The Savage Blue

We trade the hot, noisy boardwalk for the quiet of Command Central. The other champions may have seers and prophets and ships, but I’ve got a microwave and Hot Pockets.

When Gwen and I arrive, Kurt’s sitting at the counter reading through the papers from Greg. Gwen is equally fascinated with them, touching them with the utmost care. I tell her all about Greg and his booby traps.

“You don’t think the old fart was messing with us?” I ask.

Kurt shakes his head. “I believe Greg wants to see you rise to the throne. There is something in these papers, I tell you. As a scholar, he respects knowledge.” Then he mutters, “Unlike some of us.”

I take the parchment from him. “I totally respect knowledge!” “I wasn’t referring to you.” He takes it back.

Gwen sing-songs, “Yes you were.”

“Gregorious, or whatever he wants to be called,” I say, “was shady. What’s the point of giving us drawings? It doesn’t tell us anything about the next oracle. Neither did Sarabell, by the way.”

Kurt shuffles the papers like a card deck until he finds the ones he’s looking for. “You’re looking for easy answers, and the search for the truth is never easy.”

“Did some psychic tell you that?”

“No,” he says, “my father taught me that.”

“Oh.” My foot tastes rather nasty.

“Forget it. Look at this,” he says. He’s so happy with these papers that he’s finally stopped wondering where Thalia is. “The trident is one object. It’s been thousands of years since they were three separate pieces and our kingdoms were three corresponding factions. Each king wielded a different part of the trident. The quartz scepter, the center staff, and the trident fork. It says here that our people were at war so often that one of the oracle sisters proposed a final championship to unite all three kingdoms as one.”

“Are these them?”

“Yes. These are the original kings.”

“These dudes are no joke. What’s with the animals?” “My teacher told me of this,” Gwen says. “Back then, the kings believed their strengths were linked to animal spirits. The sleeping giants, they called them. It was long ago, but if I remember correctly, this was Kleos, the eldest king. He wielded the quartz scepter you have now.”

Kurt seems impressed but lingers on her for too long. “Who was he, your teacher?”

“She,” Gwen says, “was of my court. We’ve always had more mermaids as elders than the mermen of the court. She rather liked Kleos here.” She taps a finger on his gold-leafed face.

Kleos is drawn with a mane of brown hair, blue eyes, and the slightest hint of a smile. He’s sitting on a sea horse whose long snout is in the middle of neighing. Do sea horses neigh? There’s a kingly quality in the way Kleos holds the scepter over his head, conjuring a wave and a stroke of lightning.

“This is Ellanos,” Kurt says, pointing to another dude. “He was the one who used the blood and ink of the cephalopods to give us legs. He believed he’d conquered the gods who wanted to keep us in the ocean. It made him powerful, despite having the center staff, which alone is the weakest part. But without it, there would be no trident.”

Ellanos’s hair and eyes are filled in with the blackest ink. His skin is red and his jewels are etched in gold. At his feet is a giant octopus, one tentacle wrapped around Ellanos’s ankle.

“Is that thing still alive?”

“Yes. It lives in the king’s private chambers in the Glass Castle.”

I point at Ellanos. It’s like looking at the Greek exhibit at the Met with all the broken vases and plates. “Doesn’t he look like Adaro to you guys?”

“That’s because Adaro’s family are direct descendants,” Kurt says. “As you are of this king, Trianos, who wielded the forked tip of the trident.”

Trianos looks much like my grandfather. The big white mane of hair. I wonder if it was ever another color. The skin is like gold. His eyes are carefully inked in a deep violet. He stands firmly on the back of a turtle. The turtle isn’t one of the cute slow things at the aquarium. This turtle’s shell has hard ridges. There’s anger in its eyes, power in its limbs. I like this turtle.

There’s another paper that’s so thin and black that it breaks apart at the edges where I pull it. “I think someone tried to burn this one.”

This one shows the trident put back together. I trace the outline of the familiar shape of the quartz scepter. There’s text all over it, but it’s in a different language.

“I’m not familiar with these symbols. It shows the way the three are meant to be one. The three-pronged tip and the quartz fit in either end of the staff, which is a catalyst for the two.”

“How did one oracle decide there shouldn’t be three kings anymore? I thought they just see stuff.” I know quite well they do more than see. The memory of the nautilus maid makes me shiver.

“There is no mention of how that decision came to pass. There is only a mention that it happened.”

