scream fills every nook and cranny of the cave. Atop a gleaming onyx
table is an old man with armored scales along his arms and legs.
There’s a knife stuck in his chest, just below his heart. His fingers
rest around it, keeping the pressure. His breath is a shallow rise and
fall. Eyes, the same crystal blue of his daughter, peel open. When he
blinks a few times, the color drains. It’s like I’m underwater again,
numb and wading at the bottom of the sea wearing ankle weights.
In the darkness, his eyes find mine. The sound from his throat is
a gargle. His hand, soft and brittle, reaches out to mine. “B-”
“Shhh,” Kai whispers. Her chest is filled with ragged breath,
hitched and frantic. She grabs on to his robes. “Don’t talk, don’t
talk.”
She turns around, looking at the jars along the walls. She pops
open all the corks and sniffs. Not finding the thing she’s looking
for, she sweeps her arms across all of them, sending them shattering
on the floor. Her hands are bloody and glittering with glass shards.
I reach out to her, but she pulls away and stands over her father.
He releases the hand from his chest and reaches out to her face. Then
he takes my hand in a bone-crushing grip. The blue of his eyes
returns. His breath is a gust rattling inside: “Don’t let it burn.”
His mouth opens wide, releasing his last breath. The hold on my
hand goes slack, and my heart seizes.
I’ve never seen a merman die this way. He’s looking at her.
Convulsing. Shaking. Shivering. His skin melts away, leaving behind
the powdery whiteness of coral and bone.
There’s someone else in the room with us.
Gwen takes a step back and grabs Kai’s arm to keep her in place.
Kai’s whole body trembles as she cries. I hold my finger over my lips
and flick my eyes down. Along with the hiccups Kai is trying to hold
back, the whisper of her tears running down her face, I hear an extra
heartbeat and a sob that shouldn’t be there.
Gwen hears it too, and I follow her cloudy gray eyes down. For the
first time, I see the set of toes under the table. I unsheathe my
dagger slowly. I reach under and grab hold of a handful of hair.
“Please!” His arms go right to his face as a shield. He’s
whimpering. “Please. I couldn’t stop them.”
“Let him go, Tristan,” Kai’s voice is raw as gravel. “That’s
Delios, my father’s apprentice.”
He looks about fourteen, arms like twigs. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,”
he repeats. “They came and I hid. Master said to hide so I did and
then-oh goddess, the screams-they broke things and-”
“What were they?” I ask, though in my heart I already know.
He shakes in Kai’s arms, letting loose the hiccups he was holding
back. He turns sadly to the coral bones on the table and he hugs
himself. With his long fingers, he taps his forehead three times, the
way Kurt does in his Morse-code way. “Merrows. I’ve never seen them so
large before. One of them could talk.”
“Archer,” I say.
“What did they want, Del?” Kai asks, rubbing his hair back for
comfort.
“The old map. Master wouldn’t cooperate. They tortured him. With
the blade. You have to know just where to cut, you see, to not kill
our kind so quickly. To make it last…”
“As if she knew we were coming,” I say.
The silence returns.
“Where is the map?” Gwen asks.
Del can’t take his eyes off Gwen. From the pearly scales covering
her breasts to the damp mess of blond hair. He licks his lips
nervously and brushes his hair back in a bad attempt at cleaning up.
We follow his eyes to the wall behind us where an onyx circle tablet
as wide as my spread arms is embedded into the wall. There’s a crack
at the center of the tree. I touch the grooves that must be from
Archer’s fist. Despite that, the tree on the tablet is grand with
branches reaching up to the sky. Right at the roots, a tiny waterfall
spills into a spring.
“If this is the map, then what does it mean? It’s just clouds and
stars and stuff.”
“Actually,” Del holds his finger up to the deep silver crannies
marking stars, “these are constellations. Cancer over here.” Del gets
a geeky smile on his face. It turns my stomach into knots. Ryan used
to get that look on his face when I’d ask him to help me with my
biology homework. They even have the same naпve glimmer in their eyes.
Hopeful-
“But where is it in the sea?” Gwen presses. “On this earth and not
the heavens?”
Del rummages through the things on a shelf, looking back to smile
at Gwen, and pulls out a roll of parchment. It’s an old map of the
world.
“This is from eighty years ago,” I point out. “Alaska is America
now. Also, the Soviet Union is dismantled or something.”
“In one way, yes. The surface of the earth is different than below
it. There are more tunnels and caves down here than you humans would
ever dream of. It’s a labyrinth, hiding everything the world has
forgotten. Some are prisons. Some are palaces. I’ve been studying it
for fourscore years, but even I still need to reference manuals. Human
maps only show the surface of the world. We need dozens of maps to
show our layers beneath the earth.”
Kai stands closer to me. I put a hand on her shoulder but she
doesn’t move.
“No wonder my ears won’t un-pop.”
“Get on with it,” Gwen urges.
Del draws a line with charcoal from the middle of the Atlantic
Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea. “This pass right here is where you
want to go. The Cross-Atlantic Channel should take you there. The
caves are protected by the ancient magics. But as long as the trident
is broken, the magic won’t hold.”
“And to think,” Gwen says darkly, “a young merman like you knows
what the heralds of our kingdom do not.”
It sounds like a compliment to Del, but there’s acid to her tone.
She shakes it off immediately and forcibly avoids eye contact.
“I can take us there,” Kai says.
“Kai-you’ve been through a lot,” I say. “I can’t thank you enough.
But maybe you should take Del to Toliss.”
“ No !” she barks. “My father led a long life. Don’t feel sorry
for me. It is not the way of our kind. This was his secret to bear and
I will make sure it is kept. I’m going with you.”
I squeeze her hand and nod. There aren’t enough words for me to
thank her.
“When I was younger, my father used to take me to collect samples
there. There are shipwrecks for miles down there. I knew it was sacred
land. The king forbade traveling there.”
“What about me?” Del squeaks.
“Go to Toliss,” I say. “Tell no one but the king.” I look through
my backpack for anything I can find. I have a sealed packet of gummy
bears. “Give him this. He likes candy.”
Kai runs into the back room and returns wielding a short metal
sword. “Take this.”
“What’s th-that for?” Del’s voice cracks. Man, I’m glad I hit
puberty before becoming a merman.
I press my finger on the tip. It’s slightly dull, but it’ll do the
trick. “Just in case anything tries to eat you, bro.”
“Yes, sir. Lord Sea. I mean, thank you, Lord Sea.”
I pat his back, trying to remember the fear that comes with
driving a sword into something-anyone, no matter how terrible. We
follow the cold stone path back to the channels and I tell him, “Just
call me Tristan.”
Eels scatter as we race between boulders and down ridges with
nothing to light the way except the Scepter of Earth.
The graceful movement of Kai’s fins has become quick, flicking
like a whip. Along the way, she cries out in a song. I can feel it