Chapter 12

AYA

Aya clung to the patches of moonlight that dotted the outer corridors as Marlin escorted her back to her room. The moonlight cleared her head, dismissing the last of the throbbing in her skull. She’d danced with Ellian long enough that her sisters had long since retired, and even then, she didn’t think she could stand hearing another round of congratulations over a wedding that she thought of with such revulsion.

Her worry for her father still had her gills agitated, and though relief flooded her fins that she wouldn’t be forced into a marriage—at least one with Ellian—she still couldn’t understand how the evening had gone so badly.

The more she remembered of Ellian’s treatment of the staff, of his haughtiness toward her, and of his bragging about the pain he’d caused someone out there on the reefs, the more the thought of him disgusted her.

She could only conclude that the seaweed gel she’d had before dinner was somehow rancid. Nothing else could explain the way she’d felt looking at Ellian’s too-square jawline, or possibly-diseased yellow and black hair. She’d even laughed at his stories—the ones about disemboweling, and barmaids, and petty theft. She hoped the three had never coincided. Looking back on her memory of the ball was like trying to see through an algae bloom, and as she sorted through the murk, her headache returned.

Caught up in confusion and a strong desire to scrub her skin where Ellian had touched her, Aya hardly noticed when Marlin bid her goodnight at the doors of her room.

“Thank you, Marlin,” she felt herself mumble, as she clicked the lock shut.

Someone had been in her room since she’d last been in it. It seemed the kuo-toa had already come by to feed the glowing plankton in her room’s lamps. On her vanity and nightstands, the agitated light they let off reminded her of the waxing moon above the surface. Although Aya never kept her room bright after sundown, there was enough to see her driftwood bed and a faint glimmer of its mother-of-pearl inlays. Its blue and green canopy drifted in the current that wafted in. Her sheets, made from soft seaweed fibers, beckoned invitingly, and though all she wanted was to curl up under them and sleep the vestiges of her headache away, it was a rare night that the waters above the palace were clear enough to see the moon and stars from the window. At the same time, though fatigue pounded through her head, she was eager to keep her mind from re-living the events of the evening by doing something normal.

Aya began collecting her supplies. The giant spiny conch that served as a vanity had been selected more for show than function, but over the years, Aya had carved the jewels out of its surface and turned the piece into a work desk—much to some of her sisters’ horror. The surface was still cluttered with the sea glass vials and cases of cosmetics her sisters had forcibly applied to her face just hours ago—hours that now felt like days. By some miracle, the mess of powders and creams hadn’t stained the papers below.

Scooping the makeup unceremoniously onto the floor to get to her charts, it was hard to avoid her reflection. Her polished brass mirror showed her that her unruly red dress had a torn sleeve. Beneath it, finger-shaped bruises were coming into their color along her arm.

When had that happened?

The matching red pearls in her hair had shifted, and her eyes were as blotchy as a dribblepox epidemic. Only the careful rouge that her sisters had painted on her cheeks looked as fresh as when she’d started this disastrous evening. Although Aya could admit her sisters had done well, she wished they hadn’t bothered. Perhaps if she’d arrived looking like her usual wave-swept self, Ellian would have lost interest—her usual appearance certainly seemed to keep the mermen on the reefs indifferent.

Sighing in residual embarrassment, she reordered the vanity’s usual fare: a stack of star-charts, sextant, cross-staff, a pack of pencils, and the lunar charting she’d been working on since she could remember. Ready at last, she lifted the largest chart from the stack and slipped through her bed’s curtains and spread the vellum on the windowsill.

The water was clear enough that she wouldn’t even have to swim to the surface to mark the shifts. Rechecking the constellation charts, she made some minor changes in her calculations, and some of the stress of the evening melted away. Come tide or highwater, Poseidon’s dolphins would always across the sky. There, the Kanaloa that appeared every squid season was center-sky to the north. The Great Wobbegong made his nightly appearance in the southernmost corner of the horizon, and Lysander the Unfortunate Lover was bright enough to be visible through the surface waves.

However, despite the clarity, nothing looked the same as it had last night...

She blinked. Then shook her head. Then blinked again.

The constellations weren’t just visible, they were connected with threads of blue light—and not entirely in the patterns that she was used to. Beneath her sill, tiny points of blue shadow lined every ray of moonlight hitting the objects in the garden, as well. The path most walked by the patrol in the gardens glowed faintly, as well as the magically locked gates, and alchemical plants—but only those. Anything else, anything untouched by the royal botanists, anything untouched by magic, looked much the same.

She set down her pencil. Her head was pounding, and now she was seeing things. Clearly, she needed sleep.

Wishing the kuo-toa had stayed to help her out of the complex gown, she began tugging at the buttons with a tired sigh. Then, she tugged harder. Had she been sewn in?

This was ridiculous.

Snatching up her pencil knife, she began to carefully work at the back of the dress, and was making decent progress when she heard a sound like a throat clearing from the shadow behind her wardrobe.

