The Savage Blue

  Her spell breaks around me.

  I take the couple by the arms and pull them back on the shore. They’re confused, but they’re fine.

  “What did you do that for?” Sarabell screams.

  She’s wading back to the couple, but I wrap my arms around her and pull her against the tide. I dive backward, yanking her with me. My fins push against the water for both of us. She shifts, too, and her weight is powerful for such a small thing. She wails like a banshee. It ripples and scatters anything in sight.

  She struggles against my hold, but I have to take us deeper and deeper where she won’t be able to swim back to the shore so quickly. She sinks her teeth into my forearm and I scream as I let her go. She spits and swims up to the surface, crying and sobbing and wiping the water from her eyes with wet hands.

  “What kind of merman are you?” She hiccups. “Any merman would’ve loved the look on their faces underwater. They were beautiful.”

  I rub the angry spot on my arm where the salt burns and licks the wound. I’m too stunned to even make coherent noises. “You can’t just go around drowning people. That is not an okay present!”

  I can’t understand what she says between sobs. Her eyes cloud over, her hair black and stringy all around her.

  “Don’t do that again,” I warn.

  Then her wicked eyes return. “I’ve given you a chance, champion. Now, you will be powerless against Adaro’s triumph.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ll see.” She turns and swims away, smacking me across the face with her fins for good measure.

  I shift out of my tail about a mile out. I let my frustration with Sarabell fuel my arms, cutting powerfully through water. Ever since I became what I am, I’ve stopped using my arms as much, preferring the powerful kick of my tail. Now I welcome the pain, castigating myself for being such a dick.

  My friends and I have one rule: we never, never, ever set each other up on blind dates. Why did I think a championship would somehow make it better?

  It never ends up well.

  I cut through Long Island Sound until I feel I’m back at Coney Island. There’s a miniscule change in the taste, though I don’t want to linger on what’s in Coney water since I’ve peed in this ocean more times than I can count. The kick of my legs feels foreign and numb, and I try to massage feeling back into my legs as I trip my way under the shadow of the pier.

  But there’s already someone there, and when we see each other naked, we scream.

  “What are you doing here?” Gwen is just out of her shift and stepping into a red dress.

  “Just fresh off my first date.” I pull my damp clothes from my backpack and throw them on. “Thanks to you.”

  She throws her head back and cackles until she’s out of breath.

  “It’s not funny,” I shout.

  Gwen tries to take my hand but I pull away. “Was Sarabell not everything you expected?”

  “She wanted me to make her my queen in exchange for telling me what she knows about Adaro. Is that what they’re all going to ask for? Because I can’t make the same promise to each girl.”

  Gwen settles her gray eyes on me. “Why not?”

  I have sand on my tongue and I spit it out. “Because it wouldn’t be true.”

  “Do you plan on making Layla your queen?” She leans against the dark, wet pillar of the pier. “Our people would never accept a human queen. Just as a fair warning.”

  “I didn’t—I’m not—” I take a deep breath. “I’m sixteen. I’m not getting married. Anyway, I couldn’t get any useful information out of the mermaid sociopath of the year.” Though Sarabell’s words are digging into the back of my head where I’m accumulating all the things I’d rather not be thinking about. Nieve. Archer. Leaving Layla.

  Gwen purses her lips and tugs on one of my wet curls. “We’re not all bad, Tristan.”

  “Are any of them normal?” I laugh. Gwen has that effect on me.

  I can’t not smile at her. “Say, not thinking drowning humans is a good engagement present?”

  “Normal? Is that what you want?” She spots Sarabell’s dress getting pulled by the tide. “Would you believe me if I told you she’s not even the worst of them? Seas, I hate the way she dresses.”

  “So I’m the punishment? Know what? Forget it. What are you even doing here?”

  “Don’t be angry with me because Sarabell didn’t work out.” She points her finger in my face. “This just means you have to move on until we can find something that will lead you to the next oracle.”

