I do as my mother said and unzip the backpack. I empty out the front pocket onto the shell tray. It’s all computer parts and mismatched pieces of earrings and bracelets that my mom keeps in one of her treasure trunks. I unzip the small front pocket and pull out a captain’s eyepiece. It’s made of a bronzed heavy metal. I pull it to its full length and hand it to my grandfather.
He holds it to his eye on the wrong end, and I hold back a laugh, because I don’t want to be the one to tell the old man that he’s holding the glass by the wrong end. But he corrects it himself and jumps a bit when he holds it right at my face. He laughs, a rumble like thunder, and claps his thigh. “Tell my daughter she still knows me well.”
Sure. Good. Glad you like it. I wonder what kind of grandfather he would have been if he were in my life. Would he have broken the fifty-year rule and come to see me sooner? Would he have dressed up for Christmas and been a wet Santa with treasures from the bottom of the sea? Would he have taught me whatever mermen teach each other? I absently run my hand along my smooth chin. He wouldn’t have to teach me how to shave. But maybe how to catch a mermaid?
“And now,” he says as he looks down at Layla. “For you.”
The whispering and giggling starts again. How am I supposed to be their king when they clearly don’t even like humans?
Layla digs into her pockets. She’s got on these shorts that show off her golden, powerful legs. She pulls out a pack of gum. She pulls off a sliver and puts it in her mouth. She chews and chews and nothing is happening, so the laughter continues.
She blows a bubble between her lips until it gets as big as a basketball, and then it pops. Some of the court mermaids jump at the echo of the pop; they touch their coiled hair and fix their pearls as though they’re appalled that she would dare frighten them so. Behind us the mermaids watching the spectacle from the fringes of the lake smile with approval, and part of my nervousness washes away.
Layla hands the pack to my grandfather, who takes it almost greedily. He does as she did, and soon all the wrappers are scattered around his feet. I think about when Layla and I had contests to see who could fit the most gum into our mouths, and our jaws would hurt from chewing so much. She smiles with her mouth full of gum now, the same way she did then.
My grandfather chews and chews. “Masticating food that never ends. Wonderful. It reminds me of eating various fruits all at once.”
Marty leans into my ear and whispers, “I haven’t the heart to tell him that there are zero fruit servings in that pack of gum.”
When the king frowns, my heart sinks. “The flavor is all gone.”
The mer-court jeers. My grandfather, the Sea King, swallows his gum and sits back, pleased with himself.
It’s strange, almost painfully funny, how I have never known him, and suddenly, unexplainably, out of thin air, I love him. I see my mother in him, and I wonder if I’m in there too.
He bows his head to Layla, the lines around his eyes spread with a smile. “I accept your gift. And you are welcome as a guest of Tristan Hart.”
She bows her head to him and links her fingers with mine. Everything about her is buzzing, and that makes me drunk and happy and dizzy. Since we’re both alive, I guess this means she loves me.
An orchestra plays cellos and violins that look like they were made from the mast of a ship and strung with gold, and trumpets and horns made out of endlessly coiled shells.
My eyes are everywhere at once—the girls jumping off rocks, the women holding merbabies, the princesses mingling in their private but open tents. I try to picture my mother sitting by the throne under one of those canopies with her hair done up in shells and pearls, watching as purple girls play the harp for her. I can’t see her there trying to be a good and proper princess. I know she’d be in the middle of the lake, dancing, mingling, being the life of the party.
We pick food off opulent trays passed around by more pretty pink girls who might actually be boys. It’s hard to tell. Layla elbows me because I’m not eating enough. She says it’s rude to not eat everything they give you. Like the time her dad made some Ecuadorian delicacy, which was really just guinea pig, which, no matter how you cut it up and put it on the grill, is just a big fat rat. But I ate it then, just like I’m eating whatever this delightfully green chewy stuff is now. For Layla.
Marty sucks on the inside of a clam, which makes Layla wrinkle her nose.
