The Savage Blue

Leaning against the side of the ship, we’re still surrounded on all sides by nothing but water. “I thought you said we were nearly there.”

Arion lowers himself on his black ropes. “Take a moment, Master Tristan. Close your eyes.”

It sounds hokey, but I do it.

“Envision your destination.”

“But, I’ve never been there before. How will I know what I’m envisioning?”

“It’s a feeling, Master Tristan. Knowing you have arrived.”

I peek from my left eye. The others are standing with their eyes shut facing the water. Arion nods encouragingly at me.

I know I should be picturing a strip of land. Maybe a white sandy beach. Or a port? A small town where the oracle will be living. The truth is, I have no idea what I should be picturing. I keep thinking of the Coney Island skyline—the pier, the dark water pulling in with the tide, the silhouettes of the Wonder Wheel and the Parachute Jump. It warms my insides because I know when I see that, I’ve come home.

When I open my eyes, I have to rub them shut again. A coastal town flickers in the distance.

“Whoa.” Layla points at it. “Vanishing Cove. They weren’t just being funny when they named it.”

“Yes, Miss Layla,” Arion says. “Humans, even some of our kind, will sail past without knowing it’s there. If you know what you’re looking for, sometimes it’s easier to find.”

As we get closer, I can make out the ascending line of crooked homes along the jagged coast. Ships bigger than ours are docked farther out, letting down rowboats full of passengers. From a tiny strip of beach on the far side of the island, I can see a recently extinguished fire still smoking.

Arion moves his hands skillfully, molding the air. The masts and sails bend in turn to his movements, adjusting to catch the wind from a different angle until we’re nestled in the port between a weather-beaten ship called the Golden Rose and a nameless narrow black ship with a dragon carved into the bow.

The port market smells like the time my friend Angelo’s mom made us go down to Biddy Early’s pub to tell his dad he had to come home. Beer, men, and burning meat. Merchants argue in loud languages I don’t recognize, but the hand gestures suggest the speakers are not exactly loving each other.

“Those guys look friendly.” I set foot on the dock. A wobbly sensation washes over me, as if the sky and the ground have switched places. I know my feet are firmly planted on the ramp, but somehow it’s like I’m floating.

“Jelly legs,” Thalia laughs, hopping beside us and extending her arms out in hang-ten position.

Kurt and Gwen seem unaffected.

I head toward the bow where Arion is making his presence known. He’s hovering midair off the ship on his black ropes, arms crossed over his chest. The usually kind smile is replaced by the same face my mom wears when she’s trying to haggle with a guy at the farmers’ market—all “Five dollars for an apple? I don’t care if it’s organic!”

“Are you going to be okay here?” I ask, not getting a particularly warm feeling from the men unloading other ships. In clothes yellowed by the sea air and with scarred faces, they mutter and point fingers at us.

Arion nods once. “We need supplies. Rope, sails, fresh water. The hull needs a scrubbing. I can find everything we need. Sea mead goes a long way in places like this.” Arion motions back to our ship where Blue and Vi are stacking barrels on deck. “We are the only creatures who manufacture and supply it.”

“Liquid currency,” Layla says. “Seems fitting.”

I hold my arm out to Arion. He taught me a sweet new handshake, the way the guys at the Sea Guard do it. Gripping the forearm, like you’re feeling the other person’s strength. When Arion grips my forearm, I think he might be the strongest person I’ve ever met. “I don’t know how long we’ll be.”

“Do not worry, Master Tristan,” he says. “We will not leave without you.”

And with that, my team—consisting of a commander of the Sea Guard and his sister, a magical mermaid princess, and my best friend and almost girlfriend—head up the dock until it becomes a cobblestone market square. The tents form a loose semi-circle around the church. At the center is a massive cathedral with a bunch of kids kicking a ball around. The gong of a bell sends fat scarlet birds scattering into the sky. The clock marks 5 p.m. The sun is sinking, but the sky is still a gradient of blues.

Layla points at the church. “Doesn’t it remind you of something?”

Tall winding turrets, tiny winged gargoyles and cherubs, high arched windows—yeah. It looks just like our high school. “Thorne Hill.”

We pass an Indian woman standing at a booth, her hair braided to the ground. Her eyes are big as an owl’s with a fringe of white feathers for eyelashes. She weighs beans in her hand and yells at the man trying to sell them to her. When they see us, they stop and fire away with poisonous scowls. The owl woman hoots at me.

“What did I do?” I ask.

“Just keep walking,” Kurt says.

A horse-drawn carriage passes us, stopping in front of the church. The driver hops off to let out a couple. The man takes her arm, and she lifts layers and layers of puffy skirts so they don’t trail on the ground. They walk past us, nodding in our direction but not really looking at us.

“Uhh—” Layla’s eyes follow the couple as they weave through the shops. “Is that carriage a time machine? They look like they just hopped out of 1869. That corset cannot be comfortable.”

Kurt shrugs. “You’ll find many extraordinary people in places like these.”

“What exactly is this place?” I ask Kurt.

“A world away to you two, I suppose.” Kurt picks up an apple from the fruit vendor beside us. He reaches into his pocket and hands the beefy man a shiny copper coin. I’m guessing they don’t take American down here. Kurt gives the apple to Thalia, who gobbles it in quick bites.

The kids playing ball kick it to my feet. I raise my leg to kick it back to them, but one of them runs over in a heartbeat. He has long, pointy ears and sharp green eyes. He sticks out a tongue that’s forked like a snake’s, cackling when I jump back from the shock of it.

