The warm colors of the Seadom fill my soul as I lounge in the coral garden with Huron. He runs his fingers through my hair, which is weird until I realize the webbing is missing.
“What happened?” I ask.
Instead of answering, he pushes me back on a mushroom coral and kisses me. His tail wraps around mine as he presses me down, and the bright, pillowy mushrooms wilt to gray, then become the hard wall of the landfolk enclosure. I try to push him away. “Huron, stop. Something’s wrong.”
His tail rips in two, and he wraps both fins around me, trapping me. “Huron!” I yell.
“Princess.”
He never calls me princess. I try to push him away again.
“Princess, wake up.”
I jerk and shove away before I realize that’s Niku’s voice. I rub my eyes. “Sorry.”
Neek nudges me until I’m draped over him again. I trace his scars while my heartbeat slows. Soon after, Jen walks into the room.
“Morning, Erie. Morning, Niku.”
She says that every morning. It must be a greeting. “Mor . . . ing, Jen,” I say, then try again because it didn’t sound right. “Mor . . . Ning. Mor-Ning.
Jen tilts her head to the side, eyebrows pulled together like she’s trying to decide something. After a moment, she walks to the enclosure and knocks on it with her knuckles. “Tank,” she says.
I slide off Niku’s back. My head mirrors hers as I try to figure out what that word means. “Tank.” The word snaps, like a mantis shrimp killing its prey. “Tank.” What is tank?
She presses her hands on the barrier and repeats the word. Does she mean hands? I lift mine and consider them. “Tank?”
Jen shakes her head, wiggles her web-less fingers at me, and says, “Hands.” Then she raps on the barrier again. “Tank.”
I tap the barrier with my broken nails. “Tank?”
She nods. So the barrier is tank. I know the air word for the enclosure now. They’re keeping Niku and me in tank.
“Where’s Finn?” Jen asks next.
I don’t know what that word means. A question about Finn, who isn’t here. “Wherrrrre’s,” I echo, trying the word out. “Wherrre’s Finn?”
Jen chuckles. If Finn doesn’t show, will she let me stay with Neek for the day? Will she teach me air words? I hope so, but it doesn’t matter, because Finn walks in. Before he can say anything, I do.
“Mor-Ning, Finn.”
He pauses midstride and peers at me, eyebrows pulled together in a frown. He asks Jen a question, but she shakes her head.
“Finn.” I tap on the tank. “Wherrre’s? Wherrre’s Finn?”
He speaks to Jen again, then turns to me, puts his finger to his lips, and says, “Shh.”
It’s the same motion my grandfather used on us girls when we were young and too noisy. Finn’s shushing me. When he begins talking with Jen, I knock on the tank again and shush him in return. Jen winks at me, as if we’re co-conspirators, but Finn turns his back on me.
I swim to Niku. “He shushed me.”
“I don’t think you’re supposed to talk.”
“Then why does he ask me questions?”
Niku snorts. “Because he’s an idiot landfolk.”
A knock disturbs the tank, and I shush him again, but Finn points to the tube. My shoulders sag as I pat Niku’s side. “See you tonight.”
“Don’t make them angry.”
I hug him and go back to my tank. Once inside, I try to remember some of the air-words they say often enough to recognize. I’ll learn to speak the air whether Finn likes it or not. “MorNing, Finn. Time for . . . brekfass?”
He gapes at me in disbelief. Did I say it wrong? It’s the same thing he says to me every morning before he gives me a fish. “Brekfass” must mean fish. Maybe I asked if he wanted a fish. How in the Tides would he eat a fish with those flat teeth? What do the landfolk eat? Not merfolk, or I’d be dead by now.
“You want breakfast?” he says.
“Brekfass.” I nod.
“Okay.” He climbs the stairs with the bucket, and for the first time since I learned his name, I crest the water to wait for the fish. Instead of holding it out like he did the last time, he holds it high over the water.
I glance at the fish, then at Finn. “Brekfass?” I lift my arm out of the water, but it’s too high. Why won’t he lower it?
“Jump,” he says. I don’t know that word. “Jump,” he repeats, then bends his legs and lifts into the air before falling back to the platform with a loud clang.
I dip under to stop the burning in my eyes. I crest again, but Finn is still holding the fish up high. The only time I’ve been that far out of the water was in the net. Why does he want me to jump out of the water? Is it to put me in the net again? Panic rolls my stomach at the thought. I’m no longer hungry.
I’ll kill him before I let him stick me in another net.
Ignoring “brekfass,” I swim to the bottom of the tank and wrap my tail around myself. My heartbeat races like a tiny minnow running from a predator.
“Erie?” Jen says. More air words.
I cover my ears—I don’t want to hear anymore air words. I hate the air. Why can’t they learn to speak the ocean?
Jen says something else, and though I don’t know the words, I know what she’s asking. “What’s wrong?” What’s wrong is that I’m trapped in this tank while two sociopaths harass me with dead fish.
A loud plunk at the surface heralds a fish. When I don’t move, a smaller plink accompanies it. Finn is bribing me with a necklace. I clench my teeth, grab the fish and the necklace, and turn my back on them to eat.
Finn’s the first to walk into my field of vision. “Sorry, sweetness.”
“Erie,” I say. Why can he never get my name right? “Sweetness” must be a nickname. At least he doesn’t call me Io anymore.
He puts his hand on the tank. “Sorry, Erie.” He says some other words, and then motions me forward. I eye him for a long time before unwinding my tail and swimming toward him. When I reach him, he spins in a circle.
I tilt my head—what’s he doing? I glance at Jen, who also spins, then back to Finn, who repeats the movement. Why are they spinning? I spin when I’m happy—are they happy I ate?
Finn stops spinning, and twists his finger at me. He wants me to spin?
“Please?” he says. I don’t know the word, but I understand the pleading tone of his voice. He’s asking me to spin.
I turn a circle in the water and they cheer. Finn motions with his finger, so I spin again. Again, they cheer.
They’re ridiculous.
Finn stops spinning his finger that direction, and spins it from top to bottom instead. I do a backflip, and they cheer.
They may be ridiculous, but they’re fun.
He puts his hand on the tank, and I do the same. His hand is bigger than mine, with no webbing and blunt nails. It looks so strange outlining my hand. I giggle.
“Tag,” Finn says and removes his hand. He points to Jen, who puts her hand on the tank like she did earlier. Warily, I swim to Jen and put my hand over hers, which is a little smaller than mine.
“Tag,” Jen says, then runs around the tank and touches Finn’s hand. “Tag,” she says again.
Finn runs to the other side of the enclosure and smacks his hand on the tank. It’s been a long time since I’ve played a game—a long time since the threat of the landfolk has allowed it. I miss playing games and having fun, and it isn’t as if I have to fear the landfolk anymore.
A smile grows on my face as I put my hand over Finn’s. “Tag!” I swim to Jen. “Tag,” I say again as our hands meet.
Jen tags Finn again, and he runs up the platform and holds his hand out. I kick hard, crest so far that my shoulders leave the water, and touch his hand. It’s warm and soft, and I gasp. Brittle air scorches my throat, and I fall into the water, holding my burning gills.
He tricked me. He tricked me into jumping out of the water. I swim to the middle of the tank and wrap my tail around myself, gulping water to soothe my air-torn gills.