I tug on my chin, surprised at the fresh stubble. “Remind me to thank Greg for giving us an old piece of paper with hieroglyphics. Gwen?”

She’s surprised when I say her name, like snapping out of a trance. “By the seas, I don’t know where to begin. I believe—” Her eyes flick to Kurt as she hesitates. “I believe this is the language of the oracles.”

“They get their own language?”

“It’s not their language,” Gwen says smirking. “It’s the language of the gods. Their purpose is to translate it. Send some poor soul to war and another to murder his children. That’s why humans have always sought them.”

“I wonder if my mom would know. Greg did teach her once. Maybe he knew she’d look at it.” The kitchen clock marks just past five. My dad would usually be home by now, and my mom would be yelling at me for tracking sand all over the rugs after finishing my lifeguard shift.

“Good,” Gwen says. “Why don’t you summon her?”

“You don’t summon your parents.”

“When you’re king, you can,” Kurt says, pointing at the drawing of Kleos grasping the quartz scepter. If he could wield it as one piece, then maybe so can I.

“Why does your face look like that?” Gwen says.

“Ah,” Kurt says smartly. “I believe Tristan is thinking.”

I pull the quartz scepter from the leather harness. The gold is cold. Orange sunset light fills the crystal and kaleidoscopes against the kitchen walls. “Let’s see what I can learn from King Kleos.”





Are you sure this is a good idea?” Gwen asks, lounging on a rickety old chair.

From the rooftop of my building, you can see for miles. Behind us there’s Brooklyn—brownstones and the handball court, Carvel ice cream, and even the church by Layla’s house. Before us are the Wonder Wheel and the beach and farther out the horizon where my grandfather is waiting for me to show up with this thing that I’m holding. The quartz scepter.

“This may be the best idea he’s had since I met him,” Kurt says.

The dusty gold is cool in my hands. I’m holding it over my head like a sword, the pointy quartz part up in the air.

“Trust me.” And even if they don’t trust me, I’m sure they’re not going anywhere. “I need to learn to use it.”

“It says here that Kleos was the light that shook the earth.” Kurt reads off some crap about channeling some powers within. The strength of blah, blah, blah self.

His voice actually helps, because I can concentrate on blocking it out.

All I want to feel is my heart pounding and the current— ancient and strong—sizzling its way all over my body. It’s what I imagine the third rail in the subway would feel like if I touched it, minus the electrocution part. I shut my eyes and imagine lightning crashing across the horizon the day of the first storm. I remember the strength of the wave clamping down on me with the full force of the sea. The crackle of thunder. The whip of the wind.

It’s all inside me.

Kurt’s scream follows a sharp blast. Above us is a single black cloud. It cracks open with a spurt of lightning, crashing directly into the cluster of satellite dishes on the roof. The cloud vanishes like smoke against the sunset sky.

“That was killer, man.” My hands are buzzing.

“Just don’t kill me,” Kurt says.

“You have to get yourself one of these.”

“I can’t. It’s one of a kind.”

Unlike the other times, the light of the quartz is still blazing. I feel a thrill go through me, and it must be linked to the scepter because it sputters another burst of lightning. This time the ledge where the satellites are hooked up catches fire, right where Gwen sits.

“How do you turn this off?”

“You control it!” She yells, dusting herself off the ground.

Kurt is running around the roof looking for a source of water. “Stop getting excited.”

“Yeah, I have that problem.” I give my scepter a shake, but it’s not a remote control with nearly dead batteries. I close my eyes. The crackle of flame whips in the wind. I breathe and imagine, like Arion had me do when coasting into the cove. I can feel the current retreating, containing itself.

Gwen shouts my name.

The flames are six feet tall and getting taller with every gust of wind. Kurt is entranced by it. He crouches down, pressing his hands against his temples.

“You okay, man?” But of course he’s not okay.

I set the scepter on the ground before I set anything else on fire and run back inside the building where the fire extinguisher is. I take my shirt off and wrap it around my knuckles to break the glass. I run back upstairs to where the flames are twice as tall as Kurt.

“Stupid child lock!” I cut myself on the plastic but it doesn’t matter. I’ve set my building on fire. I point the nozzle at the flames and the cold pressure blows all over the place.

I kneel beside Kurt. “It’s okay. It’s out.”

Even Gwen rubs his back and shoulders.

“I hate fire.” He’s breathless and shook and rambling, so all I can make out is: “My parents” and “dragons” and “fire.”

