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“That is so messed up,” Layla says.

“Blow out the candles,” Mom says, “or the wax is going to drip.”

I bend closer to the seventeen little flames. I haven’t made a

birthday wish since elementary school. I was never the kind of kid who

made wishes on stars or cakes. Swimming came too naturally and I have

dozens of trophies to prove it. Girls came naturally, and I also have

the trail of angry ex-girlfriends to prove it.

Since I started shifting, I don’t know what to believe in anymore.

I know more things are possible. I’ve been to Eternity and back. I had

an oracle give me a powerful weapon. I met my grandfather. I kissed

the girl I love. But most importantly, she kissed me back.

Layla squeezes my hand, and I know that I’m not going to wish. I’m

going to pray, something I haven’t done in equally as long. When I saw

Kai doing it near the shipwreck, I wanted to get down with her, but I

didn’t.

Maybe it’s the same as a wish, the same as a promise. A totally

intangible mass of hope that everything will work out the way it’s

supposed to be. I take a deep breath and blow.

***

On the news, there’s a storm warning. The beach has been

evacuated. A murder victim on the boardwalk. Ben’s face pops up on the

screen. The details are vague, other than that his hands, feet, and

ears were cut off. No suspects yet.

While everyone eats cake in the living room, I volunteer to get

them drinks. I take the bottle of Eternity water and pour it into

their drinks. I pour the rest into an empty bottle of eyedrops and

pocket it. I picture my centaur maid’s fiery blood flowing, the head

of the trident sucking back into the murky black depths. Just what

every guy wants on his seventeenth birthday.

“You don’t have to do that,” she says.

I jump, and when I turn around, my mom is standing there. I wonder

how long she’s been watching me, but I realize it’s long enough.

“Yes, I do.”

“I thought they agreed not to drink it unless you did.” She comes

to me and lifts my chin with her finger. “You can’t save everyone.”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “For everything I said to you. I didn’t mean

it.”

“Yes, you did.” She cups her hand on my face. “You were right. For

a long time, I thought I could keep my old life away. The past creeps

up like the tide. I wish it hadn’t pulled you in.”

“Literally,” I say, laughing.

She kisses my forehead. “Happy birthday, my darling.”

We take the glasses to everyone and drink.

***

We load my dad’s car with weapons. Swords and bats and more arrows

than I can count.

“I can’t believe your dad lent you his car,” Layla says. “He loves

his car.”

I pat the trunk of the trusty Mustang. Kurt and Thalia are scoping

out the length of the boardwalk. There’s only one way Nieve and her

merrows will come onto the shore, and that’s through the sea.

“Has anyone ever seen Nieve on feet?” Layla asks.

“I don’t think she likes being on legs,” I say. I think of how she

forced me to shift into my tail. “She’ll be out in the water.”

“Is it too simple to say, ‘Don’t go in the water’?”

“I don’t want them to break the boardwalk. If they go into the

city-”

A sharp whistle blows behind me. A police officer comes our way.

“This is a no-parking zone.”

Layla points angrily at the sign above us. “No it’s not. Read

right there!”

The cop holds on to his belt. There’s something funny about him. I

can’t pick it out. “I can’t read. Why don’t you read it for me?”

His mouth twitches. I take a step closer to him and breathe

deeply. “Cut it out, Marty.”

The shape-shifter doubles over laughing. He looks both ways before

shifting back into his familiar cheesy smile. “You should’ve seen your

faces.”

“Hey, when I’m on Toliss, I’ll hire you as my court jester.”

“No thanks, bro,” Marty says. “I’d rather be queen, but I hear

that job’s already taken.” He winks at Layla and she returns it with

an eye roll.

“Tell Frederik I finally went to see the landlocked like he

suggested and it didn’t go well.”

“Tell him yourself,” Marty says. “He’s waiting for you.”

I look up at the white disk behind the gray sky. “I’m guessing he

can’t come out right now.”

“I’ll stay with Layla,” Marty says. “He wants to speak to you

alone.”

***

Frederik lives on the boardwalk.

I feel let down in his vampire skills. This whole time, I thought

of him as living in some cool hotel with all of his crime-fighting

friends or even a mansion, but we’re short of mansions in Brooklyn.

The face of the building has three arcs, all boarded up. There’s

an old mosaic of waves that’s chipped away to reveal the plaster

beneath. The metal gate has been pulled halfway up. A slow rain starts

falling. I breathe in the dampness of the air. I’m waiting for the

stink of merrow, but it doesn’t come, and I remind myself that they’ll

come in the shadows.

I push the gate the rest of the way up, and once I’m in, I close

it again.

I trust Frederik, I do. At least, I think I do.

But the way I feel, like I have to inch my way through the dimly

lit hall in case he comes zooming down at vampire speed to take a

chunk out of my neck? That’s just instinct, and no matter how cool I

think he is, I know I’ll never get rid of that.

The inside of the building has been hollowed out. It used to be a

restaurant and then a roller rink and now it’s empty. The ceilings

remind me of scenes from the ’20s. My dad says that’s the last time we

built beautiful things. After that, it was all straight lines and

plaster. I pick up a funny-looking gold vase that doesn’t look like it

can hold much of anything. I feel the chill break through the cracks

of the building.

“Frederik?”

He’s standing beside me. I jolt and drop the vase. It shatters.

“That was an antique, Sea Prince.”

“Yeah? Well, put it on my tab.”

He starts walking farther down the hall and I follow. He opens

another door and I hesitate. “You’re not still mad that I beat you at

poker?”

When he smiles, a yellow fang peeks from a corner of his mouth. “I

had the beginnings of a very promising flush.”

“So you folded on purpose?” I step inside the room. “Why?”

That terrible tingling feeling comes over me, like a thousand

spiders are walking over my spine.

“Because I want the sea folk off this land.” He flicks the lights

on. “And helping you is the only way I can accomplish this without

breaking any rules of the Thorne Hill Alliance.”

The large room is split in half. To the right is a

floor-to-ceiling library. I lose count of the numbers of shelves and

the age of the spines. There’s a rickety ladder that moves from one

end of the wall to the other.

“Read any good books lately?” I ask.

Frederik glances over his shoulder. I realize that, for the first

time since I’ve met him, he’s wearing all black. It brings out the

death in his complexion. His eyes are blacker, and for a vamp, the

dark circles under his eyes look more like bruises.

To the left is a different kind of library full of plants. There

are test tubes, microscopes, and a large machine giving off steam.

That side of the room is carefully arranged in shadow, and when I step

farther into the room, I can see why. The colors of one plant radiate

in the dark, while others are regular green.

“You’re a gardener?”

Frederik grumbles.