Welwyn outstretched his hands toward Lyle, who approached with caution.
"Remember, little brother—"
"Less of the little," hissed Lyle, standing ramrod straight and jutting his chin. "Unless you want me to stuff your silly hair down your throat and choke you on it." Welwyn dropped his hands to his side, his doe eyes seemingly innocent as a seal's. Lyle moderated his defensive stance and the venom in his tone. "Brother is fine, though."
"Very well," said Welwyn. "But you need to know this. Emmet took over the curse from me to demonstrate how much stronger he was. To keep it up till now, he must see you as a threat."
"Why?"
"You survived all that time, for a start. Emmet will've surmised your powers of enchantment rival his. And what's more… Er, you're not going to like this, Lyle."
"Get on with it and tell me then!" Lyle fidgeted on the balls of his feet. He still couldn't warm to the idea of standing shoulder to shoulder with Welwyn, as comrades.
"Before he even imprisoned me here, Emmet had married and then been deserted by six wives, all while failing to produce a child. If he still has no heir, there will be whispers about who should succeed him. While he is our cousin, both you and I have a stronger claim to be ruler of our clan. He will either see you as a rival, or he might regard you as I once did: as a potential mate."
"So it'll be fuck or die, will it? Fan-bloody-tastic!"
Lyle glared so furiously at Welwyn, and Welwyn looked so guild-ridden and cowed, Lyle simply couldn't keep it up. He burst into laughter. Welwyn, apparently seizing gratefully at any easing of the tension between them, chuckled so hard he clutched his belly.
"None of this is in the slightest bit amusing," Lyle pointed out, gouging his nails into his palms in an attempt to control his mirth. He giggled again. "Why are we laughing?"
"I don't know," said Welwyn. "I just wish… I'd realized before, what great company you are. It could've been so different between us."
"Yeah, well, that was your call," mumbled Lyle. "Instead, you cursed us both to a long spell in solitary confinement. You're not the brightest starfish in the constellation of the seas, are you, Welwyn?"
"Probably not. But I can see what I need to do now, thanks to you… brother."
Welwyn reached out toward Lyle. Lyle regarded him placidly for a moment, letting Welwyn wonder whether he'd be rejected yet again. Lyle realized he enjoyed making his brother suffer a little too much. Slowly, hesitantly, Lyle clasped Welwyn's proffered hands and fins.
Power sparked, fizzing from Lyle's core and into every point of contact with Welwyn, arcing between them like streaks of lightning in the places they didn't touch. Lyle gasped and fixed on Welwyn's eyes, finding a stolid serenity there that fortified him.
As the magic built and built, Welwyn furrowed his hoary brow and let loose a roar. Lyle joined him, yelling with all the yearning in his soul. This had to work. If he didn't see Benjamin again soon, he might as well expire.
"The time has come," said Welwyn, his voice gravelly with exertion. As one, they raised their gazes toward the fissure in the cave roof. Two masses of grey cloud smashed together, obscuring the waxing gibbous moon. Electricity crackled through the sky, and a lightning bolt scythed toward the cave.
"Take cover," shouted Welwyn. They broke their link and threw themselves in opposite directions. Dust saturated the air. Lyle covered his head, but when he peeped up, no more moonlight trickled into the cave than previously, and the opening was only a fraction larger.
"It hasn't worked." Lyle's voice broke on his misery. "We're going to have to spend the rest of eternity in here."
"It will work," said Welwyn, his resolute tones echoing through the settling dust. "Let's try again. Don't desp—"
A loud rumbling from behind startled them both. They spun about. A door appeared in the seamless rock wall and swung open. A figure stepped through, and the portal closed again.
"Emmet!" At the appearance of their cousin, Welwyn stepped forward and squared his mighty shoulders. His fins straightened like four jutting spears. Acting on instinct, Lyle rushed to his side and adopted the same defensive posture.
Emmet appeared… totally unfamiliar. It struck Lyle that he'd long forgotten what his cousin looked like, and he could understand why. Emmet was around the same height, although stockier, than Lyle, and his hair possessed the same claret streaks. His features resembled Welwyn's but with none of the doe-eyed ruggedness that made Welwyn a striking presence. He carried a weapon—Welwyn's old staff—but his fins trailed limply.
"And how are the siblings getting along?" said Emmet. "I expect it's been a joyful reunion for both of you."
"We can take him, easy," muttered Lyle to Welwyn, beneath his breath.
Welwyn threw Lyle a subtle wink.
"My, my!" Emmet raked Lyle with a lascivious gaze. "You're even more ravishing than you used to be, Lilly."
"My name is not Lilly. It's Lyle."
"A moot point, dear," said Emmet. "Either way, you would make me a decorous consort."
His ire elevating toward boiling point, Lyle reached for Welwyn's hand. Together, they could blast this idiot to oblivion—or at least, singe that smug grin off his face. Instead, Welwyn shoved Lyle backward so roughly, Lyle tumbled between two stalagmites and splashed into the pool, landing on his arse.
"You will not touch him!" Welwyn yelled. "If Lyle is to become any ruler's consort, it will be mine!"
Emmet raised his staff, and Welwyn raised his fists and poised his fins to strike.
So much for standing together. Welwyn, the stupid fool, was going to fight for him like he was an object, an insentient jewel to be won.