“A world away,” Kurt repeats. “There are many more, all over the world. As human numbers grew and pushed anything remotely unnatural farther and farther into the fringes, villages like this were created. Others left with the fey court on floating islands, similar to our Toliss. Then there are those who leave the sanctuary of places like this for the anonymity of cities, like your Coney Island.”

Layla still watches the couple from 1869. “You mean everyone in this town is supernatural?”

“Not at all. There are humans who are more—” His eyes fall on Layla. “…enlightened, that have found themselves here one way or another.”

The marketplace is starting to feel cramped. I’m picking up something in the air. It’s hidden beneath the mounds of smoke and spices. I decide it’s the perfume tent and the throngs of people we pass. “How do we find the way to the oracle?”

Kurt, who’s rarely at a loss for words, stands with his mouth open. “Uh—”

“Look at these!” Layla runs over to a stand with pots and tubes full of colorful smoke called Fazya’s Wish Come True.

Kurt calls out after her—all “Stay together”—but the woman has Layla hooked. The vendor is tall with a wild mane of curls. Her eyes are rimmed black against rich coffee skin.

“Come, my darling,” she says. Her voice is as soft as the smoke in one of those jars. “Come to Fazya.”

I pick one up and give it a shake. The smoke spins in a coil of blood red.

“Tut, tut.” The vendor pries it from my hands. “Mustn’t touch.”

“What in the seas are these?” Kurt demands, not hiding his disgust.

“They’re wishes, of course. What your heart desires.” She sweeps her long, elegant hands over her display—every color of the rainbow and jars in all shapes and sizes. “True love granted. Hair longer than Rapunzel herself. Sight in the darkness. Flight to the heavens. Power in the palm of your hands. Loved ones returned from the dead—”

Thalia’s hand reaches out toward the jar, the vendor’s eyes becoming dark saucers as she does so. She has a hunger that reminds me of Nieve—taunting, searching, waiting.

I take Thalia’s hand and jerk it back, breaking whatever trance was beginning. The jar topples over and cracks with a steam-engine hiss. Fazya’s eyes become red as embers. When she opens her full mouth to hiss at me, a black tongue slithers out, while her hips sashay from side to side. Her sultry voice is replaced by a very flat Brooklyn accent. “Ya break it. Ya bought it.”

Gwen claps. “Good show, Tristan.”

Kurt throws Fazya a gold coin and leads us farther into the market. He gives me a look that screams, “You should know better.” The thing is, I don’t. I’ve never been in a place like this. I might as well be at my dad’s office being reminded not to touch anything.

“We shouldn’t engage with those people. Our goal is to get underground,” Kurt says.

Gwen stops walking. The traffic of people weaves around her. Her head is cocked to the side, waiting for an explanation. “Those people?”

Kurt huffs and puffs. “Dark magic. Sorcery. You know very well what I mean, Lady Gwenivere. It’s dangerous. It consumes the soul, the magic. That’s what happened to the silver witch. Her power grew bigger than herself. That woman,” he points a finger at a still fuming Fazya, “uses false wishes to take advantage of others. Those are the people I mean.”

“How would you know any of it?” Gwen asks. “Read it in a book? When you get to be my age, you’ll learn to tell the difference, Kurtomathetis of the Guard.”

“And just how old are you?” Kurt crosses his arms, puffing out his chest until he towers over her. “Other than being promised to the former herald of the East, we knew so very little about you at court.”

Gwen raises her hands slowly. Maybe she’ll try to choke him. Maybe she’ll blast him with her magic fingers. As much as I’d love to watch, I know I can’t.

“Guys, come on. That’s enough.” I step directly between them, facing Gwen. I take her slender wrists in my hands and she brings down her guard. I can feel Kurt’s hot breath on my back so I turn to face him. “Are you forgetting that you’re on the same side?”

Deep in my heart, I know that’s not true. Gwen made it clear to me the night we were on our way to Shelly. She considers herself to be her own team, like a lone wolf. The way Kurt’s been treating her, I can see why. They step away from each other, and Gwen takes a step behind me to be shielded from them.

“I apologize,” he says dismissively. “Let’s resume our search.”

“Not that I’m doubting you, Kurt,” Layla says, “but do we even know what we’re looking for? A magic cupboard? Enchanted armoire? Fancy-looking glass?”

“Whatever would we do with that?” He looks down at the ground and the smooth cobblestone steps beneath his feet. “We have to get beneath. The underwater entrance is sealed. There has to be a passage somewhere here.”

“Is there a sewer?” Layla suggests. “Maybe if we find a manhole.”

“As much as I love the idea of wading through muck—” My attention snaps to a man closing down his tent. His sign reads Felix’s Oölogy Emporium. Crates are piled with eggs in different sizes and colors. One egg looks more like a football with its ribbed brown shell and white stripes. A set of small furry hands creep up from beneath the table. They belong to a young boy. He’s shirtless, skinny as a wire. He smiles with the wet nose of a fox and tiny teeth to match, closing his hands firmly on a golden egg.

“Leave it alone, Tristan,” Kurt warns.

But then I look at the squat, fat vendor, sweating to reach the back awning of his shop. His face is red and oblivious, and I know that I just can’t leave it alone.

Fox Boy sees me approaching and starts, losing his grip on the egg. It falls back into the crate with a thud. The vendor whips around and, realizing what’s happening, trips off his stool and onto his knees. Fox Face flips over, scrambling to his feet, but not before turning around to spit at me. I grab him, but he whines and sinks his teeth into my arm. I cry out and let Fox Boy go.

