The Savage Blue

There’s someone else in the room with us.

Gwen takes a step back and grabs Kai’s arm to keep her in place. Kai’s whole body trembles as she cries. I hold my finger over my lips and flick my eyes down. Along with the hiccups Kai is trying to hold back, the whisper of her tears running down her face, I hear an extra heartbeat and a sob that shouldn’t be there.

Gwen hears it too, and I follow her cloudy gray eyes down. For the first time, I see the set of toes under the table. I unsheathe my dagger slowly. I reach under and grab hold of a handful of hair.

“Please!” His arms go right to his face as a shield. He’s whimpering. “Please. I couldn’t stop them.”

“Let him go, Tristan,” Kai’s voice is raw as gravel. “That’s Delios, my father’s apprentice.”

He looks about fourteen, arms like twigs. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he repeats. “They came and I hid. Master said to hide so I did and then—oh goddess, the screams—they broke things and—”

“What were they?” I ask, though in my heart I already know.

He shakes in Kai’s arms, letting loose the hiccups he was holding back. He turns sadly to the coral bones on the table and he hugs himself. With his long fingers, he taps his forehead three times, the way Kurt does in his Morse-code way. “Merrows. I’ve never seen them so large before. One of them could talk.”

“Archer,” I say.

“What did they want, Del?” Kai asks, rubbing his hair back for comfort.

“The old map. Master wouldn’t cooperate. They tortured him. With the blade. You have to know just where to cut, you see, to not kill our kind so quickly. To make it last…”

“As if she knew we were coming,” I say.

The silence returns.

“Where is the map?” Gwen asks.

Del can’t take his eyes off Gwen. From the pearly scales covering her breasts to the damp mess of blond hair. He licks his lips nervously and brushes his hair back in a bad attempt at cleaning up. We follow his eyes to the wall behind us where an onyx circle tablet as wide as my spread arms is embedded into the wall. There’s a crack at the center of the tree. I touch the grooves that must be from Archer’s fist. Despite that, the tree on the tablet is grand with branches reaching up to the sky. Right at the roots, a tiny waterfall spills into a spring.

“If this is the map, then what does it mean? It’s just clouds and stars and stuff.”

“Actually,” Del holds his finger up to the deep silver crannies marking stars, “these are constellations. Cancer over here.” Del gets a geeky smile on his face. It turns my stomach into knots. Ryan used to get that look on his face when I’d ask him to help me with my biology homework. They even have the same naïve glimmer in their eyes. Hopeful—

“But where is it in the sea?” Gwen presses. “On this earth and not the heavens?”

Del rummages through the things on a shelf, looking back to smile at Gwen, and pulls out a roll of parchment. It’s an old map of the world.

“This is from eighty years ago,” I point out. “Alaska is America now. Also, the Soviet Union is dismantled or something.”

“In one way, yes. The surface of the earth is different than below it. There are more tunnels and caves down here than you humans would ever dream of. It’s a labyrinth, hiding everything the world has forgotten. Some are prisons. Some are palaces. I’ve been studying it for fourscore years, but even I still need to reference manuals. Human maps only show the surface of the world. We need dozens of maps to show our layers beneath the earth.”

Kai stands closer to me. I put a hand on her shoulder but she doesn’t move.

“No wonder my ears won’t un-pop.”

“Get on with it,” Gwen urges.

Del draws a line with charcoal from the middle of the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea. “This pass right here is where you want to go. The Cross-Atlantic Channel should take you there. The caves are protected by the ancient magics. But as long as the trident is broken, the magic won’t hold.”

“And to think,” Gwen says darkly, “a young merman like you knows what the heralds of our kingdom do not.”

It sounds like a compliment to Del, but there’s acid to her tone. She shakes it off immediately and forcibly avoids eye contact.

“I can take us there,” Kai says.

“Kai—you’ve been through a lot,” I say. “I can’t thank you enough. But maybe you should take Del to Toliss.”

“No!” she barks. “My father led a long life. Don’t feel sorry for me. It is not the way of our kind. This was his secret to bear and I will make sure it is kept. I’m going with you.”

I squeeze her hand and nod. There aren’t enough words for me to thank her.