“Ahem.”

The hairs on the nape of her neck stood on end.

Aya was through with surprises that week.

Her hand flew to the instruments she’d brought with her, and missed. Fingers finding the lamp, she threw it at the shadow, hard, then brandished the pencil knife at the shadow, which snorted at her.

To her great relief and shock, Kai melted out of the corner, camouflage dissolving as he laughed.

“And what are you planning to do with that?” he chuckled, wading into the light.

“Kai!”

He held the heavy lamp in one hand, tossing it once like it was a toy. Looking at him now, the pressure in her head cleared, and the remaining silt that clouded her thoughts fell away in one crashing wave. Without thinking, she lunged forward and threw her arms around his shoulders. It didn’t occur to her that she might be breaching some unspoken boundary between them until she felt him stiffen at the touch. After a breath, however, he wrapped an arm around her waist, and patted her head gently.

“Princess, I’ve seen spoons more deadly than that trinket.”

“It’s a knife!” she protested.

“Your tiara is pointier than that knife. What were you planning on doing with it?” he teased into her hair.

“It’s for pencils,” she half laughed, half-groaned onto his shoulders.

“It’s a good thing I’m not a pencil, then,” he muttered.

Not ready to let him go yet, Aya pulled away just enough to see his face. He was the first truly welcome sight she’d had in days. Kai looked better-rested than she’d seen him in ages, but there was an edge of something in his gaze that commanded her attention. His hair smelled of boiled spices, and fresh open water. He was wearing his formal merchant’s vest, which, though worn, was plenty fine to attend a ball. It was covered in hidden pockets and ribbons, marking his proficiencies in his craft, and there were more of them sewn on than the last time she’d seen it. The vest left his arms bare, but his neck was partially covered in a modest collar. It was a sign that she hadn’t missed spotting him at the ball. Anyone looking like Kai did in this uniform would stand out. Seeing the familiarity of his furrowed brow as she inspected him, she couldn’t help but relax a little.

“Don’t joke,” she scolded lightly. “I thought something had happened to you when you didn’t come tonight. Did Cirrina do something to you? Did Ellian?”

An angry rumbling sound echoed in his chest, and he glowered down at her. Unlike with others, though, his irritation didn’t frighten her. If anything, his reaction made her feel that she might have an ally, at last.

“Ellian now, is it?” he said blackly.

She chuffed the back of his head gently, laughing genuinely for the first time that evening.

“I’m amenable to other names if you’ve got a good one.”

He raised a brow, and though the glower didn’t leave, the hard line of his lips relaxed a little.

“If Cirrina did do something, would you go to her cavern and beat her with your sextant?” he asked, diverting her from the topic. “Sorry to say, but blades designed to sharpen writing utensils won’t do much to a sea witch.”

She shook her head, enjoying the feeling of tension releasing

“I have it on good authority that a tiara would work better.”

“Bribery is fairly effective with Cirrina,” he said approvingly.

“You know that’s not what I—”

A gust of current flew in from the window, making them both jump. Kai jumped to block the billowing bed curtains from smacking into their faces, and Aya jumped closer to Kai, so that when the current calmed, and Kai’s tentacles had shut the window, she was tucked under his chin, and his hands were wrapped less awkwardly around her spine—until they realized at around the same time that half of the skin at her back was exposed.

Suddenly self-conscious, she pulled back, not realizing until she moved away that he’d wrapped a tentacle around her tail to keep her from falling. Instead of helping, she stumbled right over it. He caught her wrist to keep her from tripping over the vanity stool, and instead guided her so that she plopped down on the mattress’ edge.

“Th-thanks,” she mumbled.

“My fault,” he shrugged. That distant stare was back.

He cleared his throat again, and looked away. She was suddenly conscious of whatever boundary he kept between them being put back up. Despite being surrounded by water, her throat felt dry, and she did her best to ignore the tingles where his fingers had touched her, and the way he clenched his fists and stuffed them under his elbows as he angled himself away.

“When you didn’t come, I was worried,” she said, breaking the pause. Hearing it aloud, she realized how silly it sounded. Kai was one of the more competent cecaelia. Of course he’d had a better reason than something having happened to him. He may not have wanted to come at all, and was here to pass along his regrets. His being here now was… well, it was unusual, and suddenly, whatever the reason, she was frantically guilty for having caused thim the trouble.

“Happy to hear you care,” he said softly, leaning on one of the bedposts.

Her guilt stopped in its tracks.

“Aya, do you remember what happened tonight?” he asked, equally soft, as though afraid of the answer.

“I…” Aya’s head fell into her hands. She didn’t remember everything, but her mood changed quickly when she remembered the conversation at dinner. “It was—Kai it was awful! Someone told me there’s a cecaelian somewhere in the reefs, hurt or killed. When you didn’t come, I thought it might have been you or Krill! I know that’s silly—I know you’re busy. It was just coincidence…”

“Looks like you at least have your head back, then,” he said ambiguously, “Do you remember anything else?”

