Thalia cringes. “I’m afraid to ask who’s next.”

“Next?” I choke on my beer. “No way. I’ll find the oracle another

way. I have a lead. Only, none of us can translate it because it’s the

language of the oracles.”

Kurt giggles to himself. He sounds out the word: “ Ohhhhh-racles.”

Thalia smacks my arm. “I can’t believe you let him drink this!”

“I’m fine.” Kurt shakes his head and clears his throat.

“Oh-racles. Ha-ha! They like to play mind games. It’s all a game of

the mind. And here.” He takes my hand and places it over his heart.

“Mermen like you and me, we play games of the heart.” He presses his

forehead against mine as if we’re in on some new magical secret. I

should slap myself for letting Kurt have so many beers. “That’s why

she wasn’t there.”

“Who?” Thalia asks. “Who wasn’t there?”

“The Oh-racle, my lovely sister!” Kurt gets up and makes a beeline

for the bathroom, mumbling about how this part is so much easier in

the sea . I’m not sure if he’s talking about princesses or peeing.

“Tristan, fix him!”

“I can’t.” I take the beer cans and dump them in the sink. “He

just has to pee it out.”

Thalia grunts. “Then why are you celebrating?”

I tell her about my parents and their new brat, and she says, “Be

happy for them. They’ll be losing you. This may make it easier.”

But I don’t like that idea, either.

Then I hear Kurt flush. “We have to tell your brother.”

“I can’t. Not until I know it can truly happen. That you can truly

make me human.” She takes my hand softly. There’s a strange noise in

the living room. Someone falling down.

“Uh-oh.”

Kurt’s on the floor, sprawled across our fuzzy white rug.

“Is he okay?” Thalia goes to him and tries to lift him up, but

he’s dead weight.

Kurt gathers his hands and folds them under his face like a

pillow. He makes deep, guttural snoring noises.

“I think he’s-smiling,” I say. “Probably the first good night’s

sleep he’s had in a while.”

I dig my hands in my pockets and feel the coolness of the Venus

pearl I forgot was there. I bring it out and cup it in my palm. I

really wish I could have given it to Layla.

“Tristan!” Thalia hisses, snatching it from me.

“Careful!”

“Don’t you see?” She dangles it in my face.

“Yes, I see a sweet present I can’t give to-” And I realize.

“Shelly! Shelly can translate the oracle speak.”

I take Thalia’s head and kiss her forehead loudly. “Only problem

is, what can I gift her? I’m thinking we’ve run out of precious gems,

and the pearl won’t work twice.”

“Get your backpack.” Her smile is cunning. “I have just the

thing.”

***

“It’s like a great metal makara,” Thalia says, hopping on the

train.

We take the F all the way to Manhattan. This late on a Monday

night, the subway platform is full of the strangest people only New

York breeds. Couples full of PDA, a man with a dress made of balloon

animals and plastic bottles. People coming and going, and those with

nowhere to go at all.

Thalia clutches the wooden box Felix gave her, and I pull on the

straps of my backpack for the security of my weapons. I can’t decide

if I want to sit forward or lean back. Uncertainty is the worst

feeling in the world. Worse than rejection and worse than failure,

because at least then the action has been completed. Uncertainly is

emotional limbo.

Deep in my heart, I know I have all the pieces and now I have to

make them fit.

“What were you really doing with Penny?”

“I wanted to see them.” She stares at the speeding blackness out

the window, the graffiti rolling by like a flip book of colors and

shapes that never stop changing.

“You should call Layla.”

“I know,” I admit. I don’t want to tell her about Sarabell. She’ll

hate me. Even if I didn’t do anything wrong, I still hate me for

going. “Did you see her today?”

“At Thorne Hill. In the field with the others.”

“The schoolyard?”

“That one. There was a huge commotion because your friend-” She

snaps her finger. “The one with the tall hair.”

“Angelo.”

“Yes. He was running with Princess Menana on his shoulders. All

the adults were furious. They were naked right down to those little

trousers for your foot-fins.”

“Socks?”

“Not that the adults are better. They’re all mad. You remember

what it was like when the rest of the princesses arrived. They’re

making all the boys happy as seals in mating season. Layla’s been put

in the ground by her parents so she had to leave immediately.”

“You mean grounded?”

“That’s what I said.”

I place my face in my hands. “Should I do something?”

“Become king. Restore order.”

The train barrels into the station. I take her hand and lead her

up and out through the Manhattan streets. I realize Thalia’s never

been in the city. She stares at the checkered lights of the buildings

and I explain that’s where people live. She laughs and pets a fire

hydrant because she likes the shape. When we’re in Central Park, I try

to remember the direction Gwen and I took Friday night. But the

winding paths are dark, and the shadowed trees all look the same.

Thalia picks up a baby mouse at her feet and cradles it.

“Ugh-cut it out, Snow White. Those things are gross.”

She places it back on the grass and pinches me. “All life is

precious, Tristan.”

“Come.” I lead her through the urban woods and up a hill, until

the castle comes into view.

“Oh my,” she gasps. “I didn’t know you had royalty here.”

I laugh as we head straight up toward Turtle Pond. “We don’t. It’s

for kids to play in.”

But before I can take another step into the shadows of the castle

walls, a tall woman emerges. Her black leather clothes glisten in the

moonlight. Her hair is a shock of bloody red cascading over one

shoulder.

“Tristan-” Thalia takes a step back, crushing a twig that seems to

echo all over the park.

The woman bends her face over the crossbow in her arms.

I raise a hand, about to say, “Don’t shoot!” but I hear it. The

crunch of leaves beneath her feet. The spring release of her bow. The

way the air is split by the arrow, silver and sharp and headed right

at my face.

The arrow shoots right through the center of my palm.

Thalia screams my name.

A familiar voice barks, “Rachel! No!”

Frederik is a shadow in the park, zooming toward the redhead with

the bow. I can hear the bow fall against a rock.

I grunt through the pain, fighting the reaction to ball my hand

into a fist.

“Nice friends you’ve got, vampire ,” Thalia says.

She examines my hand. The shaft went right through. There’s so

much blood. On the ground. In my palm. When Thalia wipes her forehead,

a red streak comes away like a brushstroke.

“They were trespassing, Fred.”

Another set of feet rush through the trees. It’s Marty the

shape-shifter. He pushes past the redhead, swivels his black baseball

cap backward, and kneels down by me. “They’re friends.”

I grind my teeth as he takes my hand.

“I have to break the shaft,” he says, “and pull it straight

through. Okay?”

“Just get it out.” I let myself scream once, then hold my breath.

Fuzzy numbness starts to crawl along my entire arm. I have the

vague feeling that’s what an army of ants crawling on your skin would

feel like.

“Want me to turn into someone more appealing?” Marty’s pale face

turns into a blond I’m pretty sure I’ve seen on the cover of one of