I clamp a hand down on the bloody beads sprouting from the round marks of his teeth.

“That’s what you get for sticking your nose in the foxhole, dude,” Layla says.

I shake my arm, as if that’ll get rid of the pain. I don’t make a face, though, because I know I was right.

The vendor comes around, fussing over me with a glass bottle and a rag. He’s gracious, but he can’t seem to form a proper sentence because his face is so red. I’m about to tell him, “No worries. It’s no big deal,” when he tilts the bottle right over my wound.

I don’t recognize the scream coming from me. The liquid burns. It freezes. It numbs. I want to pull my hand away, but my brain isn’t connecting to my limbs. I can’t move.

“You must burn away the saliva,” he says. “It’s paralyzing.”

For a moment, I feel as if I’ve just stepped off the ship again. My legs want to give out and my head spins. Then he holds the rancid, clear liquid over my nose and the dizziness goes away. I bite down on my other hand as the vendor wraps the cloth around my forearm and pulls it tight.

“Better?” he asks.

“Much.” I don’t realize I’ve started to fall down until I notice Kurt’s arms holding me up.

“Come,” the vendor says. “Come and sit. The venom takes a few minutes to wear off.”

•••

Felix, the vendor, ushers us into his tent. Stacks of crates marked BEWARE and FRAGILE form a wall between the front of the tent and a closet-sized living room. They sit me on the lone chair while the others sit on the bales of hay.

When I look up, Felix is gone and my friends are staring at me with incredulous faces.

Layla places her hand on my bandage. The bite mark throbs under the pressure of her hand, but I don’t pull away. “You couldn’t leave it alone, could you?”

“Really, Tristan,” Gwen whispers. “You’ve got enough problems to deal with.”

“Leave him alone,” Thalia hisses.

As promised by the vendor, I feel much better. I give my arm a good stretch. Considering I’ve spent all day abusing my body, I’m no worse than a full day of swim practice. Whoever said high school prepares you for real life might’ve actually been on to something.

“Here we have it,” Felix shouts merrily, emerging from the front of the tent with a fancy-looking teapot and tiny cups like the kind my neighbor Mrs. Horbachevsky brings out when she has my dad fixing her computer.

“It is my lucky day,” he pops a squat on a large crate and starts pouring, “when such a brave youth graces my doorstep. You’ve done me a great kindness. The fox boys have been nicking my stand all summer. Think they’re getting close to a dragon egg.” He leans in close, brandishing a secretive smile. “They don’t know where I keep the real stuff!”

The tea is a burst of cold licorice on my tongue. I decide I like it.

Gwen sets her teacup down without drinking from it. “You mean to say our friend got poisoned for nothing?”

“Gwen,” I warn.

“Of course not!” The vendor’s cheeks flood red. “In fact, I am rather moved. Now those boys will know others are watching. Someone has to do the right thing. Though what the right thing is around these parts is hard to tell. I apologize for your trouble—?”

“Tristan,” I say, standing. “It’s cool. Really. I feel great. Thanks for the tea, Mr. Felix.”

“It’s simply Felix.” He shakes my hand. “Now, now. Sit. Please don’t think I don’t appreciate your kindness. A reward?”

“That’s not necessary. I wasn’t trying to—” Then I realize that this is exactly what I need. Someone who knows their way around here. Everyone else seems to shoo us away. I sit back down, confusing my friends who are between standing and sitting. “But perhaps you could do something for me.”

Suddenly his eyes squint at me. I’m afraid I’ve said the wrong thing. Then a daunting smile widens his face. He slaps his knee and booms with laughter. Something about him reminds me of Coach Bellini, and that alone makes me like Felix.

“Treasure hunters, are you? Searching for the Infinite Abyss? I did my share of traveling in my day. That’s how I ended up here.” His eyes fall on a rigid Kurt, staring in that intent way of his that makes you want to run for the hills. Felix’s face blooms with curiosity. “What an interesting sword. May I?”

Surprisingly, Kurt hands it over. Felix turns it in his hands, bounces the weight on his open palms, even brings his nose right against the blade and inhales deeply. “Haven’t seen this kind of craftsmanship in many years. I should’ve realized. Sea folk, are you?”

We all nod, even Layla. I can’t help but think of what a beautiful mermaid she would make.

“Seems funny,” Felix says, returning Kurt’s sword. “I’d seen one mermaid in my whole life during my days fishing up in Maine. Now, you’re everywhere! Drinking merrily about town. Saving my own shop from thieves. I tell you, crime rate’s been going up since I moved here twenty years ago. Mayor Alvarez and his wife have been having a hard time keeping things in order the last few weeks.”

“This place has a mayor?” Layla asks.

Felix smiles at her. “Certainly. You might’ve seen them. Been here since the 1600s, I hear. Haven’t changed a bit neither, like the cove itself.”

“Why has your crime rate been going up?” I ask.

He shrugs his meaty shoulders. “Things are changing, as they must. ’Sides, tourism’s gone down an awful lot since the oracle closed her doors to us. That’s why people come here in the first place.”

Kurt nearly drops his teacup. “She’s closed her doors? What do you mean?”

“Folk search far and wide for this oracle. Say she can talk to the gods and predict the future. I’m not one for that stuff, despite all the things I’ve seen. I wouldn’t want to know, would you?” Then the realization comes to him. “That’s why you’re here, is it?”

“Yes,” I say. “Is there an entrance?”

“Like I told the other sea boy,” Felix says. “The ladies of the oracle came above ground. Creepy little girls they are. They took away the entrance right in the church. Nothing but rocks in that tunnel now.”

