I could use a merman like Dylan on my side.

“So we kept searching for an oracle. My father’s councilman

thought about this land. The Vale of Tears. What better place to hide

an oracle but a place outside of time? But on our way here, we were

attacked by dozens of merrows. I didn’t know what they were at first.

I’d only heard about them. They’re not supposed to grow so large. They

were on their way landside and I couldn’t-I knew the terror they’d

wreak on land so I turned my army from my father’s and followed them.

That’s when more of them arrived and took my father’s ship. I barely

got away, swimming right into the mist.”

“What did you see in the mist?”

But he doesn’t answer. Instead his eyes flick around the dark then

back at me. “What about you? Have you seen the merrows?”

I laugh again. I can’t help but laugh. Champions. We’re supposed

to be kings and here we are, eating skinny rabbit creatures and hiding

from beasts. So I tell him. All of it. From the moment I shifted in

the bathtub and Kurt and Thalia came into my life to take me to

Toliss. Looking for the oracle, the merrows attacking my school. How

the princesses showed up and made the student body crazy. Gwen and how

she helped me find Shelly. Shelly giving me the scepter. The strange

marketplace at the Vanishing Cove. The promise I made to the nautilus

maid-that part I keep to myself.

The rest comes pouring out of me. I tell him of my courting the

mermaid princesses. How Adaro came to Coney. How Nieve killed him. How

we found the eldest oracle, Lucine-then Kurt.

By the end of it, I’m spent. I stare at the fire, the red eye, the

wood consuming itself, and I wonder if I could have changed any of it.

“Kurtomathetis is King Karanos’s son?” Dylan marvels.

I nod once.

“There were rumors of how strange Kurtomathetis was in that

family. Thalia had their mother’s gift of speaking to sea animals.

Their father could control fire, a gift so rare it was only passed on

to sons. But it died with him, didn’t it?”

I don’t want to talk about Kurt. “So you’ve been here all this

time and you haven’t found the river folk?”

“More like they don’t want to be found.” Dylan shakes his head.

“The tribe is hidden in the center of the land, but I can’t get deep

enough into the woods without arriving back where I started. It’s like

I’m going in circles! There’s the beast, which the councilman failed

to mention. It nearly got me when I first got here. But there are

plenty of fish in the river. Game in the forest. Berries in the

bushes. It rains and I believe that marks the beginning of the day.”

“Then it’s a good thing I showed up. You saved me from the

lion-dragon-beast thing, and when I get out of here, you’ll be able to

go back home.”

“The trident pieces have been found, Lord Tristan,” he says. “I

don’t think I’ll be much use as another champion.”

I give him a light punch on the shoulder. “You are seriously not

seeing what I’m seeing. You’re a great fighter. Better than Kurt. He’s

like a ballerina with a sword. All you had is a carved piece of wood!

Consider yourself hired when we get back to our world.”

Dylan smirks at my words. He holds on tightly to his staff,

looking up at the mobile sky. At the tiny home he’s built for himself.

Then it hits me: it’s not that he can’t get out. It’s that he doesn’t

want to.

I say, “Time out. You’ve been here playing survivor this whole

time while the rest of us are trying to see this championship through,

and now that I’m offering a way out, you’d rather stay in the Land

before Time?”

“You don’t even have a way out! You’re barely in!” When Dylan

shouts, the vein in his neck pops out.

“Oh, it’s like that, right?”

“It’s like what?” He gets up and takes a step out of our circle.

“I didn’t ask for you to come here. I didn’t ask for my father to

choose me instead of my brother. Now they’re both dead because I

failed at the one thing I was supposed to do as his heir. I can’t go

back to my people.”

He sits on the ground with his back to me. Something stirs out

there. Perhaps it’s the beast and its trusty lizard-bird. Or maybe

it’s the Vale itself giving me a warning. Either way, I keep my dagger

in hand and rack my brain for something good to say to Dylan.

“I’m sorry about your family,” I say. “But you still have the

people of your court who are fighting the silver mermaid. Family is a

lot more than blood and DNA. Not that you would know about DNA because

merpeople don’t have biology class. And I’m not entirely sure what

they would teach you in mer high school other than advanced swimming

and sword fighting and that nobody likes dragons.”

“I don’t understand the things you say, Lord Tristan,” Dylan says,

trying to suppress his laughter. He gets up from his self-imposed

time-out then comes back to the fireside. “Do you know the last thing

my father and I fought about?”

I shake my head. My dad and I have only had one fight. It was over

whether or not I should get a summer job as a lifeguard. I never

understood why my parents got so nervous when I kept pushing to see

how far out I could swim until now.

“We fought about my place in our court. I told him I didn’t want

to be like him, with the next thousand years of my life mapped out for

me.” Dylan takes the platinum band off his head and holds it in his

hands. “He even had a princess all picked out! And she moved right

into my chambers without even asking if I wanted her there.”

The forest has gotten so quiet that not even the wind makes a

peep.

“What did she have, bad teeth?” I set down my dagger. “Oh man, was

she one of those octo-maids, because multiple hands might not be a bad

thing.”

“Lord Tristan!”

“Just call me Tristan.”

“The problem with the princess-” Dylan seems to be listening to

voices in his head. He looks down at his feet and swallows the dryness

from his tongue. “The problem was that she was a princess. My father

turned down my choice of stethos because he was from a lesser family.”

I raise my hand. “What the hell is a stethos?”

That word sparks a memory of Sarabell. The minute I think of her,

I think of Adaro, then Leomaris. The blue flames. Arion.

Then Dylan pushes me on the ground.

“What the f-”

“Tristan,” Dylan says, but he’s not looking at me.

A dozen warriors surround us, their skin as see-through as glass

and their bows pulled tightly, arrows aimed right at our heads.

Warriors surround us. Their armor is green leather. Their skin is

nearly translucent. I can see the outline of ribs, lungs, and hearts

beating. The River Clan.

I raise my hands, but that makes half of them turn their arrows on

me.

“Wait a minute, guys,” I say. “We’ve been looking for you.”

“I don’t think they want to talk,” Dylan warns.

“I’m Tristan Hart and this is Dylan of the Western Seas-”

One of the warriors steps forward. I wonder how fast I can reach

for my dagger. She raises a blade and, with one swipe at me, cuts the

leather bound around my chest. My harness falls off into her hands. My

weapons clink against each other.

Not fast enough, I guess.

“We know who you are, Land Prince,” the girl says. Her face is no

longer translucent but brown. Her irises are like the black and amber

swirls in tiger stone. She knocks the wind from me with a single hit

in the solar plexus.