“Unlike other fey,” he says, “merpeople are the only ones whose food you can eat. Land fairies can keep you in their courts if you so much as lick honey from their spoons—or various other parts—”
Layla snorts, taking a sip from a fizzy pink liquid. Her eyes squint when she smiles so hard. I never noticed how long her eyelashes are, how black against the smooth honey of her eyes.
Marty hits me in the shoulder to get my attention. “Hey, Tristan, check this. What do you call a thirteen-year-old mermaid?”
I shake my head and Layla shrugs. “What?”
“A merteenie!” He slaps his knee and wipes a fake tear from the corner of his eye.
Layla rolls her eyes but laughs as well. “Lame.”
For the first time, I notice Kurt’s scowl is missing. I spot him over by the tents shaking hands with some older men. “Who are those guys Kurt’s talking to?” I ask Thalia.
Her yellow-green eyes narrow. “Ugh, that’s Elias. He’s the son of Ellion, herald of the East. They’re nasty folk. Nasty, nasty.”
“Tell me how you really feel,” Marty coos at her, wrapping an arm around her shoulder.
I’ve never heard Thalia dislike anything, so in my book they’re not good news. Elias is the grizzly guy I noticed before, bordering on steroid-big with hair and eyes as black as tar. At first it looks like he’s wearing silver arm plates, but when he crosses his arms over his chest, I can see it’s just his scales.
I scratch at my wrists where my own scales want to come out. I let them. One by one, they surface, starting at my wrist and ending in a splatter around my elbow. My grandfather glances over at me, a smile tugging at his severe mouth.
Layla is staring at my arms. She doesn’t say anything. I can feel her amazement.
Elias is joined by the girl with the white-blond hair in a conch shell. She plays with the black pearls around her neck. Her skin is the white of clean snow. The pink of her lips form a tight smile. She bows at the men he parades her in front of, and then returns to the shade of her tent.
“That’s Elias’s betrothed.” Thalia notices me staring too long. “I forget her name. She’s the daughter of the North herald, but to settle her father’s debt she agreed to marry Elias. It was a thing.”
“Better watch out there, little mermaid, you’re starting to talk like me.”
“Look what I got,” Layla says, holding up a small silver tray of what look like pink Jell-O squares. She and Thalia toss them into their mouths like they’re catching grapes. I let Layla feed one to me just to be polite. My lips catch the tip of her finger, which tastes a bit salty. Her smile is happy, lazy. I think she might even be drunk.
The pink square is slightly sweet with the texture of gummy bears. “What is it?”
“The guy who handed it to me said it was jellyfish brains,” Layla says, collapsing into a fit of laughter with Thalia.
“I thought we were friends. Jerks,” I add under my breath.
“That’s why I couldn’t resist,” she says. She and Thalia tiptoe dance along the hot ground, then finally sit at the edge of the pool with their feet dangling over the water. Thalia shifts into her tail so that it peeks out from her puffy tulle skirts, and her tail fins lick the water. She’s the green of new grass. Layla asks her something and Thalia nods. Slowly, Layla traces her finger along Thalia’s scales where her thigh would be. I can smell Layla’s wonder, her own blend of blooming flowers.
“Pretty hot action over there.” I forgot Marty was sitting beside me.
“Huh?”
“Don’t act like you’re not seeing what I’
m seeing.”
“Dude, what are you?”
“Oh, you remember that.” He leans back on his elbows, his baseball cap shielding his face from the sun. “Tell you what. If we see each other again on land, I’ll tell you.” He puts out his fist and I bump his with mine. “There’s a lot you don’t know, dude. This is just the beginning.”
“You ever been to one of these before?”
“Nah. But I’m neutral, and the alliance means keeping all the courts happy. It’s a fairly new thing with a treaty signed in magical blood, fairy tears, unicorn horns—you know, that kind of stuff. Didn’t really work for Versailles, but it’s a wait-and-see.”
I nod, like I know what he’s talking about.
“I’ve seen things. Nothing like this before, though. Pretty cool, huh? It’s like waking up one day and taking the blindfold off.” He stands and dusts sand off his jeans, even though I’m sure he’s got sand in places he won’t be able to dust off for days. Trust me. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go let the mermaids seduce me.”
It goes on for what seems like hours. The sun stays at a high point, like perpetual noon. Layla and Marty are welcome, and I guess I am too. The kids sure think I’m something special. The ones who can walk come up and poke me, and then run away. Girls walk up to me and bow their pretty little heads. It’s like the mermaid version of the Lifeguard Catwalk. They walk past with their glittering scales beneath flowing skirts that look more like sheer scarves wrapped around their bodies.
My grandfather sits beside me. “I’m glad you are enjoying your people.” He’s been standing around just watching for hours, and I almost forgot he was there.
“What happens next?”
“Are you in a hurry?”
“No, I’m just—wondering.”
“How is your father?”
“He’s good.”
“And my daughter?”
“She’s, you know, good?”
He chuckles. “How very…good.”
“Grandf—Sea King?”
He nods but doesn’t correct me as to what I should call him. He waits for me to talk.
“I have about a million questions to ask you.”
He smiles like my mom, all cheeks, even with his beard. “How about we start with one.”
That’s totally unfair. How about we start with how the hell is this island moving on its own? Or how come I can’t turn into a whole fish like Thalia and Kurt, not that I actually want to? Or what happens if no one likes me? That grizzly Elias guy looked like he wanted to kick my ass, and I’ve never even seen him before. It’s like starting high school all over again.
Finally I settle on, “Why didn’t you come sooner?”
The blue of his eyes get dark like dusk. “Believe me, I wanted to.”
“Don’t get me wrong. I love my mom and dad, and my dad’s sisters are okay. But it would’ve been nice to know that I at least had a grandfather. I don’t know.” I shake my head. I’m being stupid and sentimental in front of the king. I’m never like this. I take a deep breath to loosen the tightness in my chest.
He sets a firm hand on my shoulder. “Let me show you something.”
“What?”
“Something you should’ve known much, much sooner.”
He leads me through a passage behind his throne. I let my fingers trace the walls. The rock is ancient and smooth, shaped by water and glistening with dew. Tiny lights float in the crevices of the stalactites, which hang like icicles.
The air is cooler here. I can even smell the sea.
We take a right, the lights ahead of us like tiny beacons, and I realize they’re leading us. We’re in a cavernous room. There’s a natural pool of crystal-clear water that looks cold to the touch. When I get up close to it, I can see something behind my reflection, a dark shape taking form. Suddenly the surface breaks, and I hold up my arms to shield my face. I push myself backward.
“Easy, boy,” my grandfather says. I wish he wouldn’t talk to me like a pet, but when I open my eyes, I realize he isn’t talking to me at all.
“What is that?”
The king sits at the edge of the pool and holds out his massive hand to a creature I’ve never seen before. With bright yellow eyes and a long horned snout, it’s completely familiar. A sea horse. But when it grunts, its arms come out like webbed paws and lead to a body that ends in a curling tail. It nuzzles into my grandfather’s hand like a puppy and a horse all at once.
“This is Atticus,” he tells me. “He gets lost in the lower tunnels and ends up here instead of Thalia’s chambers.
I still can’t pull myself off the floor. “When Thalia said she missed her sea horse, Atticus, I was picturing something—smaller,” I say, careful of my words, because something in its yellow eyes tells me he can understand me. I have some food I’ve been stowing away in my pockets instead of eating, and I feed it to him.
“He is the last of his kind,” Grandfather says. “Just like us.”
“What do you mean?”
He walks across the room to the pool, where there’s a tall golden chair with spikes that end in jeweled points. It doesn’t look very comfortable, but he seems to like it. I notice the trident for the first time, softly glowing in its stand beside him. Not like the dinky little toy I’d pictured. It’s practically as tall as he is. The fork crackles with lightning on its own. I want to touch it. I wish it were mine.
I take a step back and the feeling dulls a bit.
