My subconscious must have known he was trustworthy all along.
As if I’d conjured him with magic, the door above swings open and Quince is filling the doorway with his leather-jacket-clad self.
I practically sag with relief…until I sense the fury pounding through his blood. He felt my fear and now he’s here to protect me. By any means.
That can’t end well for anyone.
“Something going on I should know about?” he demands, not moving from the landing. Even though Quince makes no move, Brody steps back. “You bothering my girl, Bennett?”
“Your girl?” Brody echoes. “Not according to her.”
“I lied. I am his,” I blurt, desperate to keep this awful situation from going tsunami on me. Then, looking at Quince, I say, “And he’s mine.”
Even though I never thought it before, the moment I say it, I know it’s true. It’s been building and bubbling since the night he first kissed me. Maybe before.
“Does he know you’re half fish?” Brody asks me. Then, turning to Quince, he says, “You know your girl’s a—”
He doesn’t have time to finish before Quince’s fist connects with his jaw. I’m not sure how Quince made it down the steps so fast—goodness knows he’s got a corner on the laid-back-lazy market—but one second he was in the doorway, and the next he’s pummeling Brody into the pavement.
Bright lights swing across the scene. Brakes squeal against the blacktop. Shannen’s car stops in front of the scuffle, and the passenger door flies open.
“Come on, Lily!” she shouts. “Let’s get out of here.”
I stare at Quince, who has Brody pinned to the ground and held motionless beneath his knees. Quince looks at me and nods. “Go home.” He bounces Brody’s head against the concrete. “I’ll meet you there later.”
I’m tempted to nod, to let Quince beat the living carp out of Brody so I don’t have to deal with the consequences of my accidental revelation. But if this whole bond fiasco has taught me anything, it’s that I need to start taking control of my life. I’m almost eighteen, almost an adult in my world and in this one. I can’t let someone else solve my problems for me.
“No!” I shout, diving onto Quince’s back. “This isn’t going to fix anything!”
Quince lets me drag him off Brody. “It’s sure making me feel a hell of a lot better.”
“I know.” Because I felt his rush of satisfaction when his fist connected with Brody’s face. “But unless you’re planning on killing him—”
“I might.”
I release my grip on his shoulders. “No, you’re not.”
“He shouldn’t know,” Quince says.
Brody, who is moaning into a sitting position and wiping the trail of blood trickling from the side of his mouth, grumbles, “Damn, Fletcher. What’s your glitch?”
Quince ignores him. “He can’t be trusted to keep your secret.”
My heart tightens when he says your secret. As if it’s not his secret, too.
But I don’t have time to explore that feeling right now.
“I know,” I repeat. “Pulverizing him won’t change that.” Even though I know he hates feeling helpless, I have to add, “Nothing you can do will make him forget.”
Quince shrugs his jacket back into place. Then, as if my words finally hit home, he asks quietly, “But you can?”
As I nod, his brows drop into a worried scowl.
I feel compelled to reassure him. “I would never use this on you,” I explain. “I don’t need to.”
Because I trust you.
I don’t have to read his mind to know that he gets my subtext.
“You need to be gone first,” I say. Things will be hard enough to explain without Quince’s bloody knuckles raising even more questions. “I’ll be fine.”
Quince nods, walking around Brody and past Shannen’s still-running car, to where his motorcycle is parked next to the natatorium wall. Seconds later, his bike roars to life with a rumble that is becoming one of my favorite sounds.
“Brody,” I begin once the roar fades into the distance. “We need to talk—”
“I think he sprained my jaw,” Brody says, gingerly moving his lower jaw from side to side. “I’m gonna require serious makeup for news team next week.”
“We need to talk.” I bend down in front of him, trying not to grind my teeth in frustration at his superficial focus. Guess that’s another thing Quince was right about. I’ll add it to the list. “First, let’s get you on your feet.”
He grumbles but holds out his arm, inviting me to help him up.
Once he’s standing—and repeatedly pressing against the corner of his mouth, as if fascinated by the sensation of a bloody lip—I place my hands on his shoulders.
“Brody,” I say confidently, “look at me.”
I’ve never performed a mindwashing before—I’ve never had to. But every mer in the sea is required to memorize the ritual, just in case something like this happens. The first step is establishing eye contact, creating and then maintaining the visual connection.
When Brody’s golden-brown eyes meet mine, caught by the hypnotic glitter of my magical focus, I take a deep breath and recite the words in my mind.
What was seen is now forgotten,
What was learned is now unknown.
Memories made are all but rotten,
New replacements shall be shown.
As soon as I finish the last thought, Brody blinks rapidly and shakes his head. Confusion fills his features, making him look completely lost.
I almost feel bad. Brody, the boy who always seems at home in every situation, looks totally disoriented…because of me. Well, it’s not like I had a choice. I couldn’t exactly leave him knowing the secret. I have no idea what he would do with that information. For all I know, my kingdom and I would become his next news-team exposé.
“Lily?”
Taking a deep breath, I plunge into a story to explain the situation.
“Are you okay, Brody?” I ask, feigning serious concern. “You took a hard tumble down those steps.”
