Could he have been lured but not killed? Was that possible?
My eyes burned. I blinked, angry with myself for grasping at such a dead hope—and at Lysi for leading me to disappointment. My brother was dead. He had been gone for over a decade. Wouldn’t I know if he was still alive? Wouldn’t I have felt it deep inside me?
“It can’t be.”
Lysi was mistaken. It was a desperate, impossible wish to think anything otherwise.
But as the returning mermen and mermaids came closer, that long-forgotten presence grew stronger. A distant emotion washed over me like a waterfall.
“He’s here?” I said, the words numb on my lips.
Lysi nodded once. Her eyebrows pulled down. Pain exploded in my chest.
Every emotion rushed through me. Sadness, joy, fear—a surge of anger. Lysi knew Nilus was alive and hadn’t told me? I thought back to the last few days, all that time we’d spent in silence. I thought back to when she’d met my parents on Eriana Kwai.
“Lysi, why didn’t—?”
“Meela?” said a deep voice beside us.
A small cry escaped me. I didn’t look. I closed my eyes for a moment, steeling myself, and then turned to face him.
Him. My big brother.
By sight, I would not have recognised him. His features had changed from human to merman—reptilian skin and face shape, overlarge red eyes, bulbous ears, and webbed fingers. Like all mermen, he was an exemplified sea demon and never reverted to a human-like state. He was worn and tired, hair long and ungroomed, stone crossbow over his back. But somewhere beneath this exterior was Nilus. I felt it in his aura. Everything about it was familiar, taking me back to my life before he left on the Massacre and everything changed.
I lunged for him and wrapped my arms around him, shouting something incoherent that sounded like, “Nil—how—ohmyg—aliv—!”
He made a faint noise, like a note of surprised laughter.
Underwater, my tears manifested as strange half-sobs and puffy eyes that were probably leaking, but I couldn’t tell.
“You’re a mermaid,” he said in a strangled voice. “My god, how—? Lysi?”
Lysi spoke, but I couldn’t hear the words through the fog in my brain. I closed my eyes, feeling Nilus’ presence with every part of me. All the love I’d felt as a child, the affection that had been laid to rest alongside Nilus’ memory, came flooding out.
It felt as though my heart had been transported back in time—and at once, I wished I could do just that—travel back ten years, five years, even to yesterday, to tell myself that everything would be all right, that Nilus was not dead, and I would hug him again one day.
When we pulled apart, Nilus gawked at me as if he was the one seeing a ghost.
A mermaid lingered beside us—the one Lysi had been staring at.
“Oh,” said Nilus, blinking. “Meela, this is Ephyra, my wife.”
“Wife?!”
Ephyra smiled, her teeth a perfect row of pearls. I managed to keep my jaw from falling open. She was curvy in all the right places, her skin smooth and tan, shiny black hair waving behind her like silk. Her heavy-lidded eyes and full lips glimmered with iridescent makeup.
That solves that mystery,I thought, deciding Nilus had definitely been lured.
Lysi cleared her throat. “When did you get here?”
“Two days ago,” said Nilus, peeling his wide eyes away from me. “We went home to get the kids, and—oh, Meela, you have to meet them!”
“Kids? I’m an auntie?” I said shrilly.
I whirled as Nilus shouted for them to come over. Five miniature mermaids came zipping through the crowd, all girls, all with long black hair.
“Papa!” they all shouted, swarming him in the most adorable group hug.