“When I was younger, my father used to take me to collect samples there. There are shipwrecks for miles down there. I knew it was sacred land. The king forbade traveling there.”

“What about me?” Del squeaks.

“Go to Toliss,” I say. “Tell no one but the king.” I look through my backpack for anything I can find. I have a sealed packet of gummy bears. “Give him this. He likes candy.”

Kai runs into the back room and returns wielding a short metal sword. “Take this.”

“What’s th-that for?” Del’s voice cracks. Man, I’m glad I hit puberty before becoming a merman.

I press my finger on the tip. It’s slightly dull, but it’ll do the trick. “Just in case anything tries to eat you, bro.”

“Yes, sir. Lord Sea. I mean, thank you, Lord Sea.”

I pat his back, trying to remember the fear that comes with driving a sword into something—anyone, no matter how terrible. We follow the cold stone path back to the channels and I tell him, “Just call me Tristan.”





Eels scatter as we race between boulders and down ridges with nothing to light the way except the Scepter of Earth. The graceful movement of Kai’s fins has become quick, flicking like a whip. Along the way, she cries out in a song. I can feel it snaking in and out of my heart, filling all the empty places. Longing, sadness—it’s all there sifting out of me into the water.

We swim hard and fast until I think my tail will fall off. Nearly an hour passes before we can locate the channel. It’s not like highways with big green signs ticking off miles.

No matter how hard I try, the current is so hard that my face might as well be the grill of my dad’s car catching lots of little sea bugs. The water gets warmer and bluer as we go along.

Kai is the first to pull out of the channel. This time, Gwen makes a face and holds on to her stomach like she’s seasick, which makes me laugh until I realize puking underwater is probably worse than on the surface.

The ground is speckled with geysers. When they blow, we’re surrounded by warm bubbles. Here there’s a shipwreck, the bones of the ship covered in coral and seaweed and shadow.

Kai hovers around a thick yellow patch of weeds. She parts the grass in half, then, unsatisfied, moves along to the next.

“What are you looking for?” My voice comes out in a clear vibration.

“The entrance.”

“What does it look like?”

“I’ll know when I see it.”

We sift through a soccer field of weeds and still there’s nothing but sand and rock and the hollow skeletons of shipwrecks. An entire fleet must’ve sunk here. Golden trinkets are strewn about, along with soggy rags and undisturbed human bones.

“Over here!” Gwen shouts.

Past the ships, away from the geysers where stiff green trees sway in a semi-circle, there is a speck of gold beneath the sand. The ground has been turned over and littered with gravel. The three of us dig with our hands until we uncover the round door. It’s solid gold with the image of the tree etched in it, like a manhole steaming in the middle of Times Square.

“Be careful,” I say. “They might still be down there.” I head down first with the light of my scepter. The tunnel is gray stone, glistening where light hits. Maybe it’s the plummeting darkness. Maybe it’s the pressure of being down here. Maybe it’s just my nerves, the idea that Nieve and Archer are on the other end of this tunnel. But there’s an acrid taste on my tongue.

Something hits my shoulder. Then more and more, fish swimming against our current. Only, they’re not swimming. They’re dead. Pale and gray, fleshy mouths wide open. There’s a faint taste of sulfur and minerals in the water.

And with one forceful push, the current turns, like someone pulled the drain stopper out of the sink, and we’ve got nowhere to go but down.

•••

I spit out the water in my mouth. It tastes like rocks. Not that I’ve licked a lot of rocks. My head throbs right where I’ve landed on long, wet grass. My tail licks at the air, and I lie back and grip the ground, concentrating on the half shift and bracing for the tear of my legs.

I roll out my ankles. Crack my knees. When I stand, my legs give out. “Holy leg cramp.”

On my knees, I look up. I don’t see the tunnel we came out of. It’s like the air just opened up and dumped us here. But at least there is sky. Lots of it. Stars move like a mobile against a dark blue night that fades to the sun hanging low. It doesn’t seem to be moving, just hovering and tainting the horizon with pinks and yellow.

“How are we under the sky?” I hold out a hand to help the girls stand.

“It’s Eternity.” Kai dusts ash from her elbow. “It is its own world.”

Gwen bends back, cracking her bones. “I can’t believe I’m here.”