“Come, let’s go back inside,” I say once I make sure the fire is completely out. “Even if no one’s called the fire department, I’m pretty sure they called their satellite providers.”

•••

First, Gwen and I take a shaking Kurt under our arms and leave him on the couch.

He repeats the same words, “fire, mother, father, dragons,” like a mantra.

Then we race back to the rooftop for the fire extinguisher. I set it on the Command Central floor and my scepter on the table.

“I don’t know what to do,” I whisper to Gwen.

She stretches her arm around my back and rests her chin on my shoulder. “He’s in shock. It’ll pass in a bit.”

“I know he said something about hating fire.” I run a hand through my hair. “I had no idea it was like that.”

“Many of our warriors were like this. When they came home from battle.” She presses her forehead against my cheek. Her breath is warm on my neck. “Those who made it home.”

I stand, tugging gently away from her grip. “We call it PTSD. Post-traumatic stress disorder. My friend Jerry, his brother’s a Marine. It’s our version of warriors. When he made it home, he shut down completely.”

“He wasn’t fighting dragons or fey, was he?” She asks so innocently that I can’t laugh at her.

“No,” I say.

Gwen nods, studying the pins on the Command Central maps. “Seems silly, doesn’t it?”

“What does?”

She traces the length of the map. North to south. West to east. One big invisible cross. “We’re all fighting for a bit of home, and even if we get it, we’re not satisfied because it isn’t really home, is it? It’s still just an ocean. A bit of land.” She turns back to me, and I can feel the shift in her body.

“Where is your home, Gwen?”

Startled by the question, she stutters, then laughs. “I suppose court. With Elias gone, I don’t have anywhere to go.”

“I’ll always have a sleeping bag for you,” I say.

“I’m not certain if I should thank you or not.” She reaches out to touch my face. But I go to the fridge and get cold water. Despite the AC, I’m sweating.

“I’d better go,” she says.

“Where do you go off to?”

She takes my water and drinks from it. “I know things didn’t work out with Sarabell, but perhaps I could learn a few things they’d never say with you there.”

“You mean spy on then?” I take my water back. “You’d do that for me?”

Sometimes I think Gwen’s eyes are going to burn a hole right through me. It’s like staring into the stormiest sky and not knowing if you want to run from the rain or stand there and let it fall all over you.

“For you.” She presses her lips on my jaw, just under my mouth. “And for the kingdom.”





One look at our freshly scrubbed guilty mugs, not to mention the glaringly empty fire extinguisher on the kitchen floor, and Dad asks, “What happened?”

Mom has a bag of ice cream in her hand. “We passed Gwenivere in the lobby, and she smelled like smoke.”

Kurt joins us in Command Central. We exchange one look of solidarity as he sits beside me. It’s not like we stole the car and went for a joy ride, which, if this wasn’t all happening now, would be pretty sweet to do in this weather.

So I give my parents the SparkNotes version of visiting Greg, the papers, the landlocked on the boardwalk, and the fire. I leave out the parts with Sarabell and the moment on the roof when I felt awesome blowing stuff up. “I’ve seen CSI and my fingerprints are all over the fire extinguisher.”

Dad cleans his square glasses on his untucked work shirt. “The super is downstairs fighting off an angry mom because their cable isn’t working.”

“Technically,” I point out, “I only burned down the satellites on the roof. Including ours.”

“What were you thinking?” Mom yells. “There are cameras up there!”

“Actually, last year Janie said the landlord was too cheap to install a real system,” I point out. “Only the elevator and lobby ones work.”

“Janie? The super’s daughter?” Dad asks, trying to keep the grin off his face in front of Mom.

“Dad—”

“What matters is that no one is hurt.” Dad points to me, giving off the guilty smells of dirt and the excited burn of fireworks. Underneath all of that is Mom’s melting strawberry ice cream. “Just, no more fires in the house.”

I hold my hand up. “Merman’s honor.”

Dad rubs his hands together, like twiddling an invisible stick to make invisible fire we’re not supposed to have in the house. “We’re actually glad you’re here. We have something to tell you.”

“We do as well.” Kurt clears his throat, the familiar stoicism returning to his posture. “We were waiting for Lady Maia.”

Mom brushes his hair back tenderly. “Kurt, please. I’m not a lady of the court anymore.”

