“What does Nieve love?” I wonder aloud. “Besides her power.”

We say it together. “Her children.”

Steps echo outside our chamber prison. Kurt and I remain silent as

Gwen comes back in. She ignores Kurt and touches the bloody gashes

where the sea dragon grabbed me, and I scream bloody murder.

She flinches and looks me dead in the eyes. “You’re awake.”

“Gwen.” I take on a lighter tone. “Enjoying the weather?”

“You don’t have to put on a brave face,” she says.

“Is that what you’re doing?” I will her to look at me. “Because

you don’t have to heal me. You can let me bleed out. I’ve been

wondering lately what will happen to me when I die. You know, since

I’m half human. Humans leave behind their bones, no matter how old

they are. It’s the one thing that we have in common at the very end.

But then there’s the fishy part of me. What if the bottom half of me

washes away in little bubbles and from my waist up I’m all human bone?

What if it’s the other way around?” I cough and laugh, making a

terrible choking sound.

“Say something,” I whisper.

The white stone walls bounce my words back at me. Say something.

She squeezes the towel soaked with a green liquid. Then she throws

it on the floor. The green ooze trickles from the broken shell bowl

and spreads out like the Finger Lakes on a map.

“What would you have me say?” Gwen lowers her face to mine. “That

I love you. That I love you so much I’d betray my family for you?”

She laughs a bitter laugh and turns away so I can’t see her. “We

have worked too hard and too long to stop now. Don’t you see? Mother

will bring our people together when we take over the land that once

belonged to us.”

“That world doesn’t belong to you,” I say. I pull at my bindings,

my joints screaming in pain. “Is that what you really want, or your

mother?”

She traces her fingers on my face, down my neck and along where

the cuts on my shoulder have started to scab. Her magic leaves a dirty

trail on me, and I think I’d rather feel the pain.

“I don’t know what I want anymore,” she says softly. Then she

turns around and leaves me, walking out into the dark corridors of the

Toliss chambers.

“Gwen, don’t go,” I say. “Don’t go.”

“Leave her,” Kurt tells me.

She stops at the door, but she isn’t talking to me. She’s talking

to someone out there, waiting in the hallway. “He’s ready.”

Leomaris walks in. It wasn’t Adaro I thought I saw; it was his

father. His long hair is pulled back, and the thick golden band frames

his forehead. He’s joined by a slender merman with a face that looks

like a jigsaw puzzle of skins.

Leomaris raises his hand and the binding ropes loosen. My muscles

are cramped and I fall hard on my face. They’re on me at once.

“Gwen!” I shout her name but she’s gone.

Leomaris and the merman pick me up and drag me out into the

hallway.

“You’re making a mistake,” I tell the herald. “You can’t trust

her.”

“I don’t have to trust her,” he tells me. “I can’t defeat her. No

one can. Someone has to pay for my son’s death. That someone is you.”

They throw me in front of the great white throne where I first met

my grandfather. Kurt falls beside me on his knees, his head bent

forward. Wet strands of hair cover his face.

Then there’s Nieve flanked by Archer and Gwen. She smiles wide as

a shark, her teeth a waiting trap. Her legs are covered with bright

silver scales that look thick as armor, right down to the ankles where

her slender feet touch the ground. Her crown is gilded gold with woven

pearls as if they’re floating on her white hair.

The pool was once bright and laughing with mermaids singing and

swimming. The paradise welcomed me to my life as a merman. Now there

is only the smell of death. Merrows in clusters adding to the

destruction. It’s gone, broken in half. The gash down the lake has

created a connecting rush of water from the shore. It’s like a

wrecking crew ripped out the lake and went straight for the sea,

crushing the valley wall that used to block the surrounding trees.

Now, that’s all demolished. From here, there’s a direct path where

trees were crushed to mulch. The sea is dark and I squint my eyes for

some sign that my army got my signal, that I wasn’t too late-

No, it wasn’t a wrecking crew that did this. Not even Nieve. Not

the merrows. It was the Sleeping Giants. Well, wide awake now.

With a shove, I’m on my knees beside Kurt, facing the Silver

Queen. The pieces of the trident are suspended in the air for her to

take. Hands push our heads to the ground. My cheek presses against the

top of her foot. She lifts my chin with her toes. Kicks me in the

face.

First, she holds the Staff of Eternity. She twirls it between her

hands like a baton. Her merrows holler and shout in a discordant

chorus. Then she takes the Scepter of the Earth. My scepter. I tug on

my ropes, summoning the energy that ran inside me moments ago, but

it’s gone. She slides the handle into one of the openings of the

staff. The core of the quartz lights up like a headlight shining in my

face. I have to look away.

Then she takes the Trident of the Skies. She holds it alone first,

raising it to the sky, pulling on the power of the heavens until it

circles her in a shower of sparks. Kurt can’t look, but I force

myself. I force myself to get angry. I force myself to hate.

Finally, she connects the missing piece. The lake of the Sea Court

is full of stomping feet and shouts of victory.

Then she walks forward to face her merrows. She raises the trident

into the sky and blocks out the sun.

Without my scepter, I don’t know what to do but watch the silver

mermaid wield the Trident of the Seas.

Her exterior changes. She looks taller, her hair as white as the

lightning that courses through her body. She stares straight into the

eclipse, and in turn, we all stare at her. I don’t want to. But she’s

a force of nature, wild and fierce. Her arms look like they’re holding

up the sky.

The waves around Toliss are so tall that I can see the white surf

rising high.

“Today we take back our oceans,” she says.

Kurt lifts his head to look at me, his eyes glowing. He doesn’t

have to say it. No matter what, Nieve can’t win. Even if it means our

lives.

Merrows flood out of the court and into the sea. Terrible moans

and roars mingle with the whipping winds. The giants crest with the

waves. The sea horse stretches its forelegs, its slick mane shimmering

in the starlight. Then it dives back in, its tail a prism of colors.

Sea dragons screech above us, ready to sink their talons back in our

flesh. They fly a careful distance from the giant tentacles that curl

and stretch toward the sky. The only creature I can’t see is the

turtle with the spiked shell, but when a long angry noise rips through

the sky, I know that it’s close by.

“Hey, Leomaris!” I call out to him. “How does it feel to kiss the

feet of the mermaid who murdered your kid?”

Nieve snaps her head at me. She’s drunk on power and she smiles

with her shark teeth. “Don’t listen to the half-breed. He was there.

He could have saved Adaro and he chose not to.”

I get on one knee and face them. Then I stand, my hands still tied

behind my back.

“Do you know how I found him?” I ask.

He doesn’t want to hear it. It’s cruel of me to do this to

someone’s dad. But he has to know. “Adaro was on his ship, writhing in