“I remember having to dance with my new betrothed.” Her voice went quiet, and she felt herself go pale. “Kai, I got engaged tonight.”

Kai’s expression was entirely unreadable, though his usually curious tentacles stilled, making him look like a large, looming shadow.

“I got engaged tonight,” she continued, when he said nothing to stop her, “but I don’t remember how. I picked a fight with him over dinner. I insulted him. I tried so hard to get rid of him—actually, no. That’s unfair,” she grimaced. “He picked a fight with me. That spoiled, scum-sucking bottom-feeder treats his own people like toys, and he treats mine like—like—”

“Never heard you use that language before.” Kai’s mouth quicked in amusement, the way it did when she managed to surprise him, but was still watching her like she was a particularly difficult potion recipe. “So, there’s no love lost between you and your betrothed,” he prompted.

“I don’t know how it happened,” she repeated. “I actually remember saying no—several times! But then…” she shook her head. Telling Ellian ‘No,’ was the last thing she remembered clearly before speaking to her father. “Everything is so foggy. It was like I was trapped inside my own head, listening to him brag about how many barmaids and servants wanted him, and how many fish he’s gutted alive, and all of his insults…and I just sat there, Kai, going along with everything anyone said, like I had kelp for brains! I was sort of hoping to spend less time with him if you’d been able to…”

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Aya shut her mouth before she said something truly disastrous. It was wildly unfair to Kai to expect him to save her from something as silly as a few dances with a prince she might have been spending the rest of her life with, especially when he’d had something important to do.

“That’s why you invited me tonight,” he said bluntly, his mouth forming a hard line. She got the feeling there was something he wasn’t telling her.

“Are you alright? Something happened tonight, didn’t it?” she pressed, when Kai spent a little too long in silence. He got up from where he leaned on her bedpost, and then sat down on the stool in front of her, as though coming to some decision.

“It did,” Kai folded his arms back over his vest, looking agitated. He glared at her bedroom door, avoiding her gaze, and his voice went rough. “I did come, Aya. I’m only sorry I didn’t come in time. Now, you weren’t done telling me how you feel. Headaches? Memory troubles?”

Aya straightened in surprise, gripping her sea-grass sheets in one fist as she adjusted her fins on the floor. He knew?

“I have this headache that comes whenever I think about what happened after dinner, and ever since I got back from the ball, I’ve been seeing these blue lines in the moonlight. It might have something to do with the eclipse coming, but that doesn’t make any sense, and—wait. You came? I didn’t see you once!”

“The door guard didn’t believe me when I showed them the invitations you’d given me,” said Kai, holding up a hand to quiet her outrage before she could start. “No, no. I should have expected something like it. I didn’t exactly dress for the occasion.”

She gulped, noticing for the first time the threads that pulled from their places in his vest, and the way his collar wilted. At first glance, all she’d seen were the ribbons, and his collection pouch strapped over one shoulder—the hallmarks of a working potioneer. His lilac skin, so unlike any other species of Atlantean citizen, in combination with his purple eyes and white hair, made him look otherworldly. To her, it was respectable, but to the guards who had spent the day watching painted nobles swim through the gates, the clothing might have looked suspicious, and his strength would have marked him as a threat.

She should have left specific instructions for Earl and Brawn.

Kai was… a lot stronger than he’d been when they’d met, and she wondered how she’d never seen it before. How many trips had he had to take? How much distance had he had to cover? What was Cirrina making him do that had turned his once boyish figure into something so—

“Aya, I know it’s hard, but you need to hear what I saw tonight,” Kai said, evidently noticing her loss of focus. She swallowed again, and forced her attention back into herself. “That’s better,” he said gently. “Aya, when the guards didn’t let me in, I went around through one of the balconies, and saw the Eel Prince pull you into that corridor. Do you remember what happened there?”

Aya shook her head.

“No…” she said, letting her face fall into her hands. “I can recall being there… but it's fuzzy, and any time I do, my head feels like I’m trying to use it to crack open barnacles. I know I was there, but… but I don’t remember you at all.”

“I thought as much,” he sighed. “Your prince used a potion on you to get you to agree to his suit. I was too late to stop him, and when the guards arrived, they assumed I was one of Ezra’s contingent, and dismissed me.”

“That—that snake!” she cried when he’d finished. “That’s why I let him announce our engagement? Why I thought he was—”

Beautiful? Funny? Utterly divine? She cringed.

“—I don’t know what I thought! Anyway, it’s not like the engagement will last. Father spoke to me alone tonight. It was like he was an entirely different person, Kai! He’s going to delay the wedding until I don’t have to go through with the suit. The eel prince didn’t exactly make a good impression tonight.”

However, Kai’s reaction wasn’t what she expected. “Entirely different…” he groaned