They were flowing toward the entrance, weaving through crashing legs, through divers who swept below them as they reached for their scattered guns. The strange mermaid suddenly lunged to one side, tugging Luce with her, and a shining silver blade flashed past just where Luce’s head had been. It clanged into the stones, the water trembling with the sound. Luce tried to spiral her tail to drive herself at full speed, but the water was so crowded with bodies both living and dead that her movements were blocked by jumbled flesh.
Then it was the other mermaid who was picking up speed, towing Luce out through the fouled water and into crashing gray. Whorls of golden dawn spread out above them, leaping with the heave of the sea. Luce’s injured stomach clenched with pain as the other mermaid jerked on her arm, urging her to move, and from the corner of her eye Luce saw a few of the sleek black figures already after them. She was holding the other mermaid back, Luce realized, going much too slowly. Her whole body spasmed from pain as she forced herself into a burst of speed.
Beside her the other mermaid bucked and screamed. Luce glanced over at her in terror, but she was still alive, gritting her teeth as the blood sheeted off her light brown skin.
Away. They were getting away, the human divers drifting somewhere behind them. They were heading deeper, dipping around a bend. Far above Luce saw the black oblong shape of a boat silhouetted against rippling greenish light. The other mermaid was whirling forward in her panic, and Luce couldn’t stand the pain of going at this speed anymore. She tried to pull her arm free. The stranger was safe now, or as safe as she could be. It would definitely be better for her to go on without Luce.
Since Luce was the one they were after, in particular . . .
Since they’d just seen her, and they’d know she couldn’t be all that far away, and she’d probably killed at least one of them moments before . . .
“Come on!” the girl beside her barked, her voice distorted from the water. “I know a . . . It’s close . . .”
A hiding place? Luce made herself keep going, and in a few moments they were at a narrow crevice in the rock. Luce reared back. They were far below the surface, and she’d exhausted too much of her air by dashing so quickly. The crevice looked dark and ominous, and Luce felt sure they’d only get stuck in there and drown.
“Come on, already!” The other mermaid darted into the ragged shadow, and after a moment Luce followed her.
It went upward, and at first it was so narrow that her tail thrashed against the rock. Luce had no trouble seeing in the darkness, but she knew it was utterly lightless. Now and then the fins of the mermaid ahead swished against her face.
Then the crack began to widen and a subtle wash of light refracted through the water. They kept squirming upward, and Luce heard the stranger inhale a few seconds before her own head broke free of the surface. They were in a narrow span of water, smooth as black glass. The crevice kept twisting upward before it ended in a shard of daylight at least a hundred feet above them.
There was no real beach in here, but there were outcroppings and natural shelves where they could at least rest for a while. Luce saw that the other girl’s left fin was sliced by a three-inch gash at its bottom edge, both sections writhing as if they were trying to hold each other. That was why she’d screamed, then. Her face was still taut with pain, her forehead furrowed. She was close to Luce’s age, and she looked at her roughly.
“Are you who I think you are?” the girl asked.
Maybe her tribe had met Nausicaa too. Nausicaa must have talked about Luce all the way down the coast, bizarre as that seemed.
“I’m Luce.”
“Yeah. That wild business you pulled with the water. I should have guessed right away, but I was too . . .” She paused, breathing hard, obviously struggling for self-control. “Luce. My God. Did you hear what they said?”
Luce nodded. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. I thought they were just murdering any mermaids they could find, but if they were looking for me, and that’s why . . . your tribe . . .”
“What did you do to get those creeps in that huge of an uproar? They said something . . .”
“They didn’t say the whole thing,” Luce snarled. “They massacred my old tribe. Everyone. Then they were shooting at me. They made it sound like I just attacked them out of nowhere!”
“You did that water thing to them?”
“I smashed their boat into a cliff. Back in Alaska. I was just trying to stop them, really, but I guess a few of them died? But I don’t know . . . I can’t understand how they knew who I was, or my name, or . . .”
Actually, there was one obvious explanation for how they might have gotten their information. Luce just didn’t want to believe it. There was someone who could easily give the authorities the name of the mermaid who knew how to control the water with her singing. She sent a giant wave at your boat? Oh yeah, that was definitely Luce. She’s the only one who could have done that! More than that, he could show them very good drawings of her.
He could also confirm her identity after some people just happened to tape a mermaid. She was heading this way, the soldier had said.
The girl’s eyes were wide, and she was biting her lip. Luce wavered, all the blood rushing away from her head and leaving a stripped, nightmarish shore behind it. Could Dorian really have done that to her?
“I’d heard about you and the whole water-cannon act. You’re getting to be kind of legendary, for sure. But you’ve really got enough power to pick up a boat and crack it in half?” The girl laughed, too wildly, then choked on her own laughter. Her face kept bunching strangely.
Luce gaped at her. She was overwhelmed by the hideous things she’d just realized. “It . . . works better when I’m really upset. I couldn’t always . . .”
“Oh, I think you’re going to get sufficient opportunities to be upset!” Suddenly the girl’s poise crumbled completely, and her face deformed like smashed clay. Sobs racked her, and she doubled and gasped. Luce wasn’t sure what to do at first—the girl seemed too tough and confident to want to be held.
Then Luce didn’t care anymore. She swam over and hugged the weeping mermaid, resting her head on the same rock. Luce didn’t know why she couldn’t cry now. She definitely had enough reasons to. She’d never felt so cold, so utterly poisoned inside. She’d thought that abandoning her would be enough of a betrayal for Dorian, but apparently he’d only be satisfied with getting her murdered. That was what humans were like; that was what happened if you trusted one of them.
Why hadn’t she wanted to kill them, again?
The strange girl’s sobs grew only more violent.
Luce listened to her and thought with icy loathing of the boy she’d once loved so completely. He was responsible for this.
It was at least an hour before the strange girl cried herself out. “Queen Luce? We’re going to have to get moving.”
“I know,” Luce said. Another tribe had died because she’d come too late. And after what had happened that morning the divers would be more determined than ever to catch her, and they’d go on killing all the mermaids along her route.
Far from saving them, she’d only ensured their deaths.
“Where are you going, anyway?”