“It’s calling to you,” says the king.
“It’s strange. Like I know it’s mine.” Then I look at his serious face and add, “Only it’s yours.”
He takes the trident with one hand. Even from here, I can feel it humming. The lighting sparks start at the forks and lead down its body of twisted gold that ends in a jagged and long pointed white crystal.
“What do you want with me?” There. I said it. It’s only taken me all day. “Why me? Why not one of your sons?”
He sighs. I hate when people sigh, like they’re deflating and giving something up. “Because I don’t have sons.”
“Oh.”
“I have scores of daughters. I had a few boys, but I’ve outlived them all. My daughters have sons, but your mother is my favorite.”
“You’re not actually supposed to admit to that.”
“Why ever not? I’m the Sea King. Maia was my favorite. When she chose your father—I almost killed him.” The trident sparks some more, and I take a step back. “During our last visit, I let more of my people go on shore. The Betwixt Alliance had only just been born, a treaty establishing peace between the worlds, courts, and kingdoms. And everyone played on human soil. Maia always loved people. She’d lie on the beach and watch them. Their laughs, their loves, their deaths. We don’t die easily, and when we do, we return to the sea.” He coughs, and when he does, I see him shiver from head to toe. It’s like watching a great statue teeter.
“Kurt said you chose me to run for king or something.”
“To be king you must own the trident. The trident can be won during a championship, or it can be taken by killing the owner. You are my blood. And yet you are a stranger. If I simply made you king, I would be breaking the trust of my people. I would leave you with a broken kingdom. With a war you would not know how to fight. I cannot be like the kings of old.”
Championship. Kill. War. The words are on the tip of my tongue like razors on their edge. “What—what if I say no?”
He scratches his beard, and I’m afraid something is going to crawl out of it and he’s going to eat it. Instead he stands and holds the trident with both hands. He points it at the pool where Atticus was swimming minutes ago. “Do you know where you come from?”
It feels like a trick question. I come from my mom. I don’t really want to have that conversation again in my life, ever.
“You come from the sea.” The trident hovers over the pool, and shadows dance over the surface, until the water is reenacting his words. “Poseidon owned t
he seas, and his sons after him. They mastered the waves, opened whirlpools, and buried the monsters as deep as they could. There were three Sea Kings once, and each had a separate piece of the trident. The fork, the staff, and the crystal spike. Each king fought against the others, the sea folk dying as the battles waged. We slaughtered dragons, gorgons, and the fair folk who would have us cower to their wicked games. Our magics ebbed like the tides. Our numbers were depleted. Until one king united us all. He merged the trident. He tamed the giants. He made us all one.”
“Was that you?”
The king laughs, and the sound echoes off the walls. He stands the trident up so the tip of the crystal hits the floor and leaves a tiny dimple in the rock. “That was my great-great-grandfather. His blood is mine, just as it is yours. If you don’t do this, then our line dies with me. You can go back to your human life. You might even lead the same life as your mother. But you will always get called back to the ocean, to us. You are ancient, and you are of my blood, the way I am of the sea. And that, that is why I have chosen you to be my champion. My blood, my grandson, my young Tristan Hart.”
•••
I leave my grandfather in his chamber and return to the court, where the sky has burst with sunset colors.
Silks are draped over the tent openings, and lamps are turned on. Some merfolk dive back into the water and go below wherever it is they go. Others curl up on their boulders and sleep. In the distance someone is strumming a small guitar. I don’t know the tune, but I find myself humming. My entire body is humming. I’ve never even touched the trident, and I can still feel its power.
Marty is sprawled on a bed of spade-shaped leaves. He’s made a pillow out of a bunch of silk, his cap covering most of his face.
I find Layla and Thalia with their toes dipped in the pool. They stare up at me with sleepy eyes. “Where have you been, Tristan?”
“Yeah, you missed Marty trying to synchronize swim with his merteenies.”
Sorry, guys, but I was busy learning my family tree and being told officially that I was going to be a champion. I reach down to the lake and wash my face.