In the mostly-pitch black cavern with one solitary ray of light pouring in through a hole in the ceiling, the merling bobbed in the water and glanced toward a nearby patch of sunlit coral, populated mostly by the type of sandy-colored coral that looked like carved deer antlers and a purple variety which resembled clusters of the shelf-like mushrooms that grew on trees. He made some sort of closed-mouth whistling sound, a trill not unlike the rhythm of a baby griffin’s purr.

Sitting on the rock platform with Erin and Kaleit at the edge of the water, Leslyn couldn’t tell how Coyrifan formed the sound, nor could he exactly hear it—it was more like a vibration that he felt deep in his ears and merely imagined that it was a whistle.

A creature echoed the sound, the vibration shorter and faster than the merling’s, but still recognizable as the same whistle. At the same time, one of the clusters of purple mushroom coral began to sway, as if fanned by the to-and-fro movement of the ocean water.

The deep color began to drain inward from the edges of the coral, leaving only a trace of the royal shade at the base of the cluster in favor of a bright, silvery white. The entire cluster shifted and a tubular white body about the length of a man’s arm snaked from beneath, revealing the fanning coral cluster to be made up of the animal’s elegantly-ruffled fins, placed about its frame in the same places as most fish. Large, sea-green wall-eyes bulged out from either side of its eel-like face as it looked expectantly at its merling master, a faint tinge of energetic yellow coursing repeatedly across its pale body.

Coyrifan held out his hand, and the long creature zipped through the water to coil around his arm. “Now, do you see why hiding behind my darling Imyra is not a sensible option at the moment?” he asked, holding his enveloped arm out toward Kaleit.

Imyra’s cheerful yellow pulses darkened to a wary orange as the tall youth leaned nearer to her, appraising her silvery form with calculating eyes. Her spinal fin bristled when he reached out a hand, and with a burst of red flashing across her body, she sucked in a gulp of water, puffing herself up. As her mouth opened, Leslyn caught a glimpse of glass-like cones lining the animal’s jaw, forming keen-looking teeth that he imagined would easily shred manling skin.

Just as Kaleit was about to touch Imyra, she forced the water in her mouth up through a spout hidden in the folds of her spinal fin, shooting a tiny spike right up into one of his fingers. With a guttural yelp, he yanked his hand back and cradled it in the other, eyeing the creature with a startled glare.

Erin laughed, but Leslyn didn’t see any humor in it. Bright colors in sea creatures often meant danger, such as poison. Kaleit must have been thinking the same thing, for he quickly plucked the thorn out and squeezed the flesh of his finger, forcing several drops of blood from the wound.

“Are those poisonous?” Leslyn asked of the merling, a hint of warning in his tone, though he wasn’t sure exactly what his next step would be if the animal’s thorns were indeed dangerous.

“I would have warned you, if they were,” Coyrifan replied in an airy, matter-of-fact cadence worthy of Prince Koben himself. “They’re harmless now, but when she grows to her full size, those needles will be capable of rending the flimsy floating shells your kind likes to ride over our waters.”

“You seem to delight in that fact.”

The merling smiled at Leslyn’s dry-as-dust observation. “All who join with a guardian take great pride in their lifelong partner. I can assure you, Imyra will be among the strongest of them when she is at her peak.”

Still nursing his finger, Kaleit rolled his eyes. “Yes, that’s certainly something for us shorelings to look forward to.”

Erin had shifted from sitting with her legs hanging over the rock shelf to sitting with them folded underneath her and palms resting on her knees, her head slightly tilted. “We’re the same way with our griffins.”

“Griffins? Ah, you mean the ugly, furry things that fly through the sky like malformed seabirds?”

Her blank stare indicated that she hadn’t been expecting that. “Well, I wouldn’t call them ugly, but yeah, we bond with them when they’re babies by feeding them. My Phoebe thinks I’m her mother, so she follows me everywhere she can.” She grinned, obviously elated that her keet still behaved like a perfect little duckling. Valiant, on the other hand… Leslyn found himself grinning along with her, more from amusement than that warm joy the girl exuded.

“That does sound pleasant indeed,” the merling sighed, “but I’m afraid that our joinings are somewhat more… intense than that.”

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“Oh my gosh, can you read each others’ minds? Like the dragons from P—“

For some reason, Erin stopped mid-sentence to bite her lip, but she couldn’t control her smile.

“Dragons, Erin?” Leslyn drawled. “Where did you hear that?”

She shrugged. “From a story, when I was kid. People had telepathic bonds with their dragons, and they could ‘hear’ everything that happened to each other. I always thought it sounded amazing, and wished it would happen to me. It’s not the same thing, obviously, but it’s close enough that I’m never, ever going to get over my griffin.”

Nodding thoughtfully, Coyrifan swam close enough to rest an elbow on the rock shelf, playfully sweeping his other arm back and forth under the water as if instigating some kind of tug of war-adjacent game with Imyra, who was still curled securely around that limb. She tightened her coils, the yellow pulses lengthening until her whole body was covered in that same felicitous shade.