We’re surrounded by a bright green field. The grass blows in a breeze that is refreshing on our wet skins. I take a step forward, disturbing the grass. Fat butterflies with glowing wings scatter. The change inside me is instant. The pain in my ribs vanishes. I close my eyes and inhale the happiness of sun on slick tanning oil, blue skies and cool sand, the warmth of a kiss. “Wow. Do you smell that?”

“I don’t smell anything,” Gwen says. “Except for wilting grass.”

Kai leans her face to the sky, which feels like it’s moved closer to us. “I smell parchment. And squid ink. I used to get it all over my hands. And the sweet crab cakes my mom used to make.”

“Look.” In the distance, there’s a great big tree with gnarly branches atop a hill.

A bird with a white beak and red feathers flies past us. He lands on a stone smack in the middle of a dried stream. He pecks at the water and tiny glowing things that float like pollen.

“The stream leads to the tree,” Kai says.

“Is it supposed to be this…dry?” I pull a blade of grass and it turns to ash in my palm.

Gwen bends back down to the earth. The patch where we fell is losing color, yellowing under cracked dirt. The ashen earth breaks away in her fingertips. “There is a pulse here. It’s faint.”

“Hurry,” I say, pointing forward with my scepter. We follow the stream toward the tree. The dribble of a stream washes over mossy stones. The animals here are tiny. I can’t imagine it would be able to support anything else. I try to picture the stream full to the brim, the grass bright and blue, and mermaids swimming and lying on the banks. I try to imagine living here forever.

When we reach the tree, the sun is still in the same place over the horizon. The tree is as tall as the sky, branches yawning and shuddering back into place. Leaves fall all around us, on the grass, in the spring nestled at the roots of the tree.

“I’m pretty sure I can make a fort under here.” I pat the fat arched roots of the tree. A piece of bark comes away like a scab. I try to put it back into place, but then I just let it drop into the water.

Tiny animals emerge from the insides of the tree. They’re all glowing from the inside out. Ladybugs and dragonflies. Tiny translucent frogs hop from roots to toadstools. One frog shoots out a neon green tongue and catches a dragonfly twice its size. The bug seizes inside the frog and lights up its belly.

“Why aren’t there any big animals?” I ask.

Kai shrugs, stumped for the first time. Her sad eyes scan everything—the sky, the parched trunk of the tree, the tall grass, and leaves the size of my head. “I suppose they left when we left.”

“What’s wrong?” I put my hand on her shoulder.

“I think I landed wrong on my ankle.” She sticks out her leg.

“Let’s try something.” I go to the tree where a small trickle falls into the brackish water. I take my water bottle from swim practice, swish out the blue energy drink at the bottom, and refill it with the water from the waterfall. I bring it to Kai and make her drink.

Nothing happens at first, but then it happens so fast I almost miss it. The swelling and redness disappears, along with the fissures of glass on her hands. Even her cheekbones are flushed, which is better than the sickly green thing she had going on.

Then the chirping dies down. The frogs jump back into the pond. Grass rustles in the breeze. The dryness of the ground is encroaching, sucking the lush green from the blades and leaving wilted hay.

“Tristan, look,” Kai says.

A bright light fills the trunk of the tree. The waterfall dies, and a creature emerges from within. First, a golden head. I cannot see her face but I’m too stunned to care. She grips the sides of the trunk and pushes herself out. It’s like she’s been dipped in golden paint, down to her nails, down to the softness of her forelegs kicking out in the water with gold hooves, until lastly her hind legs are out. Her tail swishes at the water playfully, coming out of the stream and onto the bank across from where the three of us stand.

“What is she?” My mouth is open.

I’m expecting her to neigh, but her mouth is a bird’s beak. Her black eyes are a stark contrast against the gold contours of her face. She is like the pure light of the sun, and I can’t stop looking at her.

“She’s a centaur,” Kai says. Then leaves a pause for the obvious: but she’s got a beak.

The centaur gallops in a circle, then stops to bow in my direction. She spreads her arms wide, then up to the sky. The water at the base of the tree is rippling, the light as bright as the stars, swirling into a funnel. And I can see it. The golden head of the trident. A thin spark of lightning shoots from the prongs and up into the velvet blue sky. The sparks rain back down in a drizzle of lights. Insects buzz, vibrating their song into the breeze. I head straight for the trident like my feet are possessed.