“You’ll always be a lady to me,” he says, softening under the gesture. “My mother would’ve wanted me to address you as such.”

“I’ll just stick with ‘Mom.’ Hey, Mom. Greg says he was your teacher how many years ago?”

She flushes like she’s going to whack me on the head with her spoon. Dad throws his hands in the air and chooses the safer option of the sofa instead. “You’re on your own, kid. I’m not going near that one.”

“Come on, guys,” I say. “Just trying to lighten the mood. Greg gave us all this riddle stuff and we need your help.”

Kurt spreads out Greg’s parchment papers.

“I can’t believe Greg is alive.” Mom wipes her hands on a towel. “The old crab. I could’ve used his knowledge when I was pregnant with you.”

“He wasn’t exactly happy to see us,” I say. “What with ol’ Grandpa firing him and all that.”

Mom shakes her head. “That’s not what Father told us.”

“One of them is lying,” I say. “He wouldn’t leave a cushy gig on Toliss for a house that’s falling apart, would he?”

Side by side, Kurt and my mother are mirror images, each with one hand examining the face of a long-gone sea king and the other tugging on the tip of their chin. They even say, “I suppose,” at the same time.

“He said he taught the king’s daughters.” I wave my hands in the air to get their attention back. “So you’re one of the king’s daughters and Kurt doesn’t know how to read these symbols.”

“It’s not that I don’t know how to read them. It’s that I never learned.”

“Mmm. Hmm. Which means you don’t know how to read them.”

“Enough!” Mom puts her hands up between us. “Kurt, you wouldn’t know how to read this. This is the language of the gods. Only the oracles can translate it. Greg wanted us to learn, but after a few years Father changed his mind and forbade it.”

“The king forbids his kids to get all bilingual and has a disagreement with Gregorious, who ends up fired. Sounds like Grandpa was hiding something.”

“Don’t say that,” Mom whispers.

“Sorry. It sounds shady, that’s all.”

Kurt takes the paper once again, trying hard to see words in the symbols, but it’s like all those times I tried to fake my way through Spanish. “Mom?” She looks unsteady and I reach a hand to hold her.

“I think this word is ‘death.’ Yes, I remember because we were trying to translate the prophecy of the hero Milanos, destined to die at the hands of a sea prince during the age of the Greeks. I wonder—”

“Death never sounds good,” I mutter.

I flip the crumbling paper over and smooth it out. “What’s this bit right here? 1907?”

Mom looks to Kurt. “You were born that year. I remember because I was in the room with the midwife, and my sister Avelia kept saying there was a rainbow over the human island in the distance and it was a good omen for you.”

“That’s all awesome and kind of weird, but how do we find someone who would know about this?” I feel like I’m chasing my own tail again.

Mom places a hand over the face of King Ellanos. She gasps, pain spreading all over her face. Her hands fly to her stomach. She’s going to be sick. I can see it in the green flush of her face. She breathes deep and long.

I get up. “Are you okay?”

“Lady Maia, perhaps you should sit.”

“I haven’t felt this terrible since—” Her big blue eyes scan my face, and before she can finish, she runs to her bathroom. We can hear the puking all the way out here.

Dad stands at the kitchen entrance.

“Should I go to the pharmacy?” I start to run to the bathroom and stop. “Should I bring her water?” I run back to the kitchen and fumble trying to get a glass and the pitcher of purified water from the fridge.

Sure, when it comes to fires and evil merpeople, I can be concentration guy, but put me in front of a girl crying or puking, and I don’t know the difference between my ass and my elbow.

Dad shakes his head. He’s part worried, part nervous, and the combination smells acrid. And that’s coming from a guy who showers three times a day in the summer. “There’s no easy way to say this, so here goes.”

“Dad? Spit it out. You’re freaking me—”

He fist-pumps the air. “Your mom’s pregnant.”





I get a broom for the broken glass on the floor. When Kurt tries to help me, I shoo him away and he sits next to my dad at the kitchen counter, watching.

“I didn’t mean to tell you this way,” Dad says. “We were going to wait. Maybe ’til after this championship stuff. We didn’t want you to worry.”

“Why? Why would I be worried, I mean.”

The acrid smell of nervousness is replaced by the smoky sweetness of excitement. It’s what I felt when I set fire to the roof. I tie the garbage bag in a knot and pass a mop over the floor. This is the most I’ve ever cleaned. Look at me being a grown-up.

