As soon as the landfolk let me into Niku’s tank, I curl up around his dorsal fin and wrap my arms around him. He doesn’t ask questions, just swims to the other side of the tank, as far away from Jen and Finn as possible.
At some point I sleep, but jerk awake from a nightmare that I’m turning to foam.
“Princess?” Niku’s voice floats into my ear.
I trace his scars, then lift my finger to my own. The burst of pain makes me wince.
“Do you want to tell me what happened?” Neek says.
I don’t know about that—I’m sure he saw what happened. “I thought Finn was nicer.”
“Erie—”
“Clair and Huron kept saying their landfolk would shock them for misbehaving—even talking and touching—so I thought Finn was different . . .” My fingers find the wound around my neck again, and I swallow hard. What if wiping away the foam hadn’t worked?
When Niku speaks, he sounds as angry as I’ve ever heard him. “The landfolk are all the same.”
“No.” It’s my gut reaction, although Finn and Jen are the only landfolk I’ve met. “They can’t all be the same. The merfolk aren’t the same, nor the dolphins in the pod, so the landfolk must be different, too.” I drape over Niku’s side. “I just didn’t think he’d do . . . that.”
I touch my neck as Niku shakes his head. “I saw Finn stick the loop in the water, but how did you get that wound?”
I wince again as I trace the outline with my finger. “The loop made the necklace dangerous. I . . . I started to foam.” My throat closes around the word.
Niku’s silent, brooding. I trace his scars again, hoping it calms him as it always calms me. “What do we do now, Neek?”
His eye twitches in distaste. “The only thing we can: whatever they ask. If Finn says jump, we jump. If he says tube, we swim through. Whatever happens, I won’t let you be hurt again.”
“None of this is your fault.”
“I’m the one who angered him. I told you to do as he asked, and then I purposefully disobeyed. I thought he’d take it out on me.”
Niku deflates, and I slide off his back. “Neeky—”
“My purpose is to keep you safe, and instead, I nearly killed you. If I can’t keep you safe, I might as well beach myself.”
“No.” I touch his scars, then swim in front of him and put my hands on either side of his face. “That was my fault. I screamed at him. I refused to do what he asked. I knew better.”
“I should have never let you go on the hunt, especially injured.”
I wrap my arms around him and picture the pattern of ink-stained shells the morning of the hunt. I don’t know how long we’ve been here, so I can’t picture their new design. “I should have known the boats were coming, and I’ll find a way to get us out. We’ll behave, this will heal, and we’ll find a way out. Jen’s nice—maybe she’ll help.”
“I wouldn’t put your faith in any of the landfolk.”
We don’t have a choice, though. The landfolk are the ones who put us here. They’re the only ones who can save us. I crawl onto Niku’s back and wind around his dorsal fin, then wrap my arms around him again. I don’t try to sleep, because I don’t want to have another nightmare. When Finn walks in, Neek takes me to the other side of the tank.
“Morning, Erie, Niku.”
I keep my back to Finn, and he knocks on the glass. His voice sounds worried, though I don’t know all the words. “Are you okay, sweet? Do I need to get the vet?”
When I don’t reply, he sounds more worried. “Erie?” He walks around the tank, so I’m facing him, and Niku swims away again. “Come here,” Finn says and motions me over. “I have a gift for you.”
He pulls something from the skin at his hips and I sit up, wondering how he did that.
“Do you want it?” Finn dances it in his fingers, and I slide off Niku’s back to swim over. Instead of studying the “gift,” whatever that means, I gape at the skin he pulled it from. A flap hangs open at the top of his leg—how strange is that?
Finn chuckles. “It’s a pocket.” He sticks his hand into it and pulls it inside out. I gasp. How did he pull his skin inside out? Then he pushes it back into place.
“Just a pocket, sweetness. Look what I have.” He holds the thing he pulled from his “pocket” in my face. It’s a figurine, I think, of a . . . landfolk girl with a merfolk tail? Her top half is the same snail-skin that Finn has, with a landfolk nose, and hair like Clair’s. Her bottom is green scales like normal, though her tail hasn’t grown that long yet, nor is it tipped with the color of her hair. At first, I think it’s a child, but its breasts are quite obvious, covered with seashells. That would be uncomfortable.
I tilt my head and touch the glass. Why did Finn bring me a half-merfolk, half-landfolk, seashell-wearing thing?
“You want it?” he says, then walks to the platform. I shrink away and hide behind Niku. My heart races as I wait for the loop, but it doesn’t enter the water. Instead, Finn’s fingertips do, and he wiggles them. “Come on up. I won’t hurt you. I promise.”
Slowly, I surface on the far side of the tank and scrutinize him. He’s crouched on the platform, holding the figurine over the water. The loop hangs on the wall behind him, out of reach. I dip back under the surface and swim closer. When I resurface, I’m right under the gift. Finn pinches it between two fingers like he’s nervous.
“Please don’t kill me,” he whispers, but I have no idea what that means.
I lift my hand out of the water, palm up, and he drops the figurine into it before leaning back. It’s small enough to fit in my hand, and I swim to Niku with it.
“What is it?” he says.
I turn it over in my hands, studying it, but I have no idea.
“It looks like what would happen if your sister and a landfolk mated, and the result was half and half.”
“Ew, Neek. Clair wouldn’t mate with a landfolk.”
“I’m just saying, that’s what it looks like.”
I glance around the tank and find Finn back on the ground, staring at us. I swim to him and hold the figurine up. “Clair?”
Finn shakes his head. “Ariel.”
“Ariel,” I echo, feeling the word. It feels like waves—where the ocean meets the air. I point to the nose and hands, the most obvious landfolk parts, and say, “Finn.” Then I point to the hair and tail, “Clair.”
“Oh no, Clair and I had nothing to do with this.” He sticks his hand in his other pocket and pulls out the black rectangle I first saw Clair and Huron in. He taps it a few times, then holds it up to the glass.
There, in the box, is Ariel. She’s . . . underwater, surrounded by things I don’t recognize. In a cave, maybe? And she’s singing. Are those air words? I recognize a few of them, but how strange that Ariel sings air words underwater, with no gills, and still swims around like a merfolk. I can’t tear my gaze away.
“You like that, sweetness?” Finn takes the rectangle away when the song ends.
I examine the figurine in my hands and grasp it tighter. Something in Ariel’s song says that she isn’t where she wants to be, either. She’s trapped, just like I am.
“Ariel?” I say, wanting to see her again.
“Time for breakfast. Then more Ariel.”
Finn lets me into my tank, and I eat as quickly as I can.