He glances back over my shoulder, looking at the steps in question and trying to put the pieces together in his mind. Trying to fill the gaps I made in his memories.
“I fell?”
“Yeah,” Shannen says, climbing out of her car and coming to my aid—love her! “You came out here to ask Lily something about your next race and just—”
“—took a header into the parking lot,” I finish.
While Brody shakes his head, Shannen and I share a look. She looks totally proud of herself…and of me. I’m pretty proud of me too.
“Let me help you inside,” I offer, slipping to his side and wrapping an arm around his waist for support. “Coach will know what to do.”
“Oh. Okay,” Brody mutters. “Yeah. Coach can help.”
As I escort Brody to the steps, I look over my shoulder and tell Shannen, “I’ll be right back.”
I can already feel the migraine starting right above my left eye. If I try to stick it out for the rest of the meet, I’ll be incapacitated for a week. No, I’ll get Brody into Coach’s hands, then it’s home for a double dose of aspirin and a long nap in a dark room.
Quince will have to wait until tomorrow.
The migraine is still raging the next morning, so I skip school. By the afternoon, though, it’s dissipated to a dull ache, and knowing tonight’s the night we return to Thalassinia, I’m sitting on my front step waiting for Quince when I hear his motorcycle rumble in the distance.
I shake off the melancholy thoughts I’ve been wrestling with all day and paste on a happy smile. As he pulls his bike into the driveway between our houses, I think I’ve actually managed to conjure some happiness.
Clearly, Quince is not fooled.
“You weren’t in school,” he says as he climbs the steps to sit next to me. “You okay?”
“Sure,” I say, pretending it’s true.
He turns his bright eyes on m
e. “Seriously, Lily. Are you all right?”
His sincerity shatters my façade. I’m not all right, I want to scream. I’m as far from all right as I can get because I’m sad and confused and I don’t know what to do.
But that’s the emotion talking—or thinking. The reality is a little more complicated.
“I’m disappointed in myself,” I say finally. “All these years wasted on loving Brody…and it was all a fantasy. Just like you said.”
“Yeah, well, you had to realize that for yourself.” Quince puts an arm around my shoulders and hugs me to his side. And even though he happens to be the most confusing thing in my life at the moment, I let him. At least he’s not saying “I told you so.”
I say it instead. “You told me so,” I admit. “You told me my image of Brody wasn’t real, and you were right. I was just too blind to see it.”
He laughs a little. “You were too blind to see a lot of things, princess.”
It’s reassuring when he calls me princess—as opposed to Princess or, worse, Lily. One seems too mocking, the other too intimate. His ironic nickname feels safe.
I look down, away, and see his bruised left hand—knuckles scabbed over now—braced on the front of the step. Great white shark, how had I forgotten about the fight? Too wrapped up in my own issues, I guess.
“Did you break anything?”
He looks at me with raised brows, and when I nod at his battered hand, he frowns. “No. The idiot might need an ice pack or two, but nothing requiring medical attention.”
I can’t help it. I burst out laughing at the fact that Quince thought I was asking about Brody.
I lean across his body and lift his hand for inspection. As I run my fingertips over his broken skin, careful not to cause more pain, I say, “I meant you, blowfish. Your bones.”
His hand trembles a little in mine. Somehow, that rattles me more than anything else. I could deal with losing my fantasy Brody more than I can face a very real, trembling Quince.
“No,” he whispers. “I pulled my punches.” Then, with some of his usual humor, he adds, “Principal Brown already thinks I’m one step away from juvie. Don’t need to put myself there.”
I look up, ready to argue, when a lumpy spot in his heather gray T-shirt catches my eye. Lifting my fingers to the place just beneath his collarbone, I’m both surprised and not to feel a sand-dollar-shaped object. My gaze continues the journey up to his.
“You’re still wearing it.”
We both know it’s not a question, just like we both seem to have lost the ability to breathe. A whole sea of emotions washes through his eyes—fear, anger, pain, trust, love. Love. It’s when I see that last one that I close my eyes.
He whispers, “Always.”
That’s what I was afraid of.
My confusion rushes back, shoving all other thoughts aside. I pull away, staring down at my hands folded tightly in my lap. I’m not ready for this, not ready for him. I can’t be.
“Quince, I—”
“I get it, Lily,” he says, my name giving more weight to his words. “Really I do. You’ve been through a lot in the last two weeks. I know you need some time to process.”
I feel like relief should sag through me, but it doesn’t. Still, I say, “Thank you.”
“But,” he says, his voice shifting back to the strong, powerful Quince, “that doesn’t change how I feel. How I’ve always felt. I care about you, Lily. I—”
“Stop!” I can’t hear the words he is about to say. My mind is muddied enough already, without his feelings coming into play. But when I imagine the hurt in his eyes—eyes I can’t look into right now—I add, “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” he insists. “I don’t have to say the words. You know.”
Yeah, I do. And that just makes everything a million times worse.
“Are you ready to go back to Thalassinia?” I ask, needing to take some action to make this confusion, this ache in my chest, go away.
Now I finally do look at him, and he’s studying me. He’s got his thoughts carefully masked, though, so I can’t guess what he’s going to do until he says, “Sure. Just let me go tell Mom I’ll be gone.”
