She couldn’t be forced to marry someone like him.
Sure, her mother would be furious. She might even find some old, undesirable merman for her to marry as punishment.
But at least she could be at home.
At least she would be among people who understood who and what she was, who wouldn’t constantly be trying to shape and change her.
She grabbed her bag on the way out, before doubling back to find the one thing she wanted to bring with her. She went ahead and didn’t let herself wonder if there was any deeper meaning to that item being the book Finn had gifted to her. Then she slipped into a taxi and headed out of Manhattan.
She fought the burning of tears at the back of her eyes the whole way, not daring to name the feelings crowding her chest.
Sure, she would miss Selene, Arden, and Willow. But she could visit them. Now that she was comfortable on land.
It wasn’t them, though. She knew it in the weird tightness in her chest. The sadness had nothing to do with her friends.
Thankfully, the taxi pulled up to the beach before she had a chance to analyze that sensation any further.
Iris waited until the taxi was nothing but headlights in the distance before kicking off her flip-flops and makingthe long walk across the beach toward the sandbar. The sand crunched underfoot, warm and familiar, as the sound and scent of the water filled her with hope.
That she could shift and swim away the uncomfortable feelings she didn’t want to face.
Under the mostly full moon, she stripped out of her dress, tucking it carefully into her small purse and setting that on top of her shoes.
She didn’t know why she was leaving anything behind. She wasn’t planning on coming back to land anytime soon.
With a sigh, she lowered herself into the water, feeling her tail shift and flick in the current.
She dipped under the surface.
Then she swam.
Hard and far, setting a punishing pace until her body ached and exhaustion tugged at her eyes.
Only then did she finally swim back toward the palace.
She was met immediately with all the familiar sights: the whalebone gate, the lush kelp gardens teeming with fish, the coral columns of the palace itself.
She waited for the sensation ofhometo return. But even as she drifted down the hall to her old bedroom, it never came.
“I thought I heard your door,” Shelly said, appearing in her room just a few moments later.
It hadn’t been long, but she would swear her sister looked older, more mature, less like the angry girl she’d left behind to go to the surface.
“What are you doing here?”
“I want to come home.”
“Oh,” she said, pressing her lips together. She thought about her next words. That was so mature, so careful, soverynotlike her little sister. What had been going on since she went to land? “I’m not sure our mother is going to go along with that plan.”
“Oh, I’m sure she’s going to be furious. But she’ll get over it. And marry me off to Osiren or someone, as punishment.”
“No. Not Osiren.”
“Why not?”
“Because Osiren is engaged—”
“Oh, good for him.”