We shift in our seats. I’m sweating against the leather chair. The walls of the tent seem to be getting smaller. “Wait, what sea boy?”

“Like I says,” Felix drains his cup and refills it. “Last two days I’ve seen more sea folk than in my whole life. Just last night, a second ship’s crew came in. Stumbling down the dock bold as you please, drunk as worms in a pirate’s belly.”

“Are they still here?” I stand abruptly.

“Was he wearing anything?” Kurt pats his chest. “Any symbols?”

“Aye, the serious one came first, three nights ago. Left as angry as he’d arrived. He had a medallion with a sort of octopus. They’re long gone.”

“That’s Adaro,” Gwen says. “That’s his family’s crest.”

“The others, they were here this morning, naked on the beach all of them! Talked about a championship of sorts. Came around to my shop asking for the town pub, though I dare say after last night, they don’t need it.”

It’s like I’m in a boxing ring getting the snot beat out of me. Bam! There’s an oracle. Bam! You can’t get to her. Bam! Others just like you got here first. Bam!

“Will you show us where this pub is?” I reach into my pocket and pull out some gold coins.

Kurt adjusts the sheath around his hip. “What are you thinking?”

“If it’s another champion,” I say, “I want to know their progress. Don’t you?”

He seems hesitant but says, “I suppose.”

“Your gold’s no good to me, Tristan.” Felix pushes my hand away. “It is I who owe you a gift. I have just the thing!”

He stands from the crate he’s sitting on and shifts objects around until he finds a box about six inches wide. Like a good salesman, he opens the lid with a flourish of his hand and waits for our reaction.

My initial thought is: what am I supposed to do with a bunch of tennis ball sized pearls?

Then Thalia cries out. “Are those sea-horse eggs?”

“Very good,” Felix says. “Though, without the father, about as useful as a paperweight. Pretty, nonetheless.”

The only time I saw a sea horse, it wasn’t the tiny curled things that fit in a fish tank. He was huge, greedy, and slick with a long snout and fins for ears. He had great forelegs with talons and a great tail that curled back into his spine as my grandfather, the Sea King, fed him. His name is Atticus, supposedly the last of his kind, and he belongs to Thalia.

I hand her the box, and the sheer happiness on her face makes the fox bite worth it.

“So…” I stand, holding out my hand for Felix to take. “Will you take us?”

Felix chuckles giddily. Suddenly I can picture him running around a ship searching for his Infinite Abyss. He makes sure his crates are locked and waves to us over his shoulder.

Wind blows through the tent flaps, carrying with it the chatter of the market and the sudden blare of instruments. Felix leads us out of the tent into the red glow of the sunset and the chime of the cathedral bells.





I wonder who it is,” Kurt says, matching my pace beside me.

“And how the champion could reach her if the two entrances are blocked.”

“That’s the end of the world question.”

We weave through the market crowd fairly unnoticed. A woman in a bright dress tries to pull me into the dancing in front of the church, but I pull away and keep my eyes on the road.

Felix walks with Thalia up ahead, probably discussing sea-horse eggs, behind a silent Layla and Gwen who take turns glancing over their shoulders at me.

Past the church, up the hill we go. I remember the jagged coast as we docked. Up close, the houses lean against each other for support. Everyone, it seems, is leaving their homes and heading to a celebration in the square. Couples holding hands. Families with their children. It all turns my stomach into knots. What if I’m too late?

“Why won’t you tell us about her?” I ask abruptly. Despite Kurt being my ally, he’s still such a mystery. I know that when their parents died, Kurt left Thalia at court. His journey brought him to this oracle who led him into slaying dragons to avenge his parents’ deaths. Thalia said he’s tight-lipped about it. Then he returned and resumed his life at court and in the guard until my grandfather charged him with my protection.

Kurt keeps his eyes on the road. “I told you what to gift her, didn’t I?”

My hand goes to the bag of glittering rough-cut jewels in my pocket. “I mean, like what to expect.”

“That I can’t do.”

“Why?”

“Because no two experiences are the same.”

He goes quiet again. The more we climb the hill, the better view we have of the sunset, the ships waiting in the shadows of the dock, the white surf crashing against jagged rock.

“Here we are.” Felix stops in front of beat-up double doors that belong to a saloon right out of a Western. “I ought to warn you. Do not offer nothing you won’t want to part with, and that includes your personal limbs. Do not gamble with fishermen, unless you’re seasoned, like yours truly. Most importantly, tip Reggie the barkeep. He’s part troll and can have quite a temper on him.”

“Are you not coming in?” Thalia asks.

Felix shakes his head. “Me wife’s making meatballs.”

I hold my hand out to him again. “I can’t thank you enough.”

Felix pats my hand, ready to go back to his regular life, to his wife, to a supper to come home to. I wonder if their conversation will start: “How was your day, dear?” Then I’ll become a memory, the guy who saved him a few bucks on his inventory. That’s what all of these things are, memories.

“Fair seas to you, my boy,” he tells me.

•••

My thoughts are all in knots going into the dimly lit Kraken’s Tooth. The walls are all brick, stacked together with black cement that oozes between the red. On the ceiling is a taxidermied beast.

I wonder if it’s the kraken the bar is named after. It’s arresting, with giant tentacles frozen in great curls like it’s crawling across the ceiling. The fury still captured in the creature’s eye gives me the creeps, like it will unfreeze here and now and swallow us whole. If I were him, I’d start on whoever is making that tinkering noise.

I wouldn’t exactly call it music. In the corner, a slender woman in a lace dress plays a makeshift piano. The keys are flat stones pulling on exposed rusty cords.