As I watch him walk across the lawn between our houses, I think I should feel more relieved. The mess of the bonding, the muddle of magic and emotions and royal expectations, is finally going to be over.
Hopefully, by the time we get to Thalassinia, I’ll have decided what I’m going to do.
22
As we reach the outskirts of Thalassinia, I’ve slipped into delay mode. I still haven’t made my decision, and I need a little extra time to think. Although, with emotions involved, it’s not like thinking is going to be a major help, but it can’t hurt to try. So I do something I’ve never done before. I take someone to my secret spot.
We’re getting closer and closer to summer, so there is still plenty of sun filtering through the waves as we swim into my sacred retreat. My personal haven.
Quince seems to sense the awe-inspiring nature of this place, because he doesn’t say a word, just looks around at the bounty of colors and textures and contrast that fill my spot. Then, as if he knows how I spend my time here, he corkscrews onto his back and gazes longingly up at the sky. At the world above the surface.
The world where he belongs. And I don’t.
I float up next to him, pondering that thought. It’s something I’ve always believed, even after I found out Mom was human and I have family on the mainland. I’m a Thalassinian princess, and my place is beneath the sea. Below the surface.
A tiny fishing boat passes overhead, its bright red hull shining like a stop sign in the reflected light from the reef below. I feel Quince tense, probably thinking of the last fishing-boat encounter, but I lay a reassuring hand on his arm.
“It’s fine,” I say. “A lot of fishing boats travel this route between Bimini and Nassau. They won’t be stopping to drop line.”
“Oh,” he says, the word somehow full of self-mocking. Like he feels foolish for worrying.
“But it’s always better to be on alert,” I say, mostly to make him feel better. “You never know when the current will change.”
We float in silence, watching as the red boat passes out of view and a yellow follows shortly after, then turquoise, magenta, and bright, bright green. A rainbow parade.
“There are so many colors in the sea,” he says, his voice full of awe. “Makes me feel kind of out of place in my gray cargo pants.”
Something about that statement twists my heart into a knot, but I ignore the ominous feeling.
“Your eyes,” I say, picturing them from memory. “They are the color of the sea. They’ve always reminded me of home.”
They’re the only part of him that seems to belong here. Everything else—from the earthy blond of his hair to the impressive muscles and rough calluses earned through hours of working on his motorcycle and at the lumberyard—screams land. He—I start blinking too fast—is made of the land.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, as if instantly aware of my thoughts.
“Nothing,” I insist. “I just—”
He floats up so he can look at my face. “Your eyes,” he says, his voice awed. “They’re sparkling. Glittering like they’re painted with tiny gold diamonds.”
Oh, no. Well, I can’t wipe at nonexistent tears, so I change the subject.
“This is my secret spot.” I force myself to stop blinking so fast. “It’s my favorite place in all of Thalassinia. In all the seas.”
Quince scowls for a second, like he’s not buying my distraction, but apparently decides to let me have it. Twisting back skyward, he says, “I can imagine why. It’s beautiful.”
Then, I don’t know why I say it, don’t even think the words before they spill out of my mouth, but I say, “I’ve never shown this place to anyone before.”
Quince freezes, still looking to the surface. “No one?”
I shake my head, even though he might not be able t
o see me.
“I’m…”
I feel his pleasure before he says it.
“…honored.”
It is such a painfully sweet moment that I almost can’t bear to end it. If only we could just stay here, in this world between worlds, without royal obligations, motorcycles, or bad memories. But I can’t. It’s all ending.
“I’m glad you appreciate it,” I say softly. “Because after tonight, you will never be able to come here again.”
And with that, I’ve sealed our fate. My decision is made.
Despite my confusing feelings for Quince—not that I can trust my feelings lately—and his increasingly obvious feelings for me—I’m going through with the separation. I don’t think I have another choice.
“Think about what you’re doing, Lily,” Quince pleads.
We’re sitting outside Daddy’s office, waiting for his staff to prepare the ritual. Daddy’s face fell when I told him my decision, but he didn’t argue. Maybe he could tell that I was not about to be persuaded.
Quince, on the other hand, still thinks he can change my mind.
“You know how I feel about you,” he says. “And I think you’re starting to feel the same way about me.”
“That doesn’t matter,” I insist.
“The hell it doesn’t.” He slams a fist against the smooth pumice bench and is probably disappointed when the water muffles the effect. “Lily, I love you.”
“No—”
“I know you don’t want to hear that, but I do.” He swims awkwardly in front of me, taking my shoulders in his hands, like if he can just make me look at him, I’ll see how foolish I’m being.
But looking into his eyes only makes my decision easier. Because his eyes are full of a certainty I’m not sure I will ever have.
Yesterday I was head over fins about Brody, and look how well that turned out. I had deluded myself into believing an infatuation was true love. I was ready to commit myself to a lifetime with a boy I barely knew.
How can I be sure that these feelings that are churning for Quince are any more real? Any less imaginary? They might be real. Or they might be symptoms of the bond or a reaction to Brody or just a result of spending so much time together.