“Just be careful,” Ling said now. “I followed you to Atlantis, but I can’t follow you to Cerulea.”
“Where are you headed?” asked Sera.
“Back to my village. I want to talk with my great-grandmother about all this. She’s very wise. If there are any legends about Merrow visiting our waters, she’ll know them. There might be a clue in a Qin fable or folksong. But I’m going to make a detour, too. To the Great Abyss.”
Sera gave her a long look. “And you think Atlantis is dangerous?”
“I know, I know,” Ling said. “But it’s the last place my father went before he disappeared. I feel close to him there, as if he never died.”
Ling had told Sera and Neela about her father’s death. It had happened a year ago, while he was exploring the Abyss. His body was never recovered.
“I miss my father, too. We used to ride together all the time,” Sera said. “If I could, I’d go back to the palace stables. I know I’d feel his spirit there. But I don’t even know if our hippokamps are still around, or if the stables are still standing.” She laughed bitterly. “I don’t even know if the palace is.”
Sera could still see the Blackclaw dragon as it tore through the palace’s walls. And her father’s lifeless body falling through the water. She could see the arrow as it sank into her mother’s chest. And the soldiers descending from above. She knew that these images would never leave her, nor would the sorrow they made her feel. But she also knew now that she had to face her losses—as hard as that would be. Vr?ja had been right when she’d told her that she needed to go home.
Someone else had been right, too, and Sera hadn’t acknowledged it. If she didn’t do it now, she might never get the chance again.
“Hey, Ling?”
“Mmm?” Ling said, chewing a limpet.
“Before we head out, there’s something I need to say….I’m sorry for not listening to you. Back near the Dun?rea. When you said I had to face the fact that my mother might not be alive.”
“Forget it, Sera. You already apologized for that.”
“No, I didn’t. I apologized for going shoaling, not for refusing to listen to you. You tried to make me see what I needed to do. You said that omnivoxas had a responsibility to speak not only words, but the truth. You never backed down from that responsibility, even when I was being angry and stupid. I just want you to know that I think that’s really brave.”
Ling shrugged. “I used to get picked on a lot. Back home. I had to develop guts early on. You need them to take on your enemies.”
“And your friends,” Sera said ruefully.
Ling laughed. The two mermaids finished eating, and then it was time to leave.
“Gotta go save the world,” Ling said, picking up her bag.
“Take care of yourself,” Serafina said, hugging her tightly.
“You too,” said Ling, hugging her back.
As Sera swam away, she glanced back at Ling. Her friend looked so small in the distance, so alone.
“Yes, we have to save the world, Ling…but who’s going to save us?” she wondered aloud.
And then she turned and began the long journey home.
“YOU ARE NOT the Princess Neela,” sniffed Matali’s subassistant to the third minister of the interior under the oversecretary of the Emperor’s Chamber. “The Princess Neela wouldn’t be caught dead dressed like that. You are an imposter. Obviously disturbed. Possibly dangerous. You must leave the palace right now or I shall call the guards.”
Neela groaned. She’d been arguing with the subassistant, the gatekeeper to the Emperor’s Chamber, for a solid ten minutes. And that was after she’d argued with the executive assistant to the keeper of the portcullis, the senior assistant to the chamberlain of the Emperor’s Courtyard, and the assistant chief steward, twice removed, of the exterior grand foyer.