has pearls along the handle and a ruby dangling on the end. I flip the
sound back on.
“You always surprise me, Kurtomathetis.”
Oh, give me a break .
Kurt blushes. “And you me, Lucine.”
“Tell me, now that your mind is calm, have you accepted my
challenge?”
He splashes out of the pool, grabs a towel from the bench. He
dries off as best as he can before putting his clothes back on and
finding that they’re wet. Duh, Kurt, everything in the room is wet.
“Do you expect me to forget my true father in seconds? I’ve always
been loyal to the throne. To take the trident would be to go against
everything I stand for. It would make me a traitor to the-”
“Don’t you see?” She grabs at the air with her fist as if she
could manifest her truths just by pulling them out of space. “You are
the throne. For anyone to rule that isn’t you is already treason.”
Kurt’s silence is crushing. He starts to speak and stops, like he
doesn’t want to say the words, but he must. “If the king had wanted to
be my father, he would’ve announced it long ago. He’s had over a
century.”
Lucine shakes her head and looks up to the ceiling. There’s so
much wonder in her eyes that it’s like she’s looking at the moving sky
of Eternity. Then she focuses back on this plane, on Kurt.
“My love,” she says, and he walks right back to her and takes her
hands. “It was never the king’s wish to deny you. It was your
mother’s. The affair would’ve broken her husband’s heart. One day
soon, you will ask the king yourself. Until then, I will show you what
will happen if you do not claim your birthright.”
She takes his face and turns it to the mirror on the wall. My
heart jumps when their eyes fall on me. But they can’t see me. I wave
at them and then they vanish, replaced by a watery image. It starts
off like an oil slick, then becomes clear as day. The sky bleeds with
lightning. It pours over Toliss Island. The trees are on fire. The
waves threaten to swallow it whole.
The image shifts to the Glass Castle. Merrows and mermen alike
tear at the structure and it shatters. Mermaids and tadpoles float,
dead, then dissipate into surf. Even the elders vanish painfully into
nothing. Then it’s me, lying on the beach. I choke. The crown falls
off my head, washes away in the tide.
“Stop it!” The image disappears when Kurt pulls out of her hold.
“You’re making that up.”
While he’s turned away, Lucine still stares at the mirror, right
at me. She can see me. She wanted me to see.
Turning back to Kurt, she says, “You know very well that I can’t
make it up. Really, love, I fear you’ve been around humans far too
long. The fortnight is nearly over. The trident has been found. You
must take it back to your father.”
He hesitates. Suddenly it makes sense, the way the nautilus maid
greeted both of us as champions. The same curious eyes Sarabell gave
Kurt when she called him the “odd one out” in his bunch. The reason
why my grandfather singled him out as the best warrior.
“The sea witch approaches.” Lucine takes the fork of the trident
from her pool. It hovers just over her palms. An offering. “You will
need this to stop her.”
He stares at it the way I stare at the scepter, like it’s calling
to me.
The trident is calling to him.
It’s an electric hum, a whisper.
I can hear it too.
Kurt, son of the king, steps forward and takes the trident.
And when he does, I flip both switches and make it rain.
When I trigger the alarm, I make a run for it.
I trip over a devil girl carrying a tray full of champagne flutes,
then the dessert cart rolling down the hall. The floor trembles as
heavy boots run behind me. When I look over my shoulder, the same
friendly werewolves that lovingly chucked me out the first time are
coming for me.
They growl and snap at the air, teeth crunching like the grind of
a bear trap. Yellow eyes and snouts elongating from their faces. I
pull my scepter from between my shoulder blades. The light of the
quartz fills the dark and doorless hallway. Their howl turns into a
laugh, and I wonder if I’m heading out the right direction. I have a
vision of two gnarly wolves tearing me to pieces, and I point the
quartz over my head.
The charge comes quickly, from my chest, up my arms. The blast
hits the ceiling, illuminating the falling debris. The bouncers howl
and curse at me. A small fire builds quickly in the narrow hall. Smoke
fills my lungs and the sprinklers rain down. I can see the red exit
sign, and I push harder and harder until I’m out on the street.
I don’t know how big the Second Circle is, but I’m not where I
started.
It takes me a second to orient myself.
Despite the familiar buildings, the area doesn’t look right
without the usual crowds. I stand in the middle of the street. The
lights change from green to yellow to red. There are no cars. No
sirens. No passersby.
Instead, there are dozens and dozens of birds all along the fence
that marks the New York Aquarium.
Ravens and golden eagles and even bats are beating their wings
against the drizzle. Their cries form a united melody, a warning in
song. I head straight for the aquarium, but I ram against an invisible
barrier. I press my hands on the barrier, and every time I hit it, a
tiny shock of electricity jolts me.
One of the ravens turns into a girl no taller than my chest. Her
arms are wings and her hair is as black as her feathers. “Announce
yourself.”
“You’re kidding me.”
The steely black look in her eyes tells me she isn’t.
“I’m Tristan Hart,” I say. I hold the scepter in my hand. The
crystal emits a soft glow.
The raven girl dips into a short bow and opens her wing to the
side. The force field opens. I can’t see it, but I can feel the
temperature difference, like a line of heat separating the aquarium
from the outside world.
When I take a single step forward, someone screams my name. Gwen
is running down the street, soaked through and through.
I take her by her shoulders, concerned about the fear in her eyes.
Gwen is never scared. “Are you okay?”
She nods and attempts to smile. There is no way she would ever
admit to being nervous, so I take her hand and try to step through the
doorway. But the raven girl closes it again and a sharp caw flies from
her throat. “Frederik says only the Sea Prince is to enter.”
“She’s with me,” I growl.
The girl becomes a raven again and pecks at my hair before lining
up with the others on the fence. But she does not stop us. We cross
through the gate, where the cold, wet night doesn’t follow.
“Where were you?” I ask.
We sprint across the parking lot, cutting across to the entrance
to the aquarium.
“The princesses,” she says. “They’ve all gone.”
The guard at the door doesn’t stop us. I don’t know what he
is-human, android, ghost-and I don’t care. He nods at me once and
opens the door.
This leads to the reef portion of the aquarium. Tanks are backlit
with white and blue light. The ceilings are so low to the ground that
I feel like I’m swimming through a tunnel. I look into the glass of
the contained ecosystem. My breath fogs. The giant turtle swims
directly at me. He presses his nose to the glass. There’s something in
his eyes that is old and so eternal. A creature of the past. How do
you survive? I wonder. How are you still here?
I snap around to see Gwen. It makes me laugh. She’s twisting her