natural weather of this plane.”
“This puts me and mine back in the game,” Frederik says, eyeing
the map like he’s trying to sink my battleship.
“Once I free the Sleeping Giants,” I say, “I think we can expect
thunderstorms with a chance of hellfire. I don’t know where the other
two will be coming from, but the kraken is inside Toliss.” See, Kurt?
I think. I did pay attention to some of the things you babbled about.
“That creature hasn’t been awake in years,” Thalia says.
“Then it’s sure as hell going to be cranky when it wakes up,” I
say, explaining that each trident piece corresponds to a different sea
beastie. “I get Doris, the badass sea horse with claws. Nieve, the
kraken. And Kurt, the turtle with the spike collar.”
“Why are we giving Nieve and Kurt more power?” Layla asks.
“They won’t know what’s happening. That’s where I have the upper
hand. I can attack Nieve’s merrows and open the field for your
entrance. I know we can beat them.”
Once again they break into a chorus of indecipherable arguments.
That I’m insane to wake these creatures up. That I don’t know if I’ll
be able to control them. But among all of their noise, all I see are
Shelly’s dark, sad eyes. I hold my palm up so she can see it. There’s
the scar that bears the promise I made to the nautilus maid. To end
her life and set free the Sleeping Giants of the sea. To use them to
put an end to Nieve, to start a new world for everyone in this
building.
She nods once, and then her voice is in my head. “I know.”
Frederik’s head turns to the door. “The gates just opened, and
patrol isn’t due to change for another twelve minutes.”
I run after him, leaning over the banister to see what the
commotion is about. The downstairs hall is filling up with mermen in
armor. I don’t recognize their faces, most of them with patches of
scars. They shake hands with my army of strays and unload their
weapons. One of them looks up at where I stand frozen, staring
unbelieving at them.
“Master Tristan,” Arion says. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
I pull Arion into a man-hug. “I looked for you, and you weren’t
there.”
He smacks my back affectionately. “The blast severed my rope. I
woke up on a strange beach. As soon as I could, I swam to some old
friends. They’re here to fight for you.”
I shake hands with the newcomers. We feed them and give them
water. Dylan is fascinated with their weapons craftsmanship. I leave
him to prepare the artillery for the battle.
“Come, Arion,” I say. “We’re going over our strategy.”
It’s strange and wonderful to see him walking. The black and white
scales on his forearms have patches of pearly scars where his ropes
used to be, but not anymore. The roundtable welcomes him with open
arms. Kai hugs him the longest.
I catch him up on what we’ve discussed. He agrees with my plan,
which makes me feel like I got an A on a test I hardly studied for.
“What about our fin-challenged friends?” I ask.
“I can swim.” Marty raises his hand.
“It’s best to save that energy for fighting,” Brendan points out.
“Master Tristan,” Arion says.
“Just Tristan.”
He smiles, but I know him better than that. “I have a ship. It is
yours.”
“Thank you, Arion. We’ll load it up tonight.” I can see in my
team’s faces that they’re more and more hopeful that we’ve got this.
“Brendan, Kai,” I continue. “Mix and match our troops into small
teams. They may have the numbers, but I’d love to watch a merrow
figure out what to do when a werewolf is coming at them.”
Ewin points to the Toliss drawing. “I understand there is only one
beach on this island.”
Thalia nods. “Toliss can be entered two ways, through the beach or
through the tunnels. The rest of the island is comprised of cliffs.”
At the thought of cliffs, I remember Karel pushing me off them.
“There is a third way,” Frederik points out. The merpeople are
confused as Frederik draws birds above Toliss. “We have wings at our
disposal.”
“Where will you be, Tristan?” Layla asks. I can feel her jitters.
She’s good at hiding it, but her nerves smell of smoke.
“After I send out my signal,” I say. “Leave finding Nieve to me.”
“What about my brother?” Thalia whispers.
I swallow the dryness that coats my mouth. My heartbeat spikes
because I have to tell her. “He’s already there.”
“What do you mean, he’s already there?” She gets up, her chair
smacking the floor. Layla goes to calm her down. Thalia balls her
hands into fists, as if she can take all her anger and choke it. “He
wouldn’t.”
“I know my sister,” Shelly says. “She’s been obsessed with the boy
since he was born. She must know that Nieve would kill him. Joining
forces with her would keep him alive.”
“She’s controlling him,” Thalia raises her voice. “She has to be.”
“He chose her,” I say, though I wish I could agree with Thalia. “I
saw it.”
Thalia sits back down, her jaw set, her yellow-green eyes full of
fire.
“Then it’s settled,” I say, after a moment of silence. The plan is
set. “Now, raise your hand if you don’t know how to swim.”
My army of solitary beings and court mermaids sleeps. Or at least
they try. After an hour of twisting and turning on a floor that still
smells of greasy pizza and fish, I give up. Everything I see is black.
There’s no Kurt. No Nieve. I wonder if they’ve finally figured out our
connection too.
Wind whistles through the top of the broken window. Rotating
shifts patrol the shoreline, but I know there won’t be any trouble.
Not for a few hours at least.
Off in a corner, Marty and Brendan are having a snoring
competition. I’m tempted to take a bit of leftover pizza crust and
throw it in their wide-open mouths. Amada is in her Naga form in a
hammock because she doesn’t know how to sleep in her human body. The
merpeople downstairs are still unnerved by her, but no one is saying
anything, not after she let the young merboys ride on her back and
kept them from crying while their parents prepared for battle.
I decide to go downstairs where every inch of the warehouse has
turned into a campsite. Some can sleep better than others. Children
cry and mothers shush them. A guard with a trident tattoo leans his
head back against the wall. His eyes are shut, but he twists the
dagger in his hands over and over.
I start ticking off numbers to have a full count of my army of
strays, but it’s pointless. Most of the Thorne Hill Alliance isn’t
sleeping here. They have their own homes right here on Coney Island.
They will fight beside me to protect it. I think of my parents, out in
Long Island where I told them to go until this was all over.
It’s the merpeople I’m scared for. There’s so much riding on me,
and I feel the weight of it. Each one of their lives, like a human
pyramid stacked on my shoulders. I can’t let them fall.
The girls have gotten creative and turned the tables into bed.
They give canvas and rope to the merpeople for pillows. Layla shows a
mother how to make a sling for her baby. It cries out for water so she
fills a wash bucket and it quiets down. No one is allowed to go into
the water.
Not until I give my signal.
“You need sleep,” Frederik says beside me.
I jump. “Did I mention I hate it when you do that?”
He smirks. “Can’t help it.”
“Do you walk on air or something?”