The merling laughed and tucked his occupied arm in against his chest, stroking Imyra’s head and neck with his free hand. “You’re not far off,” he told the girl. “Imyra’s happiness is mine, and mine, hers. Whatever she feels, I can feel. I can talk to her any time, even if she’s here in this cave, and I’m at home deep beneath the waves. We don’t even need words, to be honest. I just have a thought, and she understands it before I’ve even consciously chosen to tell her. Her thoughts are far less sophisticated than yours or mine, but somehow, I always know what she means.”

Erin had been smiling, but Leslyn thought it suddenly looked a little stiff, and her face got a bit paler at the last of the merling’s words.

“What if something bad happens? Like, what if one of you… well, one of you—?”

“Dies?” The merling snorted and waved his hand dismissively. “Not to worry. The other will follow immediately, so there’s none of that silly wasting away in despair that I assume you manlings are prone to. After all, there’s no use for just one half of a whole.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Kaleit said.

Always thinking practically, that one, Leslyn thought grimly.

“Leave him alone,” Erin snapped. “He’s trusting us with her—“ she turned to Coyrifan, “—to do what, exactly?”

His expression was warm with gratitude. “I’ve kept Imyra here since she was a fingerling, but once the Dry returns, these caves will drain. The reason I brought you here is that I need you shorelings to take her inland somewhere, where there’s enough water for her until next Flood.”

At that, Kaleit frowned and crossed his arms. “You’ve just admitted that you’re literally bound together, mind to mind, and yet you want to hand her over to us. Your enemies. What for?”

The fair-haired merling looked at him, completely unperturbed. “Does it matter? Isn’t the fact that you’ll be holding my very life in your hands enough leverage for you?”

“Even if it was enough, the water that pools on land is not seawater. How long can your animal survive in fresh water?”

“As long as she needs to. We often travel inland on islands with deep enough rivers, when they’re accessible.”

“Of course.” His eyes narrowed. “Swarming inland like a plague of water rats.”

Erin whirled on Kaleit, forgetting herself long enough to shove him as hard as she could and bark, “Would you leave him be already?”

The shove sent Kaleit to his feet and Leslyn quickly following, expecting a major confrontation. To his surprise, Kaleit clenched his fists and thrust them down at his sides, but made no move toward Erin, who was poised like a cat ready to pounce if anyone made a wrong move. He looked at Leslyn, then gave a significant nod toward the merling.

Leslyn swallowed and nodded back. Whether the girl and the merling were aware of it or not, Erin’s mind had somehow been snared by him. He’d heard of the strange, apparently natural phenomenon, but seeing it happen in front of him, to someone he knew…

“So, Coyrifan,” Kaleit said coldly, “what are you keeping behind that guileless smile you’ve cultivated? What are we risking in caring for this creature of yours?”

Was he planning to hold Erin as a bargaining chip of some sort? Did Koben think of that before he sent her along? Surely he’d thought of it. Had the merling ever even spoken to a manling before—was he even aware of what effect he had on her?

Leslyn watched Coyrifan closely, unconsciously tensing for whatever might be coming in the next few seconds.

With his easy smile, the merling explained, “I can continue to play the part of a sad lad who lost his bonded beast to some very talented thief who can mask anything recognizable about her location, but if my chief discovers where she is, I will have to protect myself by letting the blame fall on your kind.” He paused to shrug. “The result will be that everyone from this island who puts oar to water will be killed on sight.”

“Not an option, then,” Kaleit said. “We’re done here.”

Erin rose to her feet, giving Kaleit a hard stare.

Leslyn held out a hand as if motioning for everyone to stop. “Hold on a second—“

“You forget, shoreling—I am the only one willing to share the location of that artifact that you need.”

“Artifact?” Kaleit took a step toward the merling. “What artifact?”

“Don’t you know?”

Erin took a step toward Kaleit.

Leslyn turned to the other youth, suddenly convinced he knew exactly what was going on. “Kaleit, this is what Koben was trying to tell us earlier. None of this makes sense to us, but he has the whole story. He’s the one doing the negotiating here, not us. We don’t even know what we’re negotiating for.”

Kaleit locked eyes with Leslyn, issuing a silent order to stand down.

Leslyn fought the urge to look away, to not get himself deeper in the other’s ill will than he already was. As much as he stubbornly insisted it was his place, the stark truth was that Kaleit was not the captain here. “Remember what Arlis said: If Koben does something that looks stupid, then it must be important. We have to trust him.”

For a moment, Leslyn feared he’d said the wrong thing. Kaleit seemed to be about to ignore him and continue on with Coyrifan, but then his glance fell on Erin. She was still glaring at him, one fist clenched at her hip.

“Let’s go back to Koben, then,” he said.