cove.

  “You’re not afraid of being seen,” I say.

  “Didn’t Gwenivere tell you?”

  “Tell me what?”

  She twists her hands in the air like a belly dancer. “I’m an expert at glamours.”

  When the water reaches her shoulders, she turns around and blows me a kiss playfully. She pinches her nose and sinks under. A second later, her hand shoots up and waves me in. Her feet kick and she swims away.

  I stuff my clothes in my backpack and dive in before I change my mind. At first I can’t find her. The water is muddy and cloudy, and I have to swim for a mile before it clears up. My heart is pumping in my chest, nervous, excited, and dreadful all at once. Then I see her. Her hair darkens and smooths out with the pull of the water. Her gold scales blossom and the iridescent glimmers of her tailfins flick my chin.

  My entire body sighs when I shift. It’s like a great release, like breathing new air. We swim for what feels like miles. I marvel at the way the water bends to her. Even underwater, the sweet hum of her voice is entrancing. She gets up close to me, teasing with her lips inches away from mine. She nudges me with her nose. I think I’ve seen dolphins do this at the aquarium. I place one hand on her lower back where her skin becomes soft golden scales. Without meaning to, a part of me rises…

  Then she smiles and I flatline. I swim out of her hold with the flick of my tail. Her canines, too sharp, remind me of Nieve—her pale face, her frail silver body—and Archer, the merrows, Layla dying in my arms. My thoughts are a train wreck I can’t stop.

  Sarabell can’t understand why I’ve pushed her away. I swim up to the surface. We’re far from Coney, all the way to maybe Long Island, maybe Queens. My sense of direction is discombobulated. There’s a nasty taste in my mouth. I want to puke up my breakfast.

  She surfaces beside me, smoothing out the water around us. “Did I offend you, my lord?”

  Sure, she’s all formal and stiff now. A second ago she practically had her hands all over my—

  “I’m sorry if I’m too forward. It’s just…you’re so terribly lovely. Everyone says so. And I’ve never been with a half humanhalf merman.”

  I head for a mound of boulders and grit my teeth against the rip of the shift back to legs that stops mid-thigh. The half shift. I can’t help but feel like I’m wearing glittery boxer briefs.

  “I’ve got a cramp,” I lie.

  “Then we can just sit.”

  “Hey, Sara,” I say, “why are you here with me? The day you arrived, you guys wouldn’t even look my way. Why aren’t you at Adaro’s court?”

  She’s flustered. She stands in her half shift, wet hair getting carried by the wind. There aren’t people on this shore. The beach is stony and uncomfortable, and the water is full of seaweed and broken shells.

  I catch her hesitation. “You are so much more interesting.”

  I hold her hand so she doesn’t slip on the mossy boulder, and she sits next to me. I lick the salty water running over my lips. “You don’t have to pretend. I’m not good at this court stuff.” Then I swallow hard. My heart jolts, anticipating my deceit. “Wherever Adaro is, it has to be better than here.”

  She scoots over so our thighs touch. “Don’t you see? You’re so very new. All of court says you have the king’s face as he was in his youth. The blue eyes of Triton—” Her hand hovers over my face. I inch back instinctively, but she follows.

  “Adaro is my cousin. While I wish I could see our bloodline return to the throne, I also wish I could be queen. I’ve already been presented to the other champions, before the championship started. Elias chose Gwenivere, for all the good it did him. Brendan would make a terrible husband. Dylan would not take a queen but a Sethos, a minor king that is. Then the ones beneath my station are afraid of my magic.”

  “So everyone knows about you…?”

  She nods sadly. “It’s required.”

  Looking at her now, I can see something broken inside her, beneath the wicked smile, like the biggest parts of herself are hiding. “Do you have much contact with Adaro now?”

  As soon as I say it, I wish I hadn’t. Her guard is up, but her eyes sparkle in the sun. She leans over and rests her head on my shoulder. “He says if he were king, he would welcome magic into the court once again. Would you do the same?”

  I tense against her fingers tracing my chest. “I—”

  Then she sits back up and takes my hands in hers. “If I tell you everything I know of Adaro, everything he knows, would you take me as yours?”

  “Mine?”

  She smiles. Not the wicked way she does on the boa
rdwalk or among her entourage. It’s her real smile. Insecure. Nervous. “As your queen. We could do many great things together.”

  “I wasn’t exactly expecting a marriage proposal,” I say, slipping off the rock. I have two options, say no to her and return to square one. Or I could pretend. I could tell her that I love her, that I want her to be my queen of the sea. I could look into her eyes and make her feel she’s the only one in the world to me. Take what I want from her. Ask her to betray her family. Then I could take it all back, like I’ve done many times before.

  I want to shower.

  Suddenly a guy walks down the beach hand in hand with a girl. Oblivious to us, they start making out. He pulls on the strings of her bikini top and she runs her hands all over his chest, his hair, his face. I feel a pull in my stomach. A pull to be somewhere else with my own girl. I realize the feeling is coming from Sarabell. The wordless melody of her voice fills my head. It floats in the air like smoke, wrapping around me, the couple on the beach. The girl stops kissing the boy and turns to us. Her eyes are glazed over and dazed.

  “We should go back,” I say.

  She bares her pearly teeth encouragingly. “Don’t you see? This is a perfect chance to experience life together. Then, we could continue as one—”

  The couple is hypnotized by her voice. She calls the couple forward with her fingertips, leading them back into the water.

  “Sarabell, no. What are you doing?”

  Sarabell bares her teeth and walks backward into surf. The couple follows.

  “What are you doing?” I whisper. But the warmth of Sarabell’s voice is like light filling my chest.

  “It’s a present to you. A show of good faith to join our lines.”

  I roll out the tension in my shoulders, the pressure of her voice weighing me down. I think of everything that’s happened in the past couple of days. Everything I’ve lost and everything I can lose. I silently curse Brendan and Kurt and Gwen. All of them. I’ve got a mermaid who wants to be queen so badly she’ll give me everything I want to know about Adaro on a silver platter. The couple is knee-deep in the water, Sarabell winding them in with her song. A show of good faith, my ass.