Then the oracle cries out, sharp like a falcon. A shadow springs from behind the great tree, jumping on the centaur’s back. His massive arms wrap around her throat. She can’t cry out. His weight makes her legs tremble and give out.

“I knew you’d make it, brother,” Archer says.

He’s got her arms pinned down, a muscular thigh across her body. She kicks out and pecks at him until he lets go. He hits her hard and she falls down.

“The trident,” Kai yells behind me.

The head of the trident spins inches over a tiny whirlpool.

I push off the ground as hard as I can, but so does Archer.

The air around us is a vacuum, sucking the trident back into the dark water. Archer splashes in first. I kick and pull myself out of the spring. I roll over onto the dry grass and shout at the oracle. “Where did you send it?”

Archer lunges at me. Birds cry and flutter away. The tree sheds a torrent of leaves. He’s got one hand on my throat and one on my wrist, pinning me to the ground. I’m holding my scepter with all my strength, using my other arm to grip his neck, but it’s like trying to squeeze a baseball bat.

I bring up my knee, but even though I hit him where it hurts, all he does is grunt the pain away.

He lets go of my throat and grabs my scepter. The effect is instant. His skin burns, blackening where flesh curls into itself. His scream is terrible, and as he drops it, I smile. It’s a stupid thing to do because that’s what he wants. Every part of my hatred and anger feeds him.

Archer rights himself, panting. He holds his palm up. The black blood dries on his palms, healing instantly.

Gwen and Kai form a barricade in front of the oracle, but Archer smacks them away. Even Gwen’s outstretched fingers sizzle, powerless.

“Where did you send it?” Archer is a wild thing, grabbing the oracle around her middle and bringing her down. I run behind him and use my scepter as a bat. No, no, no. He can’t hurt her. He can’t.

He turns to me and hits me right in the gut.

I fall to my knees. Need. Breath.

He holds his arms over his head, the crooked curves of his dagger facing down.

I step forward.

“Death sets fire to the eternal well, brother.” A slick wet sound fills the air.

“I am not your brother!” When my hand closes around my scepter, a great bolt of light shoots out into the sky. Then the sky spits it back in tiny balls of fire that singe the dry earth.

The oracle is slumped behind Archer. Her blood is red fire, dripping over her and into the ground. The flames sizzle, consuming and spreading all around.

I pull out my dagger and drive it through Archer’s chest. He groans at first, but then he returns it with a right hook. “Mother wishes to see you, so I can’t hurt your face too badly.”

He cocks his head to the side, predatory and seductive. Then he looks to Gwen and Kai and seems torn. Like he can’t decide which one he’s going to attack. “We will all be a family soon.”

Then he plunges into the black pool beneath the tree.

Smoke fills the sky, which feels too low and the land too small. Dry earth breaks off in chunks and sinks into the encroaching blackness. Eternity.

Frogs and even birds dive right into the mouth of the pond beneath the tree.

Something is quivering inside the trunk.

“Kai,” I say, in warning. Everything, the earth around us, is consumed by a black void, breaking off into space.

“We have to go.” Gwen sinks one foot into the spring. “Now.”

“We don’t know where that leads,” I say.

“The only other options are getting sucked out into a nothingness or burning up,” Kai shouts.

Birds and butterflies fall right from the sky, dead all around us. The leaves of the tree have caught fire. One lands right on Kai’s shoulder. It leaves an angry red blotch.

“Come on!” Gwen pounds the ground. It cracks beneath her fist, spreading under Kai. She slips and I scramble to my feet and yank her onto what’s left of solid ground.

The gnarly old tree stretches up again, and this time the branches pierce the sky. A branch reaches up and touches a star. The flame ignites and courses down the dry bark.

Gwen jumps into the pool.

I hold Kai’s hand and we run in together, sinking like stones down a black tunnel. But I keep my eyes open, skyward.

Even the sky is on fire.





The spring leads us back to the sprawl of shipwrecks and geysers.

The same fish. The same light. As if nothing has changed since we left.

But that isn’t right. Everything is changing.

