Without thinking, I blurted, “I’ll bring you something.”
In the glacier, every family had access to our central food store. Rations were split equally from the hunts, and in recent years we hadn’t struggled to find food. Since it was just the two of us, Mama and I never touched our reserves, so I knew there would be more than enough to spare. King Calder would have my scales if he caught me feeding a human, but I’d been sneaking food to the belugas for months. And the way Ragna grinned at me now—fragile and strong at the same time, like nothing I’d ever seen—was worth it. Her smile reminded me of a starfish.
Ragna pulled the ornament from her neck and thrust it at me. “Take this. I have nothing else to trade for your help.”
I held the chain to the sun, studying the threads of metal. “You don’t have to trade anything…”
“Look, I don’t take charity,” Ragna said, sniffing back the last of her tears. “Turn around. I’ll fasten it on for you.”
“I can’t. We’re not supposed to collect human things.” I scooted back from her so fast I nearly dropped the necklace. Not that the rule had ever stopped me, but if I returned to the glacier wearing a human trinket like a collar around my neck, someone was bound to notice.
Her brow furrowed. “Why not?”
My eyes darted to the edge of the ice shelf. Thinking about the consequences of being caught made me feel paranoid. What if someone had followed me? Most of the glacier’s inhabitants knew about the human things I collected. They insisted it was a phase I’d grow out of, like Havamal had, but if they found me talking to a real, live human? None of them would overlook that. I imagined one of the king’s red-tailed guards hauling Ragna from the ice and pulling her under the sea.
“I need to get back,” I said, sliding toward the water. I glided on the ice like a seal, flat on my stomach.
“Wait,” she called, scrambling to her feet. “Wood. I need wood too.”
I scowled. How did she expect me to get a land-growing thing to her?
When I said nothing, she reddened and rushed on. “Take it from the ship. Just pieces of the deck, or anything. I’ll dry it out in the sun. My boat mostly broke when I dropped into the sea. I only just managed to make it to the shelf. I need to mend my boat to get off this ice, otherwise I might as well have drowned in the wreck.”
Ripping pieces from the wooden giant wouldn’t be subtle. The ship had drifted to the bottom almost directly under our fortress. If anyone saw me, I wouldn’t be able to bring her food, not even a lone fish. But sunken ships littered our sea beds, some so old not even the midwife could remember a time before the floating graveyard claimed its permanent space on the ocean floor. I’d spent years scouring the hulls with Havamal for treasure. I knew nothing about wood or its durability, but if she could use materials from ships that long buried… even that presented a risk.
“Please,” she insisted, touching me of her own accord. “You came back. You were curious enough to come back, so you must care at least a little. I don’t want to die here.”
I knew what it was like to be trapped, to feel stranded and alone.
I closed my fingers around the metal chain, hiding it in my palm. “I’ll see what I can do.”
We kept our spare food sealed behind layers of thin ice in a communal vault at the heart of the ice mountain. Two burly mermen guarded the entrance, but gaining access was easy—they couldn’t stop me from taking our share. Their purpose was to keep our stores safe from wandering seals or a shark that had followed the scent of blood, not to keep the merfolk out. The guards allowed me to pass without pausing in their conversation. They didn’t notice the oversized woven satchel that I carried tucked under my arm.
The inside of the vault was modeled on a coral comb, with chambers and passages dug in thick ice. A thinner layer of ice covered the opening to each cavern, protecting the food inside from creatures such as crabs that could slip through the glacier unnoticed. I swam to our comb and began beating my tail as hard as I could to fan a cyclone of water toward the fragile barrier.
The current broke the ice, and I swam inside and rested my basket on a carved-out ledge. The scents of fish, spices, and sticky, frozen blood mixed to form a perfume in the water. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. I inhaled deeply as I filled the basket to the brim with trout, shark, eel, and a bit of seaweed. Then I closed the top and fastened the attached ropes, tying the food securely inside.
I hoped that humans could eat all the things I’d packed. What if they couldn’t digest shark? What if kelp made them sick? I knew that the humans occasionally hunted the white bears that roamed the ice, but I’d never heard of them eating a fish, much less an eel or a shark. There wasn’t time to analyze that now that I was already a thief. I ducked my head and swept past the guards.
“Where are you going with that?” Vigdis’s high-pitched voice asked behind me. “That’s a lot of food. More than I pick up for my whole family when I visit them. And it’s only your mother and you.”
“Ellea in the cave next to us isn’t well,” I lied, and turned to face Vigdis. Her hands were on her full hips, and she narrowed her eyes when I spoke. “She has three small boys, so I’m picking up some things for all of them.”
“Or maybe you’re just planning to hide until The Grading is over.” Her features smoothed in a sympathetic grimace as she looked me up and down. “It’ll be okay, Ersel. You don’t have to be afraid…”
“You keep acting like I’m broken,” I snapped, wishing I could hurl the basket in her smug face. “You have no idea. Just leave me alone, okay?”
Vigdis flipped her hair. “You should bask today and spend more time in the sun. Your eggs are probably frozen inside you.”
I didn’t want to find a mate or settle into the role of mother everyone expected from me, but her assumption that I was damaged, frozen somewhere inside my very core, cut me. I wanted everyone to know I was making a choice, especially Vigdis. I ground my teeth. I wasn’t afraid. I knew my body was strong. “What time is The Grading? When does the mage arrive?”
I should have known, but I’d been trying my hardest to block it out.
“Sundown.”
If I swam quickly, I might be back in time to prove them all wrong—or right, an insidious little voice inside me argued. The king wouldn’t make me find a mate immediately. I could plan my escape. I’d been ruminating on it long enough.