Before she could finish the question, she heard a laugh.
It wasn’t the giggly laughter of Cordy and Em. It was a deep laugh, warm and musical.
“Did you hear that?” asked Admiral Northwood. “It sounded like it came from the sea.”
“It’s them,” said Idris. “It has to be.”
Admiral Northwood pointed the crew woman in the direction of the laughter.
“What if we can’t find the girls?” Rinka asked Idris. It hasn’t occurred to her that they might find different mermaids.
“I’m sure they can help us find them.”
“You think they all know each other?”
“That’s not what I—”
There was more laughter then. A dozen or more different laughs and the sound of bodies breaking the surface.
“We’re surrounded!” shouted the crew woman.
Admiral Northwood instinctively reached for his sidearm. “Who’s there?” he called. “Show yourselves!”
A head popped up over the side of the dinghy. It was a bald man with very dark skin and the characteristically large round eyes of the mermaids. “Testy, aren’t they? For landfolks who showed up in our waters?”
A second head popped up on the other side. This one was a man with red hair that was like Rinka’s, only much more vibrant even when wet. “Typical landfolks. Bringing all their metal and their trash into our ocean.”
“What are you doing here, landfolks?” asked the bald man. “What business do you have with the king of the ocean?”
“The king of the ocean?” muttered Admiral Northwood. “I am Admiral Northwood of King Derkomai’s Royal Navy. We have business with two of your kind. With whom am I speaking?”
The red-headed man laughed. “He just told you. That’s the king of the ocean, mate. Are you thick?”
“King Olo, at your service,” said the bald man, pulling himself up onto the dinghy to bow, his fish tail flopping over the stern.
“King Olo, we’re trying to find the young mermaids Cordy and Em. Er, Cordelia and Maisie. We have a gift for them,” said Rinka, jumping in to hopefully avoid an international incident over the sovereignty of the ocean-dwelling peoples.
“Ah, Nora’s girls,” said the red-headed man. “What did they do this time?”
“We didn’t do anything!” shouted a familiar voice from behind a floating block of ice.
“Not us!” came another familiar voice.
“Oh, that’s too bad. I suppose you won’t want your gift then. As king of the ocean, I’ll just take that—”
“WAIT!” shouted one of the girls. They both came splashing over with incredible speed.
“Oh, it’s you again,” said Cordy as she propped herself up on her elbows to look inside the dinghy, her wet blonde hair matted across her face. “Em, look. It’s the orc and the weird guy.”
“How dare you! This is the crown prince of Loegria, Prince Idris—” began the crew woman.
“The prince?” squeaked Em excitedly. “You didn’t tell us you were a prince. He can do magic too, King Olo!”
Rinka shot a nervous look at Idris, but he simply shrugged his shoulders. While they had concealed his use of magic in their magazine interview in order to avoid further antagonizing the king, it wasn’t as though the royal family’s magic was a secret. “I did what I had to in order to survive.”
“Of course, your highness,” said the Admiral.
“We heard there was a present,” said Cordy.
