“Why are you leaving?”
She hesitated. “I’m going back to Utopia.”
“But were you following Adaro’s orders to attack?”
“What do you mean?”
“Were you in battle against humans over there?”
“Obviously—”
Something moved below, and the mermaid jerked, redirecting her spear. Even I could tell it was a fish.
I was getting a rising impression she wasn’t supposed to be here.
“Where’s Adaro now?” I said.
Her head snapped up at this, aura darkening. “Who wants to know?”
I hesitated. Even if my suspicions were right and she had deserted the army, that didn’t necessarily mean she would take well to someone planning to kill her king.
“Never mind,” said the mermaid, backing away. “I don’t need a place to sleep.”
As she made to turn away, I shot forwards and grabbed her wrist, my teeth sharpening so quickly they cut my bottom lip. The mermaid cried out and swung her spear at my head.
I grabbed the spear with my other hand before it could hit me.
“Tell me where Adaro is.”
“I don’t know!”
Something about her racing pulse, or maybe the way her aura seemed to cloud over, told me she was lying. She knew.
I snarled. “This is important. I need to find him—”
She slammed me in the gut with her tail. I grunted, a bubble erupting from my mouth. Next thing I knew, her arm had torn from my grip and her weapon slid through my other hand, spearhead catching on my palm.
Ignoring the stinging cut, I lunged after her as she took off like a bolt. I cursed, knowing I was too stiff and exhausted to catch her.
A moment passed, and the world fell back into silence. I looked down, examining my webbed fingers, then closed my eyes and forced my appearance back to normal. The threatening approach had been a total failure. I was glad Lysi hadn’t been there to see it.
Then again, if she’d been awake we might not have followed the mermaid at all. She would have told me I was being reckless, I thought, remembering when my curiosity had almost led me inside an iron-infested ship.
At least we had directions to Kori Maru, now. That was something.
I headed back to the raft, wondering what time it was. Behind the clouds, the sky was still indigo—but this far north during the summer, I supposed the sky never got darker than twilight.
Ahead, something stirred. I froze for a minute, and then shut my eyes and groaned.
“Meela!”
Lysi was in full panic.
“I’m here,” I called, hurrying in the direction of her voice.
The chaotic ripples paused, and then Lysi shot towards me out of the darkness.
“Mee, where—?”
