Luce turned away, and found herself face to face with Imani. “I should be happy for her,” Imani whispered, watching the reunion onshore. “I want to be happy for her. But I can’t.”
Maybe seeing Luce with her father had been just as painful for Imani. Luce flinched and looked down, obscurely ashamed.
Assuming Dorian’s information was correct, then very soon mermaids all over the world would start leaving the water. It was strange to think of the mermaids who’d sung beside her standing up on human legs again, tugging on borrowed clothes, and walking off into unpredictable new lives—lives in which they’d grow old and maybe even have children of their own. Jo would go; even Yuan had said she’d go. But there were others who would choose to remain in the sea forever. Luce didn’t have to ask to know that Imani would stay a mermaid for as long as she lived.
Imani smiled wistfully, but a hint of bitterness still showed in her eyes. She nodded toward Jo. “Have you made a decision yet, Luce?”
Luce was startled. Imani seemed to have read her thoughts. “You mean—”
“I mean about leaving the sea. If it’s true that we can. You have—a lot more waiting for you on land—than some of us do. Your dad and your boyfriend. No one could blame you for choosing that.”
Luce searched her heart for an answer to Imani’s question. All she found was painful uncertainty, a bewilderment of fierce currents that pulled her this way and that. “I don’t know.”
For a long moment Imani looked at her with an expression of soft disbelief. “I think I know what you’ll decide. And I’ll really miss you.” Luce opened her mouth to object, but something dark and knowing in Imani’s gaze stopped her. “You don’t have to worry about me, Luce,” Imani added in a half-whisper. “I’ve found my calling.”
39 Negotiations
Luce waited by the shore, surrounded by a ring of all the Twice Lost lieutenants. The parking lot had been entirely cleared except for several dozen men and a few women in stiff black suits: the president’s security detail. Even the mermaids were wearing a kind of uniform, since one of their human friends who owned a clothing store had donated twenty-five identical burgundy velour tank tops for the occasion. “But you’re sure they know to let Seb and Dr. Perle through?” Luce asked anxiously. “Seb said she’d agreed to come.”
“Stop stressing, general-girl,” Yuan said sardonically. “Working out a treaty with the humans? That’s so insane it ought to come naturally to you.”
They could see the advance of black-lacquered cars on the road above. “We don’t know enough to know what we’re doing, though,” Luce murmured. “That’s why we need Dr. Perle. She seriously knows everything about the oceans, like about what will help . . .”
Yuan was grinning rakishly. “It’s funny to hear you going so fangirl.”
Luce bristled a little. “Her book was amazing. Dorian got it from the library, and I read it back in Alaska. She’s been doing deep-sea exploration for years, like going way deeper than we can! And—”
The limousines were turning into the parking lot, lining up one by one. Their windows sleeked across the pale day like wet black brushes; Luce half expected them to leave strokes of darkness on the air. She realized that she had no idea what the current U.S. president looked like. So many people were stepping formally from those cars; he could be almost anyone.
No: she knew him by the way people stood around him, their posture slightly curved and deferential. She knew him by the assertive way he met her eyes, just visible above the line of rocks. For all his coifed hair and severe tailoring he still looked rough and craggy to her, his face composed of complicated peaks and deep folds under his salt and pepper hair. His expression took on an aggressive archness as he watched Luce. Even from a distance, she realized, she made him uncomfortable.
Then, to Luce’s astonishment, a chauffeur opened yet another gleaming door, and Seb of the Ghosts stepped out looking extremely sheepish but also remarkably well-dressed and groomed. He offered his arm to an older woman who was emerging after him. She had neat, fluffy gray hair to her shoulders and wore a trim gray pantsuit with a bright silk scarf, and her expression was so wise and gracious that Luce immediately wanted to be like her someday.
She just had to be Audrey Perle. Luce was watching her so intently that she didn’t notice the president and his delegation approaching until they were ten feet away. “General Lucette Gray Korchak?”
Luce looked up. “Yes, Mr. President?”
“Just President of the Humans. Isn’t that what you call me? Even though you girls are living in U.S. territory. International waters don’t kick in until you’re a good few miles out that way.” He gestured toward the horizon. He sounded like he was kidding, or at least trying to make her think he was kidding. The snide, offended undercurrent in his voice was obvious enough.
A Secret Service man rushed over with a chair. President Leopold waved it away and sat down on the rock, leaning toward Luce in a way she didn’t entirely like. There was a slightly misted look to his eyes, as if they were windows hit by a hot breath of enchantment.
Luce considered what he’d said anyway, tilting her head as she thought it over. “Did you even believe mermaids existed? Until a few months ago?”
“Of course not. I’m not about to believe in fairies or unicorns either.”
“Well, if you didn’t believe we existed, then how could you represent us?”
President Leopold nodded at that. “Touché, general. Touché. But if you all get your legs back and start trotting off to school you’ll be citizens again, won’t you, with the same rights and—pay attention now—responsibilities as everybody else?”
That made her start a little in spite of herself. “Is it true that we can change back now?”
“The Pentagon used to have a tank full of those baby mermaids you all call ‘larvae,’ general. And now they’re telling me we’ve got a bunch of babbling human infants to tend to instead. They still look a little greener and shinier than your average babies, so I hear, but apart from that they’re doing fine. So, yes, indeed you can. We’ll send down some doctors to help you all out with that soon.”
Luce wondered nauseously what the Pentagon had been doing with a collection of larval mermaids, but she couldn’t wonder for long. Leopold was still speaking.
“Now, I’m told you have a couple of—what should we call them?—interspecies advisors who aren’t exactly batting for their own kind today.” He gestured with his head toward Seb and Audrey Perle, who were now standing much closer with two of the suited men flanking them.
“They aren’t batting for anyone,” Luce said a little curtly. “Because this isn’t a game, Mr. President. Anyway, if this is about peace, then nobody has to choose sides anymore!”
From the way he stared at her, Luce knew she was halfway enchanting him without even wanting to. A different mermaid might have known how to use that to the Twice Lost Army’s advantage, but his fascination just made her feel fidgety. “Well. You’re just full of the zingers today, aren’t you, general?” he purred.
“May I introduce you to them, Mr. President?” Luce said. Exaggerated politeness seemed like the best way to handle his disconcerting reaction to her. She waved Dr. Perle and Seb over and couldn’t repress a smile at Seb’s bashful, half-stumbling advance. “President Leopold, this is the Twice Lost Ambassador, Seb Grassley. And you must be Audrey Perle?” Luce was suddenly just as shy as Seb. “The great oceanographer?”