“I believe congratulations are in order?” Captain Awkward says. “And much merriment,” Dad says in a mock-Kurt voice. Dad goes to the fridge and gets three light beers. “I know these go right to your head because of your bodily water ratio, but hell.”

Together, the three of us pop the lids of our beer cans. Dad and Kurt start talking about names and hoping it’s a girl because Maia wants a girl, and I just sit here giving him a thumbsup while still trying to drink this thing.

Not only is it incredibly gross to picture my parents still doing it, but I’m sixteen. Most people who want to have more kids usually pop them out all at once, right? Angelo’s one of seven, and that’s not counting the kids his dad has from his first marriage. Come to think of it, Layla’s one of the few friends I have who’s an only child.

If I’m Sea King, how am I supposed to be someone’s older brother? I’d want to teach him how to swim, how to play ball. Tell him about the first time I shifted. Wait, Mom wants a girl, so I’d have to be around and chase guys away from her. I’d have to make sure she’d always be protected. Wait a minute. What if the baby isn’t half merkin after all? What if they get to have a no-complications, fully human life?

I’m on autopilot, getting more beers from the fridge. Kurt just says yes to being the unborn baby’s godfather. We’re not even Catholic. How come I don’t have godparents?

“When my boy here becomes Sea King, we’ll use his college money as a down payment on a house.”

“Wait, we’re moving?”

I hate that I’ve put such a hurt look on my dad’s face. He says, “Too much too soon? I knew we shouldn’t have said anything. We weren’t planning it, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“Ew, Dad. You don’t need my permission. I mean, you guys should get the chance to raise a normal kid and a normal family that doesn’t involve a freak son and his new life under the sea.”

My own hurt is twisting into my chest like screws. I can’t believe how selfish I sound. Here is my dad really happy, and I’m taking it away from him. So I put on my best smile and give another thumbs-up, even though this is somehow worse than Archer kicking me in the gut.

Dad slings his arm around my shoulder. “There is nothing more wonderful than having you as a son. We didn’t even think we could have another baby until it happened.”

“No, totally.” My face hurts from smiling. “This is awesome.”

“This isn’t about getting another shot,” he says. “You have to know that.”

“I do. Don’t worry about me.”

At some point, the sun starts setting, and Dad goes and checks on Mom. I clink Kurt’s beer and Thalia walks in. Her hair is damp and she smells strangely of pizza.

“Where have you been?” Kurt’s voice is a boom, but it has to do with the beer and not anger. He scoops her up in a bonecrushing hug.

Thalia is too stunned to even push him away. “I was hungry.”

But her cattish green eyes find mine and I know she’s lying. I shake my head once, wishing I could tell her we saw her on the boardwalk.

“You were with those people,” Kurt says. “I saw you.”

Thalia’s eyes go wide. She takes the drink from her brother and sets it on the table. “Is this a celebration? Did things go well with Sarabell?”

I hold up my hand to show her teeth marks but my heart jumps. The teeth marks are gone except for the pearly shadow of her canines to match the bite on my other arm from fox boy. I didn’t expect that trying to do the right thing would lead to becoming a human chew-toy. What the hell was in that vial I drank at Greg’s?

“Uh—she wanted to be my queen and then bit me when I stopped her from drowning happy beachgoers.”

Thalia cringes. “I’m afraid to ask who’s next.”

“Next?” I choke on my beer. “No way. I’ll find the oracle another way. I have a lead. Only, none of us can translate it because it’s the language of the oracles.”

Kurt giggles to himself. He sounds out the word: “Ohhhhhracles.”

Thalia smacks my arm. “I can’t believe you let him drink this!”

“I’m fine.” Kurt shakes his head and clears his throat. “Oh-racles. Ha-ha! They like to play mind games. It’s all a game of the mind. And here.” He takes my hand and places it over his heart. “Mermen like you and me, we play games of the heart.” He presses his forehead against mine as if we’re in on some new magical secret. I should slap myself for letting Kurt have so many beers. “That’s why she wasn’t there.”

“Who?” Thalia asks. “Who wasn’t there?”

“The Oh-racle, my lovely sister!” Kurt gets up and makes a beeline for the bathroom, mumbling about how this part is so much easier in the sea. I’m not sure if he’s talking about princesses or peeing.

“Tristan, fix him!”

“I can’t.” I take the beer cans and dump them in the sink. “He just has to pee it out.”

Thalia grunts. “Then why are you celebrating?”

