“You,” Nova barked, eyes boring through Ursla. “You’ll remember my name. It’s the name history will record as the woman who hunted you down and gutted you like a fucking carp if this goes sideways.”
Ursla chuckled. “Oh, on my life, Miss Grey. You’ll have her back in one piece.”
Yemi accepted Nova’s now-silent furious disappointment as a promise to fight at length about this later and turned back to the sea witch.
“What do I do?”
“Shake on it.” Ursla grinned. “Much less dramatic than the blood pact you were perhaps promised but just as effective.”
Yemi hesitated. She could feel Nova tensing behind her, perhaps coiled to launch her spear or swing an iron fan and execute the witch herself.
But she might miss. And even if she didn’t, who knew how to kill a god?
To head off a clash, Yemi thrust her hand into Ursla’s and immediately recoiled, suffocating as the witch’s handprint burned into her skin. Her body stiffened, and she jolted backward into Nova’s lap as a creeping, white-hot pain began to emanate from her lungs, moving outward through the rest of her body. The boat rocked violently as she heaved.
Nova shook her, tried to hold her gaze and read any instruction in them. “Yemi.Yemi! Talk to me. Please.Ursla! What’s ha—oh no no… Yemi can… hear m…?”
Yemi could barely hear her over the rushing blood in her ears, the sound of her own gagging. Her grandmother’s stories had never detailed the transformation, even though it was the crux of her identity. So Yemi’d had no warning about the searing pain of boiling blood, the audible cracking and shedding of superfluous bones, the terror of drowning as she tried to scream from morphing lungs. The way her skin would seem made of razors as it puckered and flaked into shimmering black scales.
It wasn’t long before Yemi felt herself fainting dead away, sinking into the dark and barely glimpsing the moonlit edges of her own twitching tail. And she would have to do it all once more in reverse.
Suddenly, she was underwater and Ursla’s hands were on her face, holding her steady as her body jerked and changed.
“Look at me. Look at me,” Ursla soothed. Yemi held her in her gaze, too afraid to blink for fear of feeling more in the instant of darkness. “You are not dying, child. The pain will end, but you will suffer worse in the meantime if you panic.”
Yemi focused on calming herself the ways she’d been taught when rage threatened to consume her. She could not breathe, not for the seal seemingly lodged in her throat, but the knowledge she wouldn’t die allowed her more control over her heart’s rapid firing.
This will pass, she told herself, repeating it like a mantra.This will pass. This will pass. Gods damn it, pass! Pass!
And in an instant, the seal over her lungs released itself, and she inhaled through the slits in her ribs. The twitching of her muscles, the creak of her bones, all of it subsided in a blessed, silent exhaustion. She was grateful Ursla still held her face, as it was likely keeping her from sinking into the deep. Beyond her, all was dark but the moonlit surface of the water.
“There she is. Not bad for a first time. I usually have to revive them at least once,” Ursla purred, slowly releasing her to suspend on her own. “How does it feel being back in the right skin?” Her eyes shone black in the dark, and bioluminescent spots along her tentacles glowed an ambient violet. Her moving lips seemed an affectation. Yemi felt her voice inside her head.
“I can’t see,” she replied. The words came out clearly, not garbled even though water filled her mouth.
Ursla began to hum long, amelodic notes, and objects appeared in the water—waving seagrass, collapsed marble columns, the odd fish—glowing as if drenched in moonlight and the water itself were the night sky. The sunken amphitheater and the rest of Ursla’s temple statue took on an ethereal starlight quality in a vast field of deepest blue.
“The ‘siren song,’ I believe the humans call it,” Ursla explained. “We see farther with sound down here.”
Yemi cautiously hummed the first few notes of some sea shanty and watched as they pulsed against objects, brightening them brieflybefore they faded again. Every breath she took felt refreshing, if chilled, and the gills at her ribs tickled as they fluttered in the current. She ran her hands over her hips, which were now covered in dark, rubbery shark skin, and her tail twitched when she thought she was willing her toes to wiggle.
“We should be off—” Ursla started, but Yemi ignored her.
She was startled by how naturally it came to her when she flicked her tail gently, propelling herself back to the surface, where Nova still peered, panicked, over the edge of the small boat. She looked so pretty through the fluttering window of the water’s surface, some ethereal creature desperate and furious and longing all at once. It was like they’d never fought.
Yemi emerged just inches from her face—slowly, so as not to startle her. She felt a film peel back from her eyes once open air hit them, and the world was crisp and vivid in her new vision. Terror gave way to relief in Nova’s expression. She stared, doe-eyed and barely blinking into Yemi’s eyes. And for the first time, Yemi felt self-conscious in her gaze.
“Well, out with it. We don’t have all night,” Yemi demanded, supporting herself on the bow of the boat.
“Gods, I thought you were beautiful before,” Nova replied breathlessly. Yemi wondered if it was possible for merfolk to blush as Nova reached out to touch her cheek. “Skin feels the same.”
“Not all of it, trust me.” Yemi leaned forward enough to bring her tail briefly out of the water before presenting Nova with the sodden tatters of her clothing. “I’ll need a change of clothes when we see each other again.”
“On it,” said Nova. The medallion Selah had given Yemi clattered against the side of the boat from around her neck. When Yemi looked at it, Nova picked up on her cue, knowing it would be best to hide its purpose from Ursla.
“Here.” Nova lifted it from around her neck and used the leather strip to secure Yemi’s damp hair in a high bun atop her head. “A gift from me.”
They were silent for a moment. There hadn’t been too many hours in recent memory where they’d been apart, much less any number of days. Yemi sighed, dreading the thought of leaving Nova behind. And her world above water was often a lonely one to begin with. The one that awaited her was even more foreign.