I sift through patches of grass and try to find the door again but it’s gone. In its place is turned-over grass. I use my scepter to blast at the ground, showering us in slow-settling clouds of rock and sand.

Over by the biggest ship, in front of a sea garden of colorful plants, Kai kneels. She presses her forehead to the sea floor. Fish swim around her like a kindness of ravens around a graveyard.

“What should we do?” Gwen swims beside me.

“I think someone should go back to Toliss. Tell my grandfather everything that’s happened.”

“He won’t like that we’ve been to the spring. Or that it’s—gone.”

I groan, which sounds like gurgling. “It doesn’t matter. He needs to get the island prepared in case of an attack.”

Kai swims in circles around us as if she senses something in the water. “The fish, Tristan. They’re gone.”

I see him from the corner of my eye. The merrow has a long red face, eyes like ink smudges, and tiny rows of black teeth. Long red thorns protrude from his arm. In one sling, they shoot out at us. Kai swims to the right, but a thorn tacks her tail to the wood of the ship. She pulls, ripping the flesh bloody. In seconds, it mends again.

The merrow is about to blow on the golden conch hanging from his chest, when he goes into a frenzy at the scent of her blood. He swims after her and Gwen holds out her hands. A bright light bursts from her palms, throwing him backward. He spins and dives back for them. I throw a rock at his head to get his attention. The power of the scepter surges through me. Anger, that’s the trigger. Right now, my anger is all consuming. The quartz lights up, and as quick as lightning, I hit the red merrow in his chest. He explodes in black chunks of meat and red scaly flesh. They float everywhere, contaminating the water around us.

Kai picks up the conch with her delicate fingers. She brushes off the black sludge and slings it around her shoulder.

I make a face and she says, “These are really useful.”

“We have to go back.” Gwen stares at the fleshy pieces descending to the sea floor and grimaces. She swims ahead, her melancholy song leading the way back.

•••

When we near the New York coast, Kai turns away and heads for Toliss. For a moment, I contemplate stopping there myself. I’ve only been there once, but find myself drawn to the clear lake of the court, the merfolk drinking and dancing and soaking up the sun. I want to stand before my grandfather and show him the scepter. I want to yell at him for leaving me in the dark my whole life. I would demand answers. I would say, “Are you happy now?”

Instead, I keep swimming, Gwen trailing quietly behind me until we reach Coney Island. We surface a bit away from shore to make sure we aren’t seen. The moon casts a silvery light on the beach. The rides are still shut off.

I half-shift onto the sand and let myself fall into the surf. I’ll regret it later when I’m trying to wash sand out of my crevices, but right now it feels so good. When I was little, I’d paddle around right at the edge and pretend I was Robinson Crusoe and I’d just washed up on shore.

I flip over and stare at the bruised plum of the twilight sky. There’s a sound in the distance, like a siren. My insides feel smooshed together, as if someone is stepping on my lungs. I bang my fists into the wet, soft sand.

“Don’t do that, Tristan.” Gwen sits beside me. The surf blankets our feet. “You haven’t lost yet.”

My laugh is bitter. “She keeps coming out of my blind spot because I stop expecting her.”

“The rules have changed. Nieve has always been there. Perhaps you should start seeing her as a new champion.”

“Yeah, one with an army.”

She laughs. How can she be funny at a time like this?

“Adaro has an army,” she says. “So do Brendan and Dylan. Even Kurtomathetis commands his own battalion of the guard.”

“That leaves me.” I sit up, bending my face to my knees.

“I can’t believe the kings have kept the springs from us for so long.” She stares ahead. “Then again, kings have many secrets.”

“How do you know?”

She doesn’t answer. Her white blond hair blows all over her face. She self-consciously covers the thin pear-colored slits where her gills would be. Right over that are long layers of scars that trace from the opening of her ear down to her clavicle.

“Stop staring,” she whispers, tracing the scar along her throat. “It isn’t polite.”

I know I shouldn’t ask but I want to know. “How did he do it?”

Her hand remains on her scars.

“You never talk about it, Gwen.”

Her face is hard. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

“He hurt you. The man you were supposed to marry actually hurt you.” She gets up and walks down the shore away from me. I hate how casual she is about it. “Wasn’t there anyone you could go to?”

