I’d never considered that before. The idea gave me inspiration. “Is a giant serpent considered fae?”
Lysi’s mouth twisted in a smile. “Why? Do you know of a second one that we can use to kill this one?”
“Not quite, but maybe there’s some other law that can help us here.”
Lysi’s brow furrowed in thought. “Maybe.”
The Arctic was vaster than I imagined. It was hard to track where we were and how long we’d been travelling, since nightfall never came. Our pod followed a jagged gap in the ice coverage to ensure easy breaching, which served Lysi and me well.
Part of me wished I could pretend to be a narwhal for the rest of my life. Their auras were so friendly and carefree that they lightened my mood.
It saddened me to think pods like this were at risk because of us. If people kept trying to take out mermaids in one swoop, everything nearby would be affected. Mothers, babies, all of the ocean’s creatures would pay for this war that had nothing to do with them. It was blood that could never be washed off. I would do everything in my power to protect them.
Congratulating myself on distinguishing our new friends’ auras, I spent an afternoon coming up with names for all of them. I decided on plants from my mother’s garden.
I caught Lysi smiling at me and raised an eyebrow. “What?”
“I like it when you’re like this.”
I glanced around. “A narwhal?”
She laughed. The sound brought a smile to my lips.
“Your aura,” she said. “There’s something about it these last few days. It’s more familiar than it’s been in a while.”
I didn’t quite know what she meant, but her smile stripped away the need to respond.
The icebergs became so deep that I had to strain to sense their bottoms. I didn’t know whether to feel smothered by their size or awed by their resemblance to enormous ice castles. The currents had chiselled them into incredible shapes, their bottoms all pillars, caverns, spikes, and pockets. I grazed my fingers over the smooth, cold surfaces as we drifted past. The ice was like glass, and filled with bubbles.
“Why does everything look so green?” I said, admiring the glow on my skin.
“It’s the algae in the ice. See?”
Lysi ran a finger along it, peeling off a layer.
I hardly believed how much wildlife was here. I’d expected the Arctic to be sparse, like an underwater desert. But all around us, the narwhals snapped at cod fish, and in the distance, a high-pitched chorus of squeaking, chirping, and whistling bounced off the glaciers. If we weren’t underwater I would have thought it was a flock of songbirds.
“What is that?” I said.
“Belugas.” Lysi snatched a cod in each hand and offered me one.
I whirled around to look. I’d never seen a beluga. The noise grew louder, and I caught a glimpse of their blindingly white bodies passing some distance away.
Grinning, I took the cod from Lysi. If the Pacific was my favourite place in the world, then the Arctic was my second favourite.
I couldn’t tell how much time passed, and whether it was day or night, but the time came when our pod veered too far north. Right after I’d taught Lysi all their names, too.
With sadness, Lysi and I broke away.
“Bye, Parsley!” I called as the last tail disappeared into the blue.
Lysi shook her head and kept swimming.
The world fell into deep silence but for the groaning ice, as melancholy as the wind had been when we’d crossed the Bering Strait.
The pod had been a comfort through the barren landscape, but now we had to make our own way to the Atlantic. Would Medusa listen to us? What if the Atlantic Kingdom had already been taken over by Adaro, and we didn’t know it? Thinking about all the things that could go wrong once we got there churned my stomach.
I took Lysi’s hand, deciding that as long as we had each other, we would be all right.