As we all file into the tavern, there’s a shift in temperature. The coolness of the sunset is replaced by the humidity of bodies crammed into one place. Their emotions are raging, which adds to the queasiness in my gut. I prefer the super senses underwater, thanks. Between the smells of beer sloshing in puddles on the creaky wooden floor, the sea salt and sweat that permeate these sailors’ skins, lily-weed and bubbly sea mead, there’s something else. I can’t single it out and I start doing what no self-respecting New Yorker ever does—I stare.

I’m staring too long at the fishermen playing cards while drinking amber liquid from dirty, chipped glasses. They could use a bath or a shave or eyedrops because their eyes are so red. One with graying hair and skinny scars around his eye, like the points of a compass, stares back at me. He licks his ringed fingers, looks down to shuffle his cards, looks back up at me.

Gwen pulls me closer to the bar. “Get over here.”

I pat my dagger for the familiarity of it.

Kurt walks the length of the room, searching for the same thing I am—great, big, glaring mermen with their entourages. So far, there are plenty of fishermen and wimpy young pirates trying to make out with some fairy girls, but no champions. He takes a barstool beside me. “They aren’t here.”

“Really?” I mutter. “I hadn’t noticed.”

A tiny part of me is glad. The knot tying my insides starts to loosen. What would I have even said to someone like Dylan if I saw him again? Hey, good to see you? Say, I know we’re both searching for the same trident pieces, but let’s compare notes. Your family probably has tons of resources, while I have a group of friends who might kill each other before the night is over.

“There has to be another way down,” I say.

“You heard Felix,” Layla counters. “The oracle police closed whatever entryway there was, and you blew up the other. Kurt, what do you think? You’re the only one who’s ever seen her.” Kurt contemplates this for a while. In our conspicuous cluster of barstools, he pinches his chin thoughtfully. “I-I don’t know.” And there it is.

Kurt, my greatest source of knowing, says he, in fact, doesn’t know. Before I have time to wallow in my premature defeat, Gwen literally smacks me. “You’re all looking at this wrong.” I rub the sting on my cheek. “Enlighten us, princess.”

“So other champions are gallivanting around this goddess-forsaken cove of creatures that have nowhere to go? That doesn’t mean they’ve found her. They don’t seem to be trying very hard if they’re seducing locals and showing up in this shabby hole.”

“What are you suggesting we do?” Kurt’s seething through his teeth. “Sit here awhile and make friends with the locals some more?” Her smile is stunning, bright as the sun yet somehow still cold.

“That’s precisely what I mean. Your problem is that you’ve got a giant spear up your—”

“Gwen—”

“What I mean is, your approach to everything is to stab it.

Tristan doesn’t need that. His actions brought him to Felix, which brought us here. All the creatures on this cove are linked, the way we are on Toliss and at the Glass Castle. Let’s see, for a moment, if there is anything worth finding out before we storm the city, shall we?”

“She’s right,” Thalia says quietly, sitting on the side where she’s turning an opal egg between her hands.

That smell is driving me crazy. I thought I sensed it in the market, but I disregarded it as incense and smoke from the tents. I smack my hands on the bar top. “You guys can’t tell me you don’t smell that?”

“What’s wrong?” Layla asks, pulling on my pinky the way she did when we were little. All, “Come on, Tristan, keep up.” “There’s a certain scent—” I look to Kurt and Thalia. They should smell it too.

“I think it’s the liquid freezing the kraken,” Thalia says. I close my eyes. Concentrate on singling it out. There’s dew in the wood arches of the ceiling. It must have rained just before we got here. I find the smell of the chemicals in the beast above, but no, that’s not it. There’s the sweet burn of molasses from the greedy fishermen and lusting pirates. That’s not it either. Maybe I’m imagining it.

“Never mind.” I open my eyes again, wishing they wouldn’t look at me as if I were seconds away from getting committed. The tavern vibrates as Reggie, the half-man, half-troll barkeep, stomps from the far end of the bar to us. My head reaches his nipples, which are barely covered by a thick leather vest. And here I thought trolls were supposed to be little and hairy. I used to have tons, with their pointy tufts of multicolored hair and tiny jewels in their bellies. Actually, they were Layla’s. Yeah, Layla’s.

“You gonna order or sit there looking pretty for us?” says the troll man.

“Order,” I say.

Reggie lines up glasses in front of us, doesn’t ask what we want but starts pouring the familiar green bubbly. Except for Layla. He gives her something that smells like roses. Kurt takes some coins out of his pocket and lets them cluster on the table. Reggie scoops them up like jacks and weighs them in his sausage-y palm. Satisfied, he leaves us to our drinks.

“What the hell is this?” Layla asks. She sniffs the glass but doesn’t take a sip. “Perfume?”

Thalia takes the flute glass from Layla’s fingers. “It won’t kill you.” “Milk of the rose,” Gwen says, pursing her lips at our ignorance. “All the princesses like to drink it, of course. Better than the disgusting burping you get from sea mead.” She arcs her back and snaps her fingers at the trollish bartender.

“What are you doing?” Layla whispers.

All we need is for Reggie to snap at us and we’ll never get any information.

Gwen smirks with her pretty pink mouth. Reggie takes her in for a moment, and whatever he sees in her eyes, he seems to decide he doesn’t want to argue with her. The movement, the command, the way he switches her drink without ever asking why. It’s all impressive. It’s so very Gwen.

I lean into her ear and whisper, “What did you do, bewitch him?” She elbows me jokingly and says to us, “Sometimes you have to show your claws a bit. Try it.”

