“Ready, boys?” she called to her crew.
Ree slid down the mast with a “Wheeee!” while Dax came up from belowdecks. He’d stripped off his shirt and was in just shorts, and for an instant, Marin forgot what words were.
He wasn’t muscled like a sailor or a farmer or someone who worked outside would be, with bulk in the arms, shoulders, and thighs. Instead, he was sleek, like a dolphin. His skin was smooth, without a single scar or blemish. Soft purple chest hair led down to his belly button, then narrowed into an arrow-like line of soft fuzz. She’d been aware that she’d thought he was handsome before, but she hadn’t expected to be confronted with that fact quite so definitively.
She told herself firmly that it was not at all okay for her to be noticing this so soon after she’d offended him and hadn’t yet apologized.
“Dax, when I said our lives are different—”
“They are.” He smiled at her sunnily. “You didn’t say anything that wasn’t true. It’s fine.”
Narrowing her eyes, she studied his smile and tried to decide if he meant it or not. Dax was, undoubtedly, a people pleaser. She’d watched how he’d interacted with his friends. It had torn him apart to say no to them, even though they’d betrayed him. “Well, I feel like I hurt you, and I’m sorry if I did. And I’m sorry if I didn’t and am now making things awkward by apologizing for something you don’t want me to apologize for. Either way, I’m sorry.”
“Ahhh… Thanks?”
“Great.” That was more than enough emotion for one day. “Get in the water.” As she spoke, Marin yanked off her shirt and pulled off her pants, leaving her in her underwrappings, and then she walked off the edge of the boat and dropped into the water. It was only hip-deep, and she landed barefoot in the silky soft sand. The chill of the water enveloped her, but she didn’t flinch.
Ree launched himself into the air by pushing with his roots. “Flying plant, ho!” He smacked into the water and abruptly sank before bobbing back up.
Marin waded to him and lifted him into the air. “You have zero self-preservation instincts, don’t you.”
“I am brave, loyal, and true,” Ree said, with a slight gurgle to his voice.
She gave him a light shake, and seawater spattered from his branches and root. “Okay, I’m going to lower you into the water, and your goal is to move your whatever-you-can-move to stay afloat.”
Behind her, she heard Dax lower himself into the water and was proud of her self-restraint in not immediately turning around to see how he looked wet.
Gently, Marin placed Ree on top of the waves.
He began to pinwheel his branches as he rose and fell with the swell of the ocean. He looked, frankly, ridiculous, like a flailing green-and-brown tumbleweed, but he wasn’t sinking.
“Good.” She watched him for a moment more. “You probably don’t need to use all your branches. Just the ones in contact with the water.”
He began to relax. A little.
“Let me know the second you get tired, especially if you start to sink,” Marin told him, and then she turned to Dax, who was watching with interest. He’d submerged up to his neck, kneeling on the sandbar. At some point, he must have dunked himself under because his purple hair was damp and clung to his neck and shoulders. Droplets decorated his crystal horns, and they sparkled in the sunlight. He looked like a being out of a storybook, the kind of ethereal creature who granted wishes.
“Command me, Captain,” he said.
Marin firmly corralled her brain away from all the imagesthatconjured up. “Um, okay, you should try floating first. On your stomach.” She demonstrated, filling her lungs and letting her legs drift up behind her.
He tried it, kicking his legs up.
Curious, a silver turtle swam closer to him. It nudged its beak against his arm. Startled, he planted his feet down in the sand again.
“Float up again, and hold on to her shell,” Marin instructed.
He looked dubiously at the turtle, but he did it.
“Now keep your legs straight and kick them, little kicks.”
She guided him through the basics, while he gripped the edge of the turtle’s shell. The turtle swam in lazy circles, propelling him around the sandbar.
Marin was fully aware she was a terrible teacher—she moved so instinctually in the water that she barely noticed she was doing it or how—but happily, the turtles were excellent swim instructors. They poked his knees with their beaks until he straightened them, they guided his arms with their flippers, and they propped him up by swimming beneath him.
Ree, meanwhile, had climbed up on top of the shell of one of the turtles and was shouting, “Wheee!” as he zipped around the sandbar.
Leaving Dax to practice and Ree to play, Marin swam out to deeper water to join Perri. She wondered sometimes if he was lonely, without another sea serpent to swim with. He’d been with her for two years now. Did he have a family he missed? Did he want a family? Was she keeping him from another life? As she reached him, he greeted her with a happy trill and a gentle nudge of his snout.