I tell her about my parents and their new brat, and she says, “Be happy for them. They’ll be losing you. This may make it easier.”

But I don’t like that idea, either.

Then I hear Kurt flush. “We have to tell your brother.”

“I can’t. Not until I know it can truly happen. That you can truly make me human.” She takes my hand softly. There’s a strange noise in the living room. Someone falling down.

“Uhoh.”

Kurt’s on the floor, sprawled across our fuzzy white rug.

“Is he okay?” Thalia goes to him and tries to lift him up, but he’s dead weight.

Kurt gathers his hands and folds them under his face like a pillow. He makes deep, guttural snoring noises.

“I think he’s—smiling,” I say. “Probably the first good night’s sleep he’s had in a while.”

I dig my hands in my pockets and feel the coolness of the Venus pearl I forgot was there. I bring it out and cup it in my palm. I really wish I could have given it to Layla.

“Tristan!” Thalia hisses, snatching it from me.

“Careful!”

“Don’t you see?” She dangles it in my face.

“Yes, I see a sweet present I can’t give to—” And I realize. “Shelly! Shelly can translate the oracle speak.”

I take Thalia’s head and kiss her forehead loudly. “Only problem is, what can I gift her? I’m thinking we’ve run out of precious gems, and the pearl won’t work twice.”

“Get your backpack.” Her smile is cunning. “I have just the thing.”

•••

“It’s like a great metal makara,” Thalia says, hopping on the train.

We take the F all the way to Manhattan. This late on a Monday night, the subway platform is full of the strangest people only New York breeds. Couples full of PDA, a man with a dress made of balloon animals and plastic bottles. People coming and going, and those with nowhere to go at all.

Thalia clutches the wooden box Felix gave her, and I pull on the straps of my backpack for the security of my weapons. I can’t decide if I want to sit forward or lean back. Uncertainty is the worst feeling in the world. Worse than rejection and worse than failure, because at least then the action has been completed. Uncertainly is emotional limbo.

Deep in my heart, I know I have all the pieces and now I have to make them fit.

“What were you really doing with Penny?”

“I wanted to see them.” She stares at the speeding blackness out the window, the graffiti rolling by like a flip book of colors and shapes that never stop changing.

“You should call Layla.”

“I know,” I admit. I don’t want to tell her about Sarabell. She’ll hate me. Even if I didn’t do anything wrong, I still hate me for going. “Did you see her today?”

“At Thorne Hill. In the field with the others.”

“The schoolyard?”

“That one. There was a huge commotion because your friend—” She snaps her finger. “The one with the tall hair.”

“Angelo.”

“Yes. He was running with Princess Menana on his shoulders. All the adults were furious. They were naked right down to those little trousers for your foot-fins.”

“Socks?”

“Not that the adults are better. They’re all mad. You remember what it was like when the rest of the princesses arrived. They’re making all the boys happy as seals in mating season. Layla’s been put in the ground by her parents so she had to leave immediately.”

“You mean grounded?”

“That’s what I said.”

I place my face in my hands. “Should I do something?”

“Become king. Restore order.”

The train barrels into the station. I take her hand and lead her up and out through the Manhattan streets. I realize Thalia’s never been in the city. She stares at the checkered lights of the buildings and I explain that’s where people live. She laughs and pets a fire hydrant because she likes the shape. When we’re in Central Park, I try to remember the direction Gwen and I took Friday night. But the winding paths are dark, and the shadowed trees all look the same. Thalia picks up a baby mouse at her feet and cradles it.

“Ugh—cut it out, Snow White. Those things are gross.”

She places it back on the grass and pinches me. “All life is precious, Tristan.”

“Come.” I lead her through the urban woods and up a hill, until the castle comes into view.

“Oh my,” she gasps. “I didn’t know you had royalty here.”

I laugh as we head straight up toward Turtle Pond. “We don’t. It’s for kids to play in.”

But before I can take another step into the shadows of the castle walls, a tall woman emerges. Her black leather clothes glisten in the moonlight. Her hair is a shock of bloody red cascading over one shoulder.

“Tristan—” Thalia takes a step back, crushing a twig that seems to echo all over the park.

The woman bends her face over the crossbow in her arms.

I raise a hand, about to say, “Don’t shoot!” but I hear it. The crunch of leaves beneath her feet. The spring release of her bow. The way the air is split by the arrow, silver and sharp and headed right at my face.