“I don’t have any claws,” I say.

She glances back at the gambling fishermen, then back at me.

“Grow some.”

“Are you quite finished?” Kurt asks.

Gwen touches his nose with her fingertip. “You’re no fun, Kurtomathetis.”

“You’re not helpful, Princess Gwenivere.”

“Oh, many pardons, Kurtomathetis,” she says, taking a dainty sip from the flute. “Best make myself helpful.”

I don’t even want to ask what she’s doing. Gwen takes on a charm she hasn’t shown any of us the past two days. Or ever. “Reggie!” her voice is as delicate as crystal, rid of the dry edge she uses on Kurt.

I don’t know anything about trolls, but now I know that when they blush, they look like they’re farting. His face is scrunched up, sinking into his shoulders. If he were a turtle, his neck would’ve popped back into his shell. He comes back to our side of the bar. “M-me?”

Layla rolls her eyes as Gwen reaches out a slender hand to lightly graze Reggie’s hairy arm.

“Of course, you,” Gwen says. “We were just looking for our friends. They might look like these strapping young men—” she nods to Kurt and me “—probably lascivious and followed by many, many, beautiful girls.”

Okay, I get it. All the other champions have a bunch of princesses following them around, and I have Layla, Thalia, and Gwen.

But I like it that way. I do.

Whatever she’s said has broken the spell. Reggie stands up straight again. His face is stony, defensive, and pissed off. It’s the same realization Felix had in his tent when he figured out we were merpeople without tails. Only, Reggie isn’t quite as excited. It’s the look of the owl-faced woman who shooed us away. Fazya’s scorn. “Yeah, they was here. Pain-in-my-asses.”

Thalia snorts. “Plural?”

I stand in front of her and hold my arm out. “Were they really that bad?”

He thumbs at the beast of the ceiling. “Tried to take down Daisy up there.”

Layla giggles. “You named your giant octopus Daisy?” “She’s a kraken! There’s a difference, dontcha know? Was a right fine golden color when we caught her. Pity what the years is done to her.” Then as if remembering why he was angry at us for being merpeople, he frowns again. “Thought it’d be funny to set it back in the wilds of the sea! Don’t care for sea folk, I don’t. Wreaking havoc all over the cove with their ships and tricksy devil girls.” Gwen scoffs and Layla sniggers at the implication.

But Reggie’s not done with the mer hate. I’m starting not to care for it, either. He looks down at my drink, which is untouched, then back at me. It’s not my fault all the other merpeople didn’t exactly behave. I’m like, “Yes?”

He picks up my drink and sets it back down. “Not good enough for you?”

I can’t handle my drink. Not even one, so I try not to do it. But I’m not about to tell Reggie the troll man that. “Just watching my carbs, dude.”

He wants to smile but he doesn’t. “Which one is you, then?” “What do you mean?” I say, imitating polite Kurt as well as I can. “Did I stutter? The champions. Which. One. Is. You?” “What makes you think I’m one of the champions?” Though I can’t help but puff out my chest and straighten my back. You better believe I’m a champion.

Now Reggie lets himself laugh. “Your ass reeks of your glittery mermaid shit.” He spits on the floor.

Layla lets out a booming laugh, which no mermaid or merdude present wholly appreciates.

“I’m all merman, Reggie.” I start to point at him but think better of it. I think I’ll need the use of my fingers in the future. “How many?” Thalia asks sweetly at the same time Kurt briskly asks, “Do you know where they’ve gone?”

The troll man smiles with surprisingly perfect teeth. He shakes his head and busies himself drying chipped glassware. “You’re all the same, you know. Mum always said the sea folk are responsible for their own downfall. Said your concern is about your secrets.

That’s what’s important to you. In the end, the secrets are what’s going to do you in.”

My temperature rises. I haven’t been a merman for very long, but no one dogs on my people. “Do you always listen to what your mom says?”

“It’s why I’m still alive,” he says proudly.

Just then we all start thinking of our mothers, or something, because we get real quiet. What did my mom say to me? She said she wasn’t going to stop me from choosing this. She didn’t exactly plead for me to stay home. Did she think I didn’t have a choice? Maybe I remind her too much of the life she was trying to get away from. I think of her kind eyes. Her lullabies that sang me to sleep until I was too cool for it, and suddenly I don’t mind this music so much.

Reggie scoffs at me and starts walking away, and I realize if my mom were here, she wouldn’t be a dick to him. She’d be his friend.

Like Gwen is doing now. Minus the flirting. I hope.

“Wait. I’m sorry.” I reach over the bar to touch his hand. Note: Trolls don’t want their hands touched.

I retract it immediately.

“What is it, then?”

I push the drink away. “If I drink this, I’ll pass out. Got any orange juice?”

That sends him rolling back with laughter. It booms above the hushed conversations, the makeshift piano, and the chorus of dogs barking outside. Reggie digs in a bin of ice and pours me a pulpy glass, which I chug thirstily. I wipe my sticky mouth with the back of my hand and set the glass on the bar top.

“So you’re the mutt, then,” Reggie says. “Shoulda guessed it.

Human spirits dehydrate the sea folk. And sea spirits make humans hallucinate. I predict a life of weak beer ahead of you, Mermutt.” I shrug, not denying it. “I guess I am a mutt.”

“So am I.” He shoves a fat thumb into his chest, all you bet I am.

“Got a special place in all three of me hearts for our kind.” Kurt’s eyebrow cocks all the way up to his hairline. “Our kind?” “Mutts. Halfsies. Neither here nor there, but everywhere. Call us what you will.”