Lyle ground his teeth. His thoughts jammed to a juddering halt as fury erupted through him like an exploding volcano. A deep swooping sensation pulled at his innards, as using the strength of his vitriol, he sucked every iota of enchantment from the water around him, the nearby ocean, and the moon, and then…
*~*~*
"And then?" asked Ben.
They'd ended up back on the sofa, curled together. Lyle stole a last scrap of solace from the steady beat of Ben's heart. Then he lifted his head from Ben's chest and pushed up into a seated position, so he could look Ben in the eye. Lyle didn't deserve this confession to come easy.
"I honestly don't remember much of what happened next," said Lyle. "It was like what happened when Kristof got hurt. But it was much, much more intense."
At the mention of the incident in Shanty Wood, when Lyle had lost control of his magic and Kristoff, one of Ben's colleagues, had ended up with two broken legs, Ben's sympathetic gaze hardened slightly. Lyle flinched away.
"I saw red," he murmured. "I went berserk, basically. I completely lost it. "
Ben touched his cheek, forcing their eyes to meet again. "Lyle, tell me what happened next."
Lyle inhaled sharply. "I honestly don't know. The next thing I remember, the cave was flooded. The whole rock wall on one side had been battered away, leaving the cavern open to the elements. And my brother… Welwyn…" Lyle's vision misted as he recalled an image he'd revisited in many nightmares since. "Welwyn was impaled on one of the stalagmites. It'd pierced him right through the heart. We merfolk are hardy, and we can heal ourselves from many predicaments, but not that. He was very… dead."
"Oh, Lyle, I'm so sorry."
"So am I," said Lyle, "although I wished Welwyn dead many times. I still don't know if I should've forgiven him, but I think I did, at least a little. It didn't seem to make any difference to what happened that night, though."
Ben smoothed Lyle's hair, drawing him near again so their foreheads touched. Lyle managed to choke out the rest of his story, though saying it out loud just made him feel all the more culpable. Once he'd absorbed the sight of his dead brother, he'd registered Emmet peeling himself off the inner wall of the cave where he'd seemingly been plastered by some force. Emmet had been screaming at the top of his voice. "You killed him, Lyle! You're a murderer."
"But I could see my escape now," said Lyle. "There was nothing I could do for Welwyn, so I dived from the shelf of rock that'd once been the cave and into the sea. Once shifted into my full merman form, I gathered my strength and swam as fast as I could. The next evening would be a full moon. I knew you'd be waiting, so I travelled all night, and then travelled all day… and then I found you."
"Why didn't you tell me all this before?" asked Ben, arching back against the sofa and raising his arms in a stretch. Poor Ben looked extra tired now, and Lyle could hardly blame him.
"When we were first reunited, it was easy to let my joy simply blot it all out, deny it ever happened. Then, after a week or so… I knew I should've told you. But by that time, I feared I'd left it too long, and you'd think badly of me."
"Oh heavens, I don't think badly of you, Lyle. But I wish—"
Ben broke off, pushing himself up from the sofa and making for the kitchenette. He left Lyle in an agonizing quandary over whether he wanted Ben to complete the "But" part or not.
As ever, probably not.
Ben plopped a teabag in a mug and put the kettle on. "What a horrible thing to happen," he said. Then, almost as an afterthought, he added, "But you didn't kill your brother, Lyle."
Lyle pulled his knees to his chin. "How do you know? I can't be sure."
"Look, even if you did—and I don't believe for a moment you did—there were extenuating circumstances. In a court of law, it might be a tricky one, but—"
"They're coming for me," whispered Lyle. "I can feel it."
"Oh lord, baby." Ben added two spoons of sugar to his mug, a definite indicator of stress. Usually, he just took milk. "What the hell do you mean by that? Do your merman lot hold trials? Or undines, or whatever it is you call yourself. What are they going to do?"
"I'm not quite sure," conceded Lyle. "But fundamentally, I killed somebody. It's not like we have written laws to break, not like yours, but killing is still considered the worst crime there is among us. Besides, with Emmet in charge, he'll want to punish me, if only to get rid of me as a potential rival. It's definitely best I get out of here, but I don't know where to go. It would be much better if we could both just disappear."
"Job interview? The day after tomorrow, remember?" The kettle clicked off the boil and Ben poured out his tea, shaking his head. "I'd send you to stay with my parents if it wasn't for the tentacle issues."
Ben's mum and dad had met Lyle on a weekend visit to town, when they'd stayed in one of the posh hotels. While they'd liked Lyle a lot, Ben hadn't found the right moment to break the news about Lyle's peculiarities. Sending Lyle to visit them, unchaperoned, was out of the question.
"Are your people all like Emmet?" asked Ben. "Are they really so unreasonable?"
"Not all," said Lyle. "But it's such a long time since I was part of their community, I couldn't really say what they'll do."
"Okay, I think the best thing is not to panic." Ben placed himself back onto the seat beside Lyle, mug in hand. "In the morning, we go to work like normal. After the interview, if all goes well, we can both quit the ice-cream parlour and lay low in the midlands for a week or so till I start my new job. Traveling is going to be expensive now I've sold my car, but we'll deal somehow. In the meantime, we keep vigilant—I'll keep watch while you swim, and you share everything with me, right? If you remember anything more about what happened with Welwyn, or spot any more signs that your people are chasing you, please tell me. No more secrets."
Lyle bit his lip. Ben's plan seemed sensible, as ever, but left his buzz of disquiet undiminished. "Very well," he said. "No more secrets."