me how to shave. But maybe how to catch a mermaid?

“And now,” he says as he looks down at Layla. “For you.”

The whispering and giggling starts again. How am I supposed to be

their king when they clearly don’t even like humans?

Layla digs into her pockets. She’s got on these shorts that show

off her golden, powerful legs. She pulls out a pack of gum. She pulls

off a sliver and puts it in her mouth. She chews and chews and nothing

is happening, so the laughter continues.

She blows a bubble between her lips until it gets as big as a

basketball, and then it pops. Some of the court mermaids jump at the

echo of the pop; they touch their coiled hair and fix their pearls as

though they’re appalled that she would dare frighten them so. Behind

us the mermaids watching the spectacle from the fringes of the lake

smile with approval, and part of my nervousness washes away.

Layla hands the pack to my grandfather, who takes it almost

greedily. He does as she did, and soon all the wrappers are scattered

around his feet. I think about when Layla and I had contests to see

who could fit the most gum into our mouths, and our jaws would hurt

from chewing so much. She smiles with her mouth full of gum now, the

same way she did then.

My grandfather chews and chews. “Masticating food that never ends.

Wonderful. It reminds me of eating various fruits all at once.”

Marty leans into my ear and whispers, “I haven’t the heart to tell

him that there are zero fruit servings in that pack of gum.”

When the king frowns, my heart sinks. “The flavor is all gone.”

The mer-court jeers. My grandfather, the Sea King, swallows his

gum and sits back, pleased with himself.

It’s strange, almost painfully funny, how I have never known him,

and suddenly, unexplainably, out of thin air, I love him. I see my

mother in him, and I wonder if I’m in there too.

He bows his head to Layla, the lines around his eyes spread with a

smile. “I accept your gift. And you are welcome as a guest of Tristan

Hart.”

She bows her head to him and links her fingers with mine.

Everything about her is buzzing, and that makes me drunk and happy and

dizzy. Since we’re both alive, I guess this means she loves me .

An orchestra plays cellos and violins that look like they were

made from the mast of a ship and strung with gold, and trumpets and

horns made out of endlessly coiled shells.

My eyes are everywhere at once-the girls jumping off rocks, the

women holding merbabies, the princesses mingling in their private but

open tents. I try to picture my mother sitting by the throne under one

of those canopies with her hair done up in shells and pearls, watching

as purple girls play the harp for her. I can’t see her there trying to

be a good and proper princess. I know she’d be in the middle of the

lake, dancing, mingling, being the life of the party.

We pick food off opulent trays passed around by more pretty pink

girls who might actually be boys. It’s hard to tell. Layla elbows me

because I’m not eating enough. She says it’s rude to not eat

everything they give you. Like the time her dad made some Ecuadorian

delicacy, which was really just guinea pig, which, no matter how you

cut it up and put it on the grill, is just a big fat rat. But I ate it

then, just like I’m eating whatever this delightfully green chewy

stuff is now. For Layla.

Marty sucks on the inside of a clam, which makes Layla wrinkle her

nose.

“Unlike other fey,” he says, “merpeople are the only ones whose

food you can eat. Land fairies can keep you in their courts if you so

much as lick honey from their spoons-or various other parts-”

Layla snorts, taking a sip from a fizzy pink liquid. Her eyes

squint when she smiles so hard. I never noticed how long her eyelashes

are, how black against the smooth honey of her eyes.

Marty hits me in the shoulder to get my attention. “Hey, Tristan,

check this. What do you call a thirteen-year-old mermaid?”

I shake my head and Layla shrugs. “What?”

“A mer teenie!” He slaps his knee and wipes a fake tear from the

corner of his eye.

Layla rolls her eyes but laughs as well. “Lame.”

For the first time, I notice Kurt’s scowl is missing. I spot him

over by the tents shaking hands with some older men. “Who are those

guys Kurt’s talking to?” I ask Thalia.

Her yellow-green eyes narrow. “Ugh, that’s Elias. He’s the son of

Ellion, herald of the East. They’re nasty folk. Nasty, nasty.”

“Tell me how you really feel,” Marty coos at her, wrapping an arm

around her shoulder.

I’ve never heard Thalia dislike anything, so in my book they’re

not good news. Elias is the grizzly guy I noticed before, bordering on

steroid-big with hair and eyes as black as tar. At first it looks like

he’s wearing silver arm plates, but when he crosses his arms over his

chest, I can see it’s just his scales.

I scratch at my wrists where my own scales want to come out. I let

them. One by one, they surface, starting at my wrist and ending in a

splatter around my elbow. My grandfather glances over at me, a smile

tugging at his severe mouth.

Layla is staring at my arms. She doesn’t say anything. I can feel

her amazement.

Elias is joined by the girl with the white-blond hair in a conch

shell. She plays with the black pearls around her neck. Her skin is

the white of clean snow. The pink of her lips form a tight smile. She

bows at the men he parades her in front of, and then returns to the

shade of her tent.

“That’s Elias’s betrothed .” Thalia notices me staring too long.

“I forget her name. She’s the daughter of the North herald, but to

settle her father’s debt she agreed to marry Elias. It was a thing.”

“Better watch out there, little mermaid, you’re starting to talk

like me.”

“Look what I got,” Layla says, holding up a small silver tray of

what look like pink Jell-O squares. She and Thalia toss them into

their mouths like they’re catching grapes. I let Layla feed one to me

just to be polite. My lips catch the tip of her finger, which tastes a

bit salty. Her smile is happy, lazy. I think she might even be drunk.

The pink square is slightly sweet with the texture of gummy bears.

“What is it?”

“The guy who handed it to me said it was jellyfish brains,” Layla

says, collapsing into a fit of laughter with Thalia.

“I thought we were friends. Jerks ,” I add under my breath.

“That’s why I couldn’t resist,” she says. She and Thalia tiptoe

dance along the hot ground, then finally sit at the edge of the pool

with their feet dangling over the water. Thalia shifts into her tail

so that it peeks out from her puffy tulle skirts, and her tail fins

lick the water. She’s the green of new grass. Layla asks her something

and Thalia nods. Slowly, Layla traces her finger along Thalia’s scales

where her thigh would be. I can smell Layla’s wonder, her own blend of

blooming flowers.

“Pretty hot action over there.” I forgot Marty was sitting beside

me.

“Huh?”

“Don’t act like you’re not seeing what I’m seeing.”

“Dude, what are you?”

“Oh, you remember that.” He leans back on his elbows, his baseball

cap shielding his face from the sun. “Tell you what. If we see each

other again on land, I’ll tell you.” He puts out his fist and I bump

his with mine. “There’s a lot you don’t know, dude. This is just the

beginning.”

“You ever been to one of these before?”

“Nah. But I’m neutral, and the alliance means keeping all the