Kurt puts his hand on my shoulder, friendly. “He’s not like the other champions, that’s for sure.”

“Cheers to that,” Reggie says, raising a glass of brackish liquid.

“The other, the serious one, he practically had a scavenger hunt with forty men looking like some lost army of conquistadors.

Didn’t realize you can’t find her, the oracle.”

“Because all the paths are sealed?” Thalia asks.

Reggie takes a big gulp of his weak beer. “’Cause she ain’t wanting to be found. She has to find you.”

Just then, something startles him. The smell I’ve been trying to figure surrounds us. All merfolk turn their faces up to the air as if we can suck it all in. The scent is lonely and thin and winding its way inside.

“Tears,” Kurt whispers.

Reggie’s large body shivers. He knocks on the bar top. Backs away slowly and tells me, “Fair seas to you.”

The bit of white at the corner of my eye sends my heart jumping.

At the door it’s just a girl. She’s so translucent that, for a heartbeat, I wonder if this is my first time seeing a ghost. There’s a rawness at the corners of her eyes and under her nose, like all she does is cry.

I’ve never felt this way before, like she’s rubbing her sadness all over my skin. Kurt’s right: she smells like tears. Something inside me is twisting, changing slowly. There’s a wonky bit of glass across from me. It’s cloudy and speckled, but I can see myself in there some where and that in itself is a relief.

Like Reggie, the patrons that glance at her busy themselves with pretending she’s not there. Others tap crosses over themselves. One man covers his ears and leans his forehead on the table. She’s staring at Kurt.

I nudge him. “Friend of yours?”

“Not at all.”

When the girl in white turns around, she exposes the white ripple of her vertebrae, the blue spiderweb of veins. She looks back over her shoulder once.

“Think she wants us to follow her?” I say.

“She will lead us to the oracle,” Kurt says, taking one foot toward the door.

“Or, with our luck, to a dark pit of despair.”

He’s trying to compose himself, leveling violet eyes at my blue ones. “You heard the barkeep. She will come for you. I will be by your side.”

“Right. Time to grow some claws.” I draw out my dagger. Then I remember the girls. “I don’t think we should leave them alone here.” Gwen pounces off her chair. “Hardly. We can take care of ourselves.” She holds my face in her hands so I can feel a tiny electric hum that threatens to fry my face off.

“Okay, I get it.” I take a step back.

“We must go now,” Kurt says.

Beside me I can feel Layla’s heartbeat racing, the panic in the way she balls her fists. Kurt grabs my shoulder and pulls me to the door. This is why I’m here. This is what we’ve been waiting for. “We’ll meet back here,” I say to everyone, but I’m looking at Layla. Hers is the face I take with me as I follow the faint smell of tears and this girl dressed in white around another dark corner.





For a girl her size, she runs fast.

Kurt and I are head to head, eyes straight up the narrow hill as if we’re climbing to the heavens.

“What does she look like?”

“I suppose she looks like a ghost,” Kurt says.

“The oracle, smart-ass!”

He glances at me but doesn’t say a word. Why would he think he had to hide a girl from me? If there’s a guy you want giving advice on girls, it’s me. Or…it used to be me. I’ve gotten girlfriends for all my friends at one time or another. So why can’t I keep my own?

The sky is clouding over in fat, black and gray tufts. The row of slanted buildings is an echo of slammed doors and shutters. The girl makes a quick left into a skinny unlit alleyway.

I stop running.

“Why are you stopping?” Kurt bumps into me. “We’ll lose her!” “I don’t know, man.” I bend down and squeeze my thigh muscles.

“What if she’s, you know, evil?”

“She’s not evil. She’s one of the oracle’s handmaidens.” “You said you didn’t know her.”

His violet eyes are like beams against the shadow cast by the slanted alley walls.

He says, “When you found the oracle in Central Park, she had women with her, yes?”

“Fairies. But—”

“All the oracles do. They’re protected by other women.”

“Fine. But if she tries to eat your head off, I’ll let her.”

We shuffle sideways into the narrow path. The stones are cold and slick with moss, the cobblestones like walking on crooked teeth. When we reach the end of the path, the high walls form a circle around a well. The girl in white hops up on the edge.

“Oh, hell no.” My first reaction is to take a step back. Really, truly, the bravest thing I’ve ever done. “Don’t you people have clean and sunny passageways? Something with palm trees and girls who don’t look like Jack Skellington? It’s the goddamn rabbit down the goddamn well.”

She looks down the well, then back up at us. Her white dress hangs on her bony shoulders like on a coat hanger. Her lips are blue. If this is how the oracle keeps her, then the oracle is not someone I’m dying to meet.

“Why won’t you speak?” I ask.

She taps her stick-skinny fingers on her throat. She gives me a smile that makes me cold all over before taking one step forward and vanishing down the black hole. I move to follow her. Kurt smacks a hand on my chest. “I’ll go first.”

“No, your part is done. Go back to the others.” When I say it, the path behind us shifts. The brick walls close in on themselves. When I look up, the sky is a dark speck at the end of a narrow tunnel. “Or not.”

For the first time since I’ve met him, Kurt seems unsure of himself. It’s in the way he presses against the walls closing in on us. “If this is a trick, I should go first.”

I wave my weapon in the air. “Hi, supernatural dagger here? We don’t know how deep this goes. How will you signal me? I’m the king’s champion. I should be the one to go first.”

He grumbles and tightens the leather strap around his waist. “And the king named me your guardian. Let me dive first. If only to preserve the customs you are so haphazardly breaking.”