“He’s dead. Twice over. Don’t bring it up again.” She stops and faces me. “Why do you care?”

“You’re my friend.” I grab her by the shoulders and smile. “Even if you don’t want to admit it.”

Her face is smooth and she’s looking at me like she wants more from me than I can give her. Her eyes are like little moons and she sets them on me. She rests her hands on my chest. The breeze is cold where my shoulders have just begun to dry off. A drop trickles down my spine. In this light, at the base of the pier, her scars are iridescent. Her lips are pink and swollen. With her index finger, she traces my jawline, tucks my hair behind my ear.

She leans up to kiss me.

I turn my face away. “I can’t.”

“Right.” The little moons turn into little storms. She backs away. “You’ve already got someone.”

“It’s not that I don’t think you’re beautiful.” I can’t call her hot. She is, but she’s more than that. She’s this burst of lightning and the calm right after it all in one. She’s just not for me.

“Can’t blame a mermaid for trying.”

My laughter is nervous. “You’re the one who said I never had a chance with you.”

“That’s before I really knew you.” She brushes her hair away from her face. “When I heard they were presenting you at court, I thought you’d be a stupid skin sack.”

“Why do you even call humans that? Merpeople have skin too.”

“And you make me laugh. I saw how insanely brave and stupid you can be for your friends. Elias never cared for me that way. It made me long for that. Maybe I just liked the way you held that scepter.”

Gwen turns over her shoulder with that mischievous smile. She closes the space between us and brushes away the scales at my hips to reveal the skin beneath. “Is her hold over you so strong?”

And I don’t hesitate, holding her by her shoulders at a distance. “There is nothing I wouldn’t do for her.”

Layla. The name hangs between us like a pendulum ready to snap.

“You can do better than me.” I rummage for clothes in my backpack. They’re all wet, but it’s better than walking home in glittery underwear.

“I’m not used to having an actual choice in this. Before, Elias was it.”

I hug her. Her hands hang at her sides at first. I can feel her breath hitch.

“That’s the great thing about now,” I tell her. “Now, you get a real choice.”





My feet feel foreign.

They’re numb. Awkward. Possessed.

They’re leading me past my own street.

No, I can’t go home yet. I can’t stand in my kitchen and cross off the end of another day.

I pick up the pay phone and dial her number. On the second ring, she picks up.

“Did I wake you?” I can hear her rub her eyes and kick the covers off.

“Tristan?”

“Only if you want it to be.”

“Shut up. Where are you?”

“Down the block at the bodega.”

“My dad is this far away from putting remote control bars on all the doors and windows because of you.”

“That’s never stopped you before,” I taunt.

“Is everything okay?”

I inhale loudly. Nothing comes out. “I’ll be on your porch.” I hang up and turn the corner.

•••

Her mom’s garden is overgrowing, leaves wild and swaying in the cool night. I used to pluck a flower and give it to Mrs. Santos. She never complained that I took it from her own garden. “You look like crap,” Layla says.

“Exactly what I wanted to hear after swimming in torpedo-fast underwater currents for over ten hours.”

She comes around from the back entrance. She’s wearing her black Guardian Knight T-shirt and denim shorts. I wonder if she sleeps in her underwear. As if she knows what I’m thinking, she smacks me on the back of the head. “I’m familiar with that grin on your face.”

She sits beside me, and I get a hot flash. Damn, I thought these things only happened to women. She burrows herself into my shoulder and says, “Tell me.”

I run my hand along the top of her hair. Why is it that girls have this effect? Things like long hair and long eyelashes and the smell of flowers just throw me. I squeeze the bridge of my nose.

“Tristan, you’re shaking.”

She rubs the cold away from my arms. The iridescent sheen of where my scales were rubs off on her palms. For a moment, she smiles down at her hands, then at my face. Then dusts it away and says, “Gross.”

It calms me, and I tell her about Violet (she laughs) and Kai (she laughs some more). Then the sea dragon. (No, I didn’t hurt it, thanks.) Kai’s father. Eternity burning.

“The oracle was a centaur?”

I nod. “I was expecting a mermaid or something with tentacles.”

