of them break away from their feeding frenzy and waddle through the
air around us.
“They brush honey on the ceiling,” Thalia points out. “Otherwise
they’d be flying all over the place.”
“So this is where you’ve been spending your time.” Kurt snatches a
lightning bug from his ear and crushes it in his hand. He smears the
green slime on his cargo shorts. She avoids Kurt’s stare and turns to
me.
“Is this a bunker?” I ask.
The walls are lined with all kinds of books. There’s a small stage
centered against the back with uneven rows of chairs facing it. Open
cabinets are stuffed with boxes and cans of food. A dartboard and a
pool table that look like they’ve had their last games take up a
corner, beside a couch coming apart at the seams.
I feel a set of arms wrap around my leg.
“Tristan!” the little boy squeaks. It’s Timmy. I bend over and
pick him up, patting the hard shell of his back.
“What’s up, little man?”
He shrugs in that exaggerated little kid way that makes all the
girls smile, except for Sarabell, who looks like she’ll catch the
plague from touching anything.
Penny isn’t far behind, hand in hand with her boyfriend, who I’ve
only seen from afar. Little suction cups pop out at her wrists as if
coming up for air. They’re both still wearing their aprons like they
ran out in a hurry. She’s surprised to see me, but when she sees Adaro
and Sarabell, she doesn’t seem happy.
I shake both of their hands and Penny asks, “What are you doing
here?”
“We come to enlist your services,” Adaro says matter-of-factly.
I hold out my hands and say, “Actually, we want to talk.”
As the landlocked file in, some realize who we are and sneer in
our direction. It reminds me of the time Gaston Guerrero threw the
soccer game and everyone walked past him with looks of disgust. I feel
like freaking Gaston Guerrero.
“Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,” I whisper.
Layla and Thalia flank me.
“No, Tristan,” Thalia says, “this is perfect. They need to know
what you have to say.”
Some are kinder than others. I recognize the man I gave my food to
on the boardwalk and he gives me a smile. A few bored college-aged
girls lift their sunglasses with blue webbed hands. One winks a big
blue eye at me. Her friends elbow her and they break into giggles.
Their lives seem pretty good to me.
There’s a man with a sallow face lit up by the lantern protruding
from his head. It casts ghoulish shadows all over his features.
There’s a man who takes up three seats that sink beneath his weight.
He clears an entire section, running his hand over his face, trailing
green mucus.
There’s even a guy in a suit who tosses his long, blond hair back
every couple of seconds. He hesitates before sitting down and then
gets the brilliant idea to place his newspaper on the seat.
These are the landlocked. I wonder what they’ve done to get
banished from the Sea Court. I can’t imagine any of them being all
that powerful. Our presence has them unnerved.
“Is that the son of the king?” someone whispers.
Another replies with, “That’s the grandson. The king only has
daughters.”
The last person to walk in doesn’t even look around the room. He
walks slowly, straight toward me, like he knew I was here even before
he started weaving through the tunnels. His face, arms, and legs are
all wire thin. His shoulder-length hair is bleached blond. The roots
are black and greasy. He uses the cuff of his sleeve to wipe at his
raw, red nose.
He holds his arms out, and at first I think he’s going to hug me.
Adaro takes it as a threat and draws his sword. Instead, the bleached
blond pulls a dart from the board and uses it to pick his teeth. When
he’s done, he twirls the silver dart between his fingers.
The landlocked fidget and whisper among themselves.
I grit my teeth and say, “Adaro, put that away.”
When the bleached blond smiles, it takes up his whole face. “So
the Sons of the Sea have come slumming.”
“I’m-”
“I know who you are.”
I hate the way he cuts me off. And from the way his body tenses
and his face grimaces in my direction, he doesn’t think much of me,
either.
“And who are you?” I say, minutes away from losing my patience.
“This is Jesse,” Thalia says.
Jesse lingers where we stand, like he’s sizing up his opponents or
avoiding dog shit. He proceeds to take center stage, a preacher
welcoming us to his church, extending arms wide. “Welcome to our
weekly community meeting.”
His arms go slack and he groans. “Yes, Ben, what is it?”
The guy in the suit has his hand raised. He’s got scars all across
his knuckles. When he tucks his hair back, I notice his ears are
shaped like fins. “I’d just like to say that I’m confused. I thought
we were going to vote on when we brought the champion in. I mean, we
are still a voting group, right? I’m just saying.”
Jesse’s smile is tight, annoyed. Even though he’s a skinny, oily,
grungy little punk, he leads them. “Don’t worry, Ben. No one is
changing any rules. I knew the champion of the sea would come to us
eventually. Didn’t I say that? What I didn’t expect was two of them.”
Adaro crosses his arms over his chest, his dagger gleaming in one
hand. The air is getting denser. Everyone sweating. Nerves sizzling
like crossed wires.
“Thalia, it is good to see you again,” Jesse says, cocking his
head and squinting way too hard at Kurt. “I look forward to the day we
can count you in our ranks. Now. Let the champion come forward. Come,
come. I’m sure you’re brimming with kind words for us.”
I move from the back of the room to closer to the raised stage.
Sweat runs down my back and my mouth is dry.
“Do you know what we are, Tristan?” Jesse asks me.
“You’re Sea People,” I say.
“Were. We were Sea People.” Jesse smiles with his red, raw mouth.
“Now, we are the landlocked. Excommunicated. Discarded. Unwanted.
Untouchables.”
Jesse paces, weaving that silver dart between his fingers. The
flickering bulb gives his hair an orange glow and deepens the shadows
of his face. His lips look swollen, but they might just be big. His
teeth are too prominent. I kind of hate him.
“For some of us,” Jesse says, “it wasn’t our choice to be here.
Unlike your mother, not all of us fancy being on two legs. Clumsy,
ugly, nasty things. Foot-fins, you call us.”
He hops off the stage and passes through the crowd, and they
follow his wiry body, snake-like in the way he turns his neck. I
wonder if his tongue is forked. I make a note to punch him the next
time he talks about my mother.
“You broke the law,” Kurt says. “That’s why you don’t have your
fins anymore.”
Every eye turns to him. The volume in the meeting hall shoots up.
Their voices are a mixture of curses and explanations of how they were
wronged. But mostly curses. Jesse uses his hands and shushes them like
children.
“Don’t mind the young soldier,” Jesse says. “He was raised to lead
the Sea Guard. He could never understand us.”
Kurt’s head looks like it might pop right off his head with how
angry he is. “What is there to understand?”
“That we were once sea creatures, like all of you. Some, like
Penny and her little turtle boy, were born on land. Her mother was a
cephalo-maid. Her father human. Her mother, ripped of her ability to
shift, was left on land to raise a child she could never explain. She
died when Penny was only twelve, and Penny’s father left her in an