I gesture at the well. “Lead me to my premature death.”

And he does.

Down the well.

The blackness swallows him in a second. I look up to the bit of sky above, the hovering clouds. I tap my forehead the way Kurt does, just in case. I take a step and let the mouth of the well swallow me whole.

•••

This one time, the team got the inspiration to go skinny-dipping on Valentine’s Day. It was freshman year and pretty much the coldest winter I can remember. Your nose would turn red and runny the second you stepped out into the street.

I wasn’t sure the guys would go for it. The cold doesn’t exactly do the most flattering thing to us, but I reminded them that the girls would want to huddle up when they got cold. They called me crazy but did it anyway. Before I jumped, I didn’t feel cold. Even standing on the pier in my boxers, peeling off my socks, I wasn’t shaking like the others. The shock of the dive took my breath away for a second. I think I even liked it because I lasted the longest and the guys were pissed at me for showing off.

They wouldn’t call me a show-off now.

Here in the well, the freezing water wraps around me even before I hit the water. I tense my body as narrowly as I can, just like passing through a tube at a water park, switching the slippery plastic for brick. I am colder than cold. Colder than getting locked in the school’s refrigerator as a prank. So cold my gills won’t open and I choke when I inhale.

When I shut my eyes, I see a woman’s face. The memory pushes its way so deep inside me that it feels real. She’s golden against the sun. I’m a child in her arms. She brushes my hair away from my face and stares with violet eyes. I can feel her warm breath, smell sea and lilacs, and even though I know this memory isn’t mine, it shakes the cold away. I can breathe and see again.

The rough brick passage is gone, replaced by thousands of soft and slick tiny tentacles. They tickle my face, grab at my hair. Their suction cups suck hard on my skin, leaving slimy white circles. I’m breathing hard.

Then the foreign memory of the woman is back. Not like the last vision. This one comes from a different mind. Her hair is pulled to the side and this time she’s under me. I love her. The kind of love that makes the heart clench like a fist, that makes you want to part seas, stay above clouds. I bring my whole body down against her, and then she’s gone, replaced by a flood of others.

The tentacles suck harder on my skin, and I realize this is where those memories are coming from. I see a girl in a white robe running from an army. A man diving off a cliff. The sorrow of thousands. The joys of few. The feelings permeate my body until all I can do is scratch my skin raw.

I’m about to scream, but the well spits us out into the shallow stream of a cave. I tumble onto Kurt who covers his face with his hands. I wonder if we saw the same things. Felt the same things.

I choke. “What was that?”

“I don’t know. I—”

My muscles feel like rubber. The first time I try to push myself up, I fall back down, so I just roll over and crawl onto the cool rock. Something steel and sharp pokes my arm. “Kurt?”

In the darkness of the cave, we don’t hear them waiting for us. Their steps are soundless as they circle us. Fire sizzles from a torch held by the mute girl in white who led us here. At least, it could be. The girl now jabbing a spear at my ribs looks just like her and the rest—pale, skinny, blue at the mouth, and with big gaping eyes as if all the lights in the house are on but no one is home.

Kurt and I stand back to back. He whispers, “I’m sorry.”

“Remember when I said I’d let them eat your head off?”

The girl with the torch, the one who led us here, takes a step forward from their circle, right up to my face.

I try to smile. “Hey, we’re the good guys, remember?”

She cocks her head, confused.

“I’m Tristan Hart. My grandfather is the Sea King.”

“Was the Sea King.” Her voice fills the cave, but her lips don’t move. “You are here because you want to take his place.”

“And who the hell are you? You didn’t mind us so much when you came to get me at the tavern.”

Her pale eyebrow arcs. “You have a foolish tongue.”

“At least I have a tongue.”

The spear digs into my skin a little bit more.

“You are the laria, aren’t you?” Kurt says quickly. “We are here for the oracle.”

The voice laughs. “He is. But why are you here, Kurtomathetis?”

“How did you know his name? What the hell is a laria?”

In unison their harmony fills my head. “We are the laria, maidens of the oracle, protectors of the Well of Memories.”

“I’ve been here before,” Kurt says, “and I didn’t see any of you.”

“She did not want us to be seen,” the girl says.

“Okay, then. You came to get me. So why won’t you let me pass?”

Their laughter is a chorus. The girl with the torch steps closer to me. Unmoving, endless black eyes. “I wasn’t there to find you. I was fetching our supper.”

My fingers itch for my dagger. If I’m fast enough, I can pull the spear poking me and knock her back with a hit in the chest. If I’m not fast enough, I’ll be a sashimi kabob.

“Prove to me you are the king’s heir,” she says.

“Call off your girls and I’ll show you.”

They step back in their lithe ballet movements. I reach behind my shoulder and draw the quartz scepter. Now would be a really good time for it to spark or light up or do anything. And it does. Its soft glow is too bright for some of their eyes and they look away. Except the girl with the torch. She isn’t afraid of me. I think she wants to eat me.

In a swift movement, she draws out a tiny blade and takes a swipe at my belt. The bag of jewels falls to the ground and into the stream where they wink as they get carried downstream. Some of the girls cluster to pick them up, smiling at the precious things in their palms. The girl with the torch stares at the other girls with distaste, but she lets them.

Kurt scratches his head. He picks up a ruby from the stream and squeezes it in his palm.

I ask the question I read on his scrunched-up merman face. “Why’d you do that?”

“You won’t be needing them.” She points her torch south into the blackest part of the cave, and we follow her deeper and deeper into the dark.