“You’re being extra cryptic. And coming from you-”
“I don’t like the rain,” he says. He picks up a book, the old kind
that’s bound and has letters pressed in gold on the cover. I can smell
the moldy paper swelling under the humidity. “When I was human, the
streets of Copenhagen were filthy in the rain. I would stay in the
castle libraries.”
“I see you’ve always been a people person.”
To my surprise, he laughs. “Years later, I still hate it. Even
worse is the rain in the night. Like never-ending darkness. As people
of the sea, you will never know what it is like to never see the sun.
Though as I learn more of your histories, I might prove myself wrong.”
“What are you getting at?”
“I heard you finally went to see the landlocked.” He thumbs
through the book, then clamps it shut.
“Then you heard it didn’t go well.”
“Maybe your approach was wrong.” He leans against the table,
shoulders slightly hunched and tense in a way that looks more pained
than predatory. I slip out of my backpack straps and set the pack on
the ground.
“I knew the sea witch would come for me. And for the other
champion that’s here, Adaro.” I lean against the wall of books. “I
went to the landlocked. I asked them to fight for this shore.”
He’s nodding methodically to my words. “What did you offer them?”
I’m quiet.
“Nothing?” He stands and walks to the dark part of the room where
his greenhouse is. I remember the vial full of a little flower that he
played during poker. He takes a jar filled a third of the way with
water. At the center is a slender purple flower. The delicate stem
moves around in a dance, and every time it does so, a faint light
pulses from within. “You always have to offer something, Tristan.
Otherwise, why will they fight for you?”
“Isn’t that worse? To lie to them and have them die anyway,
thinking they’re getting rewarded when they aren’t?”
“That’s how battles are fought, Sea Prince.” He sets the flower
jar on the table between us. “Without a reason to live, you’ll have a
field of dead soldiers. I will help you see that.”
It takes me a moment to realize what he’s said. “You’re going to
help me?”
He nods once, holding his hands behind his back, calm as a shark
out for a stroll.
“In exchange for-?” Killing you the next time I see you? Restoring
traitors to the court?
“Lover’s Breath.”
“In exchange for backing me up you want my…breath?”
The familiar exasperated glare is back. “It’s a pearl that grows
inside two clams at once. The Venus pearl. I was hoping you hadn’t
already given it to one of your paramours.”
“Paramour, singular. And no, I wasn’t planning on it since I
already gave it to one girl. It just feels wrong. Especially since
they know each other. What do you need it for?”
“My plants. I’m developing a new species, like the saltwater
orchid I gave to your grandfather.” He taps his finger on the sides of
the jar. “Like this.”
“And you’ll bring an army of vampires?”
“Not just vampires. The demigods here. Werewolves, though they
don’t like to get wet. The solitary fey are always up for a rumble.
The battle may not just be in the sea but on this shore. What happens
on this shore concerns the Thorne Hill Alliance, and what concerns the
alliance concerns me. You’re from here, and you know how devastating
something like this could be.”
“It’s just for your plants?” It’s the smallest thing he could ask
for. He could ask for a nip of my blood. He could ask for a year’s
worth of laundry service.
“Don’t worry, Sea Prince. I’m not an enemy of the world.”
“That’s what an enemy of the world would say.”
“It only took a couple of hundred years to realize I like being
here.” He returns the jar to its shelf. “Don’t let it be the same for
you.”
When he returns, I hold my hand out and wonder if this time he’ll
shake it.
He takes it.
His hand is cold, like gripping metal left out in snow, and
suddenly I’m glad he doesn’t shake my hand more often. He lets go
first and I breathe a little easier. Frederik and the Thorne Hill
Alliance will help me protect the shore. Outside, the rain seems to
have stopped, and the familiar blast of Adaro’s horn whispers its way
through the walls.
Frederik clears his throat.
“Oh yeah.” I unzip the pocket of my cargo shorts where I keep the
pearl.
The pocket is empty.
I unzip the front pocket of my backpack, and after removing empty
candy wrappers, it’s still not there.
Frederik starts pacing with his arms crossed, stopping
periodically to flick his unnerving black eyes.
I dig into my cargo pockets again, and in one of them is a tiny
piece of paper folded a dozen times. When I open it, I see it’s a
drawing. Frederik comes and looks over my shoulder. At the slim
shoulders and the slender neck and the face that’s tilted slightly
down, like she’s thinking, sighing, lamenting. She’s incredibly
familiar, like a dream that I’ve had.
Only it wasn’t a dream; it was a memory. This is the woman I saw
when I was going down the well.
“Call Marty,” I say. “Tell him to bring Kurt over here now.”
***
Kurt, Thalia, and Layla follow a happy-stepping Marty McKay.
They proceed carefully into the vampire’s lair. Frederik grumbles.
Marty whispers that they’re not used to company and the only things to
eat are stallion blood and jalapeсo chips.
When Kurt sees the drawing on the table, he snatches it back.
“Where did you get this?”
“My pocket!” I point to him. “You’re wearing my shorts.”
Kurt folds the paper until it fits in the closed palm of his fist.
“What have you done, Tristan?”
“I’m getting what Adaro and Jesse won’t give us. Numbers . Now
empty your-my-pockets.”
Kurt does as I ask. A few crumpled bills, a stick of gum in its
wrapper, a handful of coins, and finally, the Venus pearl.
I can hear the sigh of relief in Frederik’s unbreathing body. I
wonder what kind of species of flower the pearl will bring. I hold it
by the chain over his cold, open palm. It spins in a circle, once,
twice, and then it’s in the hands of a new owner.
“Brother?” Thalia places her hand on Kurt’s arm. “What is it?”
Kurt has a coin in his hand. He’s turning it over, examining all
of the ridges. He looks up at me. “Where did you get this?”
“The bank? Actually my dad. Money for food, that sort of thing.”
“I guess merpeople don’t really have allowances,” Marty says when
he looks at the coin in Kurt’s hand. It’s dull gold with the Roman
numeral II stamped on it. Marty seems confused. “You’ve met Comit?”
“He said he had a collection of bizarre creatures.” I explain
about the sea dragon and Comit’s rescue. “Why?”
Kurt can’t seem to put words together, saying only, “You should’ve
mentioned this.”
Marty shakes his head. “That place is bad news. I’ve seen people
go down there and never come back out.”
Layla takes the coin from Kurt, who snatches it back.
“Madame Mercury isn’t that bad,” Frederik says. “Why would they
invite you?”
I cross my hands in a T formation. “Time-out. Who the hell is
Madame Mercury? Why are you getting so pissed at me, Kurt? And what’s
wrong with me that they wouldn’t invite me somewhere?”
Kurt holds out the coin to me. “I’ve found her.”
He says it with so much reverence that I don’t understand what he