off buildings. Mermaids don’t believe in heaven, so what’s the point
of looking up and giving a shout out to my grandfather? “I won’t fail
you.”
I said the same words to Isi in the Vale of Tears, but this time
it’s different. I can only promise to try as hard as I can and hope my
words find him.
I feel a hot twinge between my shoulder blades and blame it on all
the beatings I’ve taken. Six bags of salt later, I’ve drawn a thick
line around our perimeter. I run to the empty second floor, along the
white balcony banister, until I find the empty room where Shelly could
be. She floats over the tiled floor as if she’s moving underwater.
“Shelly?”
I inch closer. Her black eyes are dilated toward the ceiling, and
her lips move rapidly in the language of the gods-that’s what oracles
speak.
“I wouldn’t interrupt,” Frederik says.
I jump and put my hand on my heart. “Don’t do that.”
“We have a problem.”
I rub the pain in my skull. “What is it?”
Below, my cousin Brendan is trying to push back a merman who’s
pointing a finger at Amada. She gets ready to crouch on her hind legs,
but when she sees me, she resists the urge to change. The merman
punches Brendan, who stumbles into Penny’s outstretched tentacles. Kai
has her hands up, yelling at them to stop, but dozens of punches fly.
Glass shatters and walls are punched to dust. I fear we may kill each
other before our enemies have a chance.
What was I expecting?
That the landlocked, the Alliance, and the Sea Court would get
along famously? That they would see that we are in this together? That
if we start fighting over things that happened hundreds of years ago,
we don’t stand a chance?
That all it would take would be me to bring them together? And if
I can’t pull together this army, how will I pull together a kingdom?
I run downstairs, narrowly avoiding a blow to the face. I snatch
the golden conch from a guard’s neck and blow.
They turn, one by one. I blow the conch again, the hollow noise
vibrating against the walls.
“What is going on?” I stand at the center of the room.
Brendan wipes a cut on his lip and brushes his red hair out of his
face. He and Amada stand behind me.
Dylan has a white-haired merman by the arms, pulling him away from
Jim, one of the landlocked. Jim is shaking so hard that the light
protruding from his forehead blinks like a strobe light. Penny puts an
arm on his shoulder and begs him to calm down. He points at his
attacker. “Stay away from me.”
I have new sympathy for my coach after all the times my boys and I
started fights with other swim teams.
“Is this why we’re here?” I ask them. “To rip each other to
shreds? Because you really should save some for Nieve and her
merrows.”
They erupt in wordless chatter. Their voices are so loud that they
sound like a swarm of mutant wasps.
I bang the Scepter of Earth on the cement floor. The sharp sound
makes some of the merpeople cringe. “ Enough! ”
I can sense that everyone is ready to grab their weapons, and I
know that, for better or worse, I have to end this.
“This is not conducive to defeating the sea witch,” I say. “Toliss
is overrun. The Glass Castle is destroyed. We have to band together or
there won’t be a Sea Court to save.”
“So it’s true?” Penny asks. “The Glass Castle is gone?”
I nod my head. “Kurt and I blew it up with an entire merrow army
inside it.”
“Kurt?” Penny raises her eyebrows, eyes shifting to Thalia.
“Where-?”
“He’s gone,” I say to Thalia. “He didn’t say where, but wherever
he is, we know that he’s with Lucine.”
Thalia nods silently.
“Nieve wants to rule,” I say, standing between the people of land
and sea and those in between. “She’s terrorized you out of your homes.
She’s taken hold of the island. She has her magic and her army of
merrows. But she doesn’t have this.” I hold up my scepter. “I won’t
let her.”
“Then tell us.” The white-haired merman loosens himself from
Dylan’s hold. “Tell us how you plan on stopping the most powerful
mermaid of our lifetime.”
I don’t answer them. Come on, Shelly, I think.
Nieve thinks she knows me. She’ll assume I’ll go straight for
Layla. It kills me inside, but I have to go to the nautilus maid
first.
“I don’t suppose the prince knows,” says a shrewd-looking, slender
mermaid with scalloped braids piled atop her head. “I suppose he’ll
send us out as bait to give him time to rescue that girl. We don’t
stand a chance.”
“Wait a minute,” I say defensively. “I never said that.”
“Don’t talk to him like that,” Penny says.
The scarlet-scaled mermaid points a finger in Penny’s direction.
“Who are you to talk to the prince, you banished scum?”
“That’s unnecessary,” I tell her.
“Taking their side, are you?” shouts another mermaid. She’s
shaking and has a bright red gash on her arm. “They said you’d be
fonder of the banished than of the true folk.”
“I am true,” Penny says, but her courage is failing her. It’s
those years of secret meetings in abandoned subway rooms, led by a man
who wanted nothing more than to exploit them. Use them. Always
reminding them that they were of the sea but could not be part of it.
“Penny fought side by side with me right on this shore,” I say.
“Can any of you say the same?”
Some cross their arms, refusing to look at me. Others look torn
between what they’ve always been told and a future that is completely
unknown.
“Most of you have known me for the blink of an eye.” I point to
both sides of the room. “It’s a lot to ask for your trust, but know
that you are not just bait to me. And if you can’t at least be civil
with each other, then we’re all dead.”
The warehouse is silent for a long time. Everyone trades
suspicious glances until finally my friends decide to lead by example.
Dylan walks up to me and bows his head, then nods to the Alliance and
landlocked behind me. He takes Penny’s hand and shakes it. His men
follow suit, bowing at me on the way to take arms with strangers.
I have a knot in my stomach, waiting for swords to fly, but it
doesn’t happen. Finally there are a few merpeople left, still on their
side. They’re older, and under the fluorescent lights their skin is
tinged with an algae-colored paleness.
“I’m not shaking hands with him,” the old merman says, pointing at
Jim with the flashlight dangling from his forehead.
Jim turns his cheek to the old man but doesn’t respond. I suspect
he’s had a lifetime of those kinds of comments.
But the old man persists, walking toward him with an accusatory
finger pointed at him. “His father was there the first time around
with Nieve. He and his kind should have stayed buried in their caves.”
Jim, who I’ve never seen smile before, bares a hideous set of
teeth. His jaw unhinges and elongates further than his upper lip.
The old man draws his sword.
And then so does everyone else.
I bang my scepter on the ground again. “Get. Back.”
The old man looks like he wants nothing more than to drive that
blade into the closest body he can find. So I stand between him and
Jim.
“If you won’t consider the things I’ve said, then the best thing
for you to do is leave.”
Some of the mermaids gasp.
“Do you know who I am, boy?” the old merman says.
“No, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”