“Actually that makes sense, because Poseidon did create a horse as a gift to Artemis.”

I take her head in my hands and kiss it. “Smart chicks are so hot.”

She bats me away. “I just read, you dumb jock.”

We laugh together and it’s the best I’ve felt all week. Except for yesterday in the locker room, but this is an inside kind of good. I remember Kai singing underwater for her father, the way it made me long for something more. That’s why I couldn’t kiss Gwen. That’s why I can’t kiss anyone but Layla.

“That’s horrible about Kai’s dad.”

“They’re weird about death. It’s like they take a moment to see it happen and then they move on. It doesn’t feel natural. And he literally turned into coral.” I sit up. “I wonder what will happen when I die, since I’m half and half?”

“Don’t,” she whispers. “Don’t say that.”

“There’s a chance,” I admit. “I was so close to that trident. But I hesitated because I wanted to help the oracle. In the end, she died anyway. Nieve is stronger every day and she’s coming for me.”

“Then you just have to be stronger than her.” Layla makes it sound so easy.

I hold her tighter. “When I’m with you, I feel like I can do anything. I don’t want to mess this up.”

“Us? Or the championship?”

This sounds like one of those girl trick questions that I shouldn’t answer. I’m too quiet. Every part of me hurts. I should drink some of the spring water but I want to save it for something more important, not just wimpy pains I can get at the gym.

“It doesn’t matter,” she says. “There can’t be an us anyway.”

“Shut up, dude,” I scoff. “You’re so totally my girlfriend. You’ve been dying to be my girlfriend since we were in the sandbox. Marked your territory by peeing on me and everything. I’m just going to tell everyone that you’re my girl, and then you’ll make me look like a loser when you try to deny it. Can you really do that to me?”

She punches me in the ribs and I kind of exaggerate the pain so she’ll rub it. “Seriously, Tristan. This is fun, admittedly. But we shouldn’t do that to each other. Not now, at least.”

“Why? One,” I count my fingers in front of her face, “you like me. You know how I can tell? You keep feeling up on me all over the place. Don’t act like it’s my mer thing because you like my mer thing just fine.”

I brace for the next jab in the ribs, harder than the first.

“I knew Angelo shouldn’t have taught you to fight.”

“Are you done?” She sits back. “Was that the one reason?”

I pop my lips. “Yep.”

“My turn,” she says. “One, I’ve known 80 percent of the girls you’ve ‘dated.’”

“Don’t. Come on. Don’t use air quotes.”

“Two, you’re a merman.”

“I can’t control that. That’s like your hair when it gets frizzy in the summer or the crooked little toe on your right foot.” I realize that won’t help my case.

“Three, I can’t breathe underwater, Tristan. I’ve thought about this since it first happened and I-I trust you with my whole life. But this—where does it leave me when you’re king and I’m stranded on the Coney Island beach wondering which ocean you’re in?”

“Layla, I will never leave you.”

“You aren’t listening to what I’m saying.” She grabs chunks of her hair and then smooths them down. “We’ve waited sixteen years to be together. I think we can wait another week and see what happens.”

I take her hands in mine. But I don’t want to wait another week. So I’m like, “I don’t want to wait another week.”

That’s the thing about girls. Sometimes they say one thing and they mean another. She traces the outline of my lips and gives me a quick kiss.

“See?” I say, to prove my point.

“Hey, what happened to Gwen and Kai?”

“Kai went to alert my grandfather, just in case.” At the mention, I think of Gwen trying to kiss me. Should I tell Layla? Unbidden, Angelo’s voice pops into my head and he says, “She didn’t ask so don’t tell her.”

I say, “Gwen went wherever she goes.”

“Do you hear that?”

“Sirens,” I say. “A lot of them the last couple of days.”

Sunrise creeps over the houses across the street. The siren horn dies down, and Layla and I are sitting on her front porch. I remember what Gwen said about thinking of Nieve like I would another champion. I’ve been to three oracles. How many of the other champions can say that?

“New battle plan.” I slap my knees and stand up. All of my joints pop and ache. My mind is dizzy with exhaustion. “It seems everyone’s got themselves an army.”

Layla’s eyes peel back to me with this new realization. “So what you need is—”

“An army of my own.”