“We have to go back.” Gwen stares at the fleshy pieces descending
to the sea floor and grimaces. She swims ahead, her melancholy song
leading the way back.
***
When we near the New York coast, Kai turns away and heads for
Toliss. For a moment, I contemplate stopping there myself. I’ve only
been there once, but find myself drawn to the clear lake of the court,
the merfolk drinking and dancing and soaking up the sun. I want to
stand before my grandfather and show him the scepter. I want to yell
at him for leaving me in the dark my whole life. I would demand
answers. I would say, “Are you happy now?”
Instead, I keep swimming, Gwen trailing quietly behind me until we
reach Coney Island. We surface a bit away from shore to make sure we
aren’t seen. The moon casts a silvery light on the beach. The rides
are still shut off.
I half-shift onto the sand and let myself fall into the surf. I’ll
regret it later when I’m trying to wash sand out of my crevices, but
right now it feels so good. When I was little, I’d paddle around right
at the edge and pretend I was Robinson Crusoe and I’d just washed up
on shore.
I flip over and stare at the bruised plum of the twilight sky.
There’s a sound in the distance, like a siren. My insides feel
smooshed together, as if someone is stepping on my lungs. I bang my
fists into the wet, soft sand.
“Don’t do that, Tristan.” Gwen sits beside me. The surf blankets
our feet. “You haven’t lost yet.”
My laugh is bitter. “She keeps coming out of my blind spot because
I stop expecting her.”
“The rules have changed. Nieve has always been there. Perhaps you
should start seeing her as a new champion.”
“Yeah, one with an army.”
She laughs. How can she be funny at a time like this?
“Adaro has an army,” she says. “So do Brendan and Dylan. Even
Kurtomathetis commands his own battalion of the guard.”
“That leaves me.” I sit up, bending my face to my knees.
“I can’t believe the kings have kept the springs from us for so
long.” She stares ahead. “Then again, kings have many secrets.”
“How do you know?”
She doesn’t answer. Her white blond hair blows all over her face.
She self-consciously covers the thin pear-colored slits where her
gills would be. Right over that are long layers of scars that trace
from the opening of her ear down to her clavicle.
“Stop staring,” she whispers, tracing the scar along her throat.
“It isn’t polite.”
I know I shouldn’t ask but I want to know. “How did he do it?”
Her hand remains on her scars.
“You never talk about it, Gwen.”
Her face is hard. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
“He hurt you. The man you were supposed to marry actually hurt
you.” She gets up and walks down the shore away from me. I hate how
casual she is about it. “Wasn’t there anyone you could go to?”
“He’s dead. Twice over. Don’t bring it up again.” She stops and
faces me. “Why do you care?”
“You’re my friend.” I grab her by the shoulders and smile. “Even
if you don’t want to admit it.”
Her face is smooth and she’s looking at me like she wants more
from me than I can give her. Her eyes are like little moons and she
sets them on me. She rests her hands on my chest. The breeze is cold
where my shoulders have just begun to dry off. A drop trickles down my
spine. In this light, at the base of the pier, her scars are
iridescent. Her lips are pink and swollen. With her index finger, she
traces my jawline, tucks my hair behind my ear.
She leans up to kiss me.
I turn my face away. “I can’t.”
“Right.” The little moons turn into little storms. She backs away.
“You’ve already got someone.”
“It’s not that I don’t think you’re beautiful.” I can’t call her
hot. She is, but she’s more than that. She’s this burst of lightning
and the calm right after it all in one. She’s just not for me.
“Can’t blame a mermaid for trying.”
My laughter is nervous. “You’re the one who said I never had a
chance with you.”
“That’s before I really knew you.” She brushes her hair away from
her face. “When I heard they were presenting you at court, I thought
you’d be a stupid skin sack.”
“Why do you even call humans that? Merpeople have skin too.”
“And you make me laugh. I saw how insanely brave and stupid you
can be for your friends. Elias never cared for me that way. It made me
long for that. Maybe I just liked the way you held that scepter.”
Gwen turns over her shoulder with that mischievous smile. She
closes the space between us and brushes away the scales at my hips to
reveal the skin beneath. “Is her hold over you so strong?”
And I don’t hesitate, holding her by her shoulders at a distance.
“There is nothing I wouldn’t do for her.”
Layla . The name hangs between us like a pendulum ready to snap.
“You can do better than me.” I rummage for clothes in my backpack.
They’re all wet, but it’s better than walking home in glittery
underwear.
“I’m not used to having an actual choice in this. Before, Elias
was it .”
I hug her. Her hands hang at her sides at first. I can feel her
breath hitch.
“That’s the great thing about now,” I tell her. “Now, you get a
real choice.”
My feet feel foreign.
They’re numb. Awkward. Possessed.
They’re leading me past my own street.
No, I can’t go home yet. I can’t stand in my kitchen and cross off
the end of another day.
I pick up the pay phone and dial her number. On the second ring,
she picks up.
“Did I wake you?” I can hear her rub her eyes and kick the covers
off.
“Tristan?”
“Only if you want it to be.”
“Shut up. Where are you?”
“Down the block at the bodega.”
“My dad is this far away from putting remote control bars on all
the doors and windows because of you.”
“That’s never stopped you before,” I taunt.
“Is everything okay?”
I inhale loudly. Nothing comes out. “I’ll be on your porch.” I
hang up and turn the corner.
***
Her mom’s garden is overgrowing, leaves wild and swaying in the
cool night. I used to pluck a flower and give it to Mrs. Santos. She
never complained that I took it from her own garden.
“You look like crap,” Layla says.
“Exactly what I wanted to hear after swimming in torpedo-fast
underwater currents for over ten hours.”
She comes around from the back entrance. She’s wearing her black
Guardian Knight T-shirt and denim shorts. I wonder if she sleeps in
her underwear. As if she knows what I’m thinking, she smacks me on the
back of the head. “I’m familiar with that grin on your face.”
She sits beside me, and I get a hot flash. Damn, I thought these
things only happened to women. She burrows herself into my shoulder
and says, “Tell me.”
I run my hand along the top of her hair. Why is it that girls have
this effect? Things like long hair and long eyelashes and the smell of
flowers just throw me. I squeeze the bridge of my nose.
“Tristan, you’re shaking.”
She rubs the cold away from my arms. The iridescent sheen of where
my scales were rubs off on her palms. For a moment, she smiles down at
her hands, then at my face. Then dusts it away and says, “Gross.”
It calms me, and I tell her about Violet (she laughs) and Kai (she
laughs some more). Then the sea dragon. (No, I didn’t hurt it,
thanks.) Kai’s father. Eternity burning.
“The oracle was a centaur?”