  “I’m sorry, okay?” I force my mouth into a comical smile. “Why aren’t you doing important mermaid things like weaving pearls and shells in your hair?”

  She squints angrily but doesn’t deny it. “I couldn’t stand Layla and the angry pout she’s got smeared all over her face. Then there’s Thalia who simply vanished, leaving Kurtomathetis running about the boardwalk looking for her. Doesn’t he understand? If a mermaid doesn’t want to be found, she won’t be.”

  A dull blast sounds in the distance, like someone pressing down on the horn. Then I realize Gwen is bleeding. “Your arm.”

  I reach out but she pulls away.

  “Did something attack you?”

  “No, no. There’s a shark in the waters. Small, but hungry.”

  I think about the animal accidents on the news this morning. We were all so sure they had to be merrows. “Are you sure?”

  “I know what a shark looks like, guppy prince.” Under the shadow of the pier, she swipes at the dark trail of blood with Sarabell’s dress. I can feel the pull of Gwen’s magic. It comes from within her, and that pulls from the sea itself. The bleeding stops and the beginning of a scab starts to form. Gwen says magic isn’t instantaneous. It’s gradual.

  “Let me see.” I take a step that’s followed by a gooey crunch. “Ugh.”

  A medium wave crashes and retreats, leaving behind a line of mangled fish. I pick up the one I stepped on. Its head is still intact, but the body is all bone. The glossy eye is iridescent under the sun, mouth open in a final gasp.

  “The sea will only keep getting disturbed.” Gwen traces a finger along the pewter scales. “This is a freshwater fish.”

  A lifeguard’s whistle blows. He waves his hands in our direction in warning, but when he realizes it’s me, he turns it into a friendly wave. I signal back that we’re leaving and he shakes his head, smiling.

  I throw the fish carcass back into the waves. Then I say something I never thought I’d say. “Let’s get the hell off this beach.”

  We trade the hot, noisy boardwalk for the quiet of Command Central. The other champions may have seers and prophets and ships, but I’ve got a microwave and Hot Pockets.

  When Gwen and I arrive, Kurt’s sitting at the counter reading through the papers from Greg. Gwen is equally fascinated with them, touching them with the utmost care. I tell her all about Greg and his booby traps.

  “You don’t think the old fart was messing with us?” I ask.

  Kurt shakes his head. “I believe Greg wants to see you rise to the throne. There is something in these papers, I tell you. As a scholar, he respects knowledge.” Then he mutters, “Unlike some of us.”

  I take the parchment from him. “I totally respect knowledge!” “I wasn’t referring to you.” He takes it back.

  Gwen sing-songs, “Yes you were.”

  “Gregorious, or whatever he wants to be called,” I say, “was shady. What’s the point of giving us drawings? It doesn’t tell us anything about the next oracle. Neither did Sarabell, by the way.”

  Kurt shuffles the papers like a card deck until he finds the ones he’s looking for. “You’re looking for easy answers, and the search for the truth is never easy.”

  “Did some psychic tell you that?”

  “No,” he says, “my father taught me that.”

  “Oh.” My foot tastes rather nasty.

  “Forget it. Look at this,” he says. He’s so happy with thes
e papers that he’s finally stopped wondering where Thalia is. “The trident is one object. It’s been thousands of years since they were three separate pieces and our kingdoms were three corresponding factions. Each king wielded a different part of the trident. The quartz scepter, the center staff, and the trident fork. It says here that our people were at war so often that one of the oracle sisters proposed a final championship to unite all three kingdoms as one.”

  “Are these them?”

  “Yes. These are the original kings.”

  “These dudes are no joke. What’s with the animals?” “My teacher told me of this,” Gwen says. “Back then, the kings believed their strengths were linked to animal spirits. The sleeping giants, they called them. It was long ago, but if I remember correctly, this was Kleos, the eldest king. He wielded the quartz scepter you have now.”

  Kurt seems impressed but lingers on her for too long. “Who was he, your teacher?”

  “She,” Gwen says, “was of my court. We’ve always had more mermaids as elders than the mermen of the court. She rather liked Kleos here.” She taps a finger on his gold-leafed face.

  Kleos is drawn with a mane of brown hair, blue eyes, and the slightest hint of a smile. He’s sitting on a sea horse whose long snout is in the middle of neighing. Do sea horses neigh? There’s a kingly quality in the way Kleos holds the scepter over his head, conjuring a wave and a stroke of lightning.

  “This is Ellanos,” Kurt says, pointing to another dude. “He was the one who used the blood and ink of the cephalopods to give us legs. He believed he’d conquered the gods who wanted to keep us in the ocean. It made him powerful, despite having the center staff, which alone is the weakest part. But without it, there would be no trident.”

  Ellanos’s hair and eyes are filled in with the blackest ink. His skin is red and his jewels are etched in gold. At his feet is a giant octopus, one tentacle wrapped around Ellanos’s ankle.

  “Is that thing still alive?”

  “Yes. It lives in the king’s private chambers in the Glass Castle.”

  I point at Ellanos. It’s like looking at the Greek exhibit at the Met with all the broken vases and plates. “Doesn’t he look like Adaro to you guys?”

  “That’s because Adaro’s family are direct descendants,” Kurt says. “As you are of this king, Trianos, who wielded the forked tip of the trident.”

  Trianos looks much like my grandfather. The big white mane of hair. I wonder if it was ever another color. The skin is like gold. His eyes are carefully inked in a deep violet. He stands firmly on the back of a turtle. The turtle isn’t one of the cute slow things at the aquarium. This turtle’s shell has hard ridges. There’s anger in its eyes, power in its limbs. I like this turtle.

  There’s another paper that’s so thin and black that it breaks apart at the edges where I pull it. “I think someone tried to burn this one.”

  This one shows the trident put back together. I trace the outline of the familiar shape of the quartz scepter. There’s text all over it, but it’s in a different language.

  “I’m not familiar with these symbols. It shows the way the three are meant to be one. The three-pronged tip and the quartz fit in either end of the staff, which is a catalyst for the two.”

  “How did one oracle decide there shouldn’t be three kings anymore? I thought they just see stuff.” I know quite well they do more than see. The memory of the nautilus maid makes me shiver.

  “There is no mention of how that decision came to pass. There is only a mention that it happened.”

  I tug on my chin, surprised at the fresh stubble. “Remind me to thank Greg for giving us an old piece of paper with hieroglyphics. Gwen?”

  She’s surprised when I say her name, like snapping out of a trance. “By the seas, I don’t know where to begin. I believe—” Her eyes flick to Kurt as she hesitates. “I believe this is the language of the oracles.”

  “They get their own language?”

  “It’s not their language,” Gwen says smirking. “It’s the language of the gods. Their purpose is to translate it. Send some poor soul to war and another to murder his children. That’s why humans have always sought them.”

  “I wonder if my mom would know. Greg did teach her once. Maybe he knew she’d look at it.” The kitchen clock marks just past five. My dad would usually be home by now, and my mom would be yelling at me for tracking sand all over the rugs after finishing my lifeguard shift.

  “Good,” Gwen says. “Why don’t you summon her?”

  “You don’t summon your parents.”

  “When you’re king, you can,” Kurt says, pointing at the drawing of Kleos grasping the quartz scepter. If he could wield it as one piece, then maybe so can I.

  “Why does your face look like that?” Gwen says.

  “Ah,” Kurt says smartly. “I believe Tristan is thinking.”

  I pull the quartz scepter from the leather harness. The gold is cold. Orange sunset light fills the crystal and kaleidoscopes against the kitchen walls. “Let’s see what I can learn from King Kleos.”

  Are you sure this is a good idea?” Gwen asks, lounging on a rickety old chair.

  From the rooftop of my building, you can see for miles. Behind us there’s Brooklyn—brownstones and the handball court, Carvel ice cream, and even the church by Layla’s house. Before us are the Wonder Wheel and the beach and farther out the horizon where my grandfather is waiting for me to show up with this thing that I’m holding. The quartz scepter.

  “This may be the best idea he’s had since I met him,” Kurt says.

  The dusty gold is cool in my hands. I’m holding it over my head like a sword, the pointy quartz part up in the air.

  “Trust me.” And even if they don’t trust me, I’m sure they’re not going anywhere. “I need to learn to use it.”

  “It says here that Kleos was the light that shook the earth.” Kurt reads off some crap about channeling some powers within. The strength of blah, blah, blah self.

  His voice actually helps, because I can concentrate on blocking it out.

  All I want to feel is my heart pounding and the current— ancient and strong—sizzling its way all over my body. It’s what I imagine the third rail in the subway would feel like if I touched it, minus the electrocution part. I shut my eyes and imagine lightning crashing across the horizon the day of the first storm. I remember the strength of the wave clamping down on me with the full force of the sea. The crackle of thunder. The whip of the wind.

  It’s all inside me.

  Kurt’s scream follows a sharp blast. Above us is a single black cloud. It cracks open with a spurt of lightning, crashing directly into the cluster of satellite dishes on the roof. The cloud vanishes like smoke against the sunset sky.

  “That was killer, man.” My hands are buzzing.

  “Just don’t kill me,” Kurt says.

  “You have to get yourself one of these.”

  “I can’t. It’s one of a kind.”

  Unlike the other times, the light of the quartz is still blazing. I feel a thrill go through me, and it must be linked to the scepter because it sputters another burst of lightning. This time the ledge where the satellites are hooked up catches fire, right where Gwen sits.

  “How do you turn this off?”

  “You control it!” She yells, dusting herself off the ground.

  Kurt is running around the roof looking for a source of water. “Stop getting excited.”

  “Yeah, I have that problem.” I give my scepter a shake, but it’s not a remote control with nearly dead batteries. I close my eyes. The crackle of flame whips in the wind. I breathe and imagine, like Arion had me do when coasting into the cove. I can feel the current retreating, containing itself.

  Gwen shouts my name.

  The flames are six feet tall and getting taller with every gust of wind. Kurt is entranced by it. He crouches down, pressing his hands against his temples.

  “You okay, man?” But of course he’s not okay.


  I set the scepter on the ground before I set anything else on fire and run back inside the building where the fire extinguisher is. I take my shirt off and wrap it around my knuckles to break the glass. I run back upstairs to where the flames are twice as tall as Kurt.

  “Stupid child lock!” I cut myself on the plastic but it doesn’t matter. I’ve set my building on fire. I point the nozzle at the flames and the cold pressure blows all over the place.

  I kneel beside Kurt. “It’s okay. It’s out.”

  Even Gwen rubs his back and shoulders.

  “I hate fire.” He’s breathless and shook and rambling, so all I can make out is: “My parents” and “dragons” and “fire.”

  “Come, let’s go back inside,” I say once I make sure the fire is completely out. “Even if no one’s called the fire department, I’m pretty sure they called their satellite providers.”

  •••

  First, Gwen and I take a shaking Kurt under our arms and leave him on the couch.

  He repeats the same words, “fire, mother, father, dragons,” like a mantra.

  Then we race back to the rooftop for the fire extinguisher. I set it on the Command Central floor and my scepter on the table.

  “I don’t know what to do,” I whisper to Gwen.

  She stretches her arm around my back and rests her chin on my shoulder. “He’s in shock. It’ll pass in a bit.”

  “I know he said something about hating fire.” I run a hand through my hair. “I had no idea it was like that.”

  “Many of our warriors were like this. When they came home from battle.” She presses her forehead against my cheek. Her breath is warm on my neck. “Those who made it home.”

  I stand, tugging gently away from her grip. “We call it PTSD. Post-traumatic stress disorder. My friend Jerry, his brother’s a Marine. It’s our version of warriors. When he made it home, he shut down completely.”

  “He wasn’t fighting dragons or fey, was he?” She asks so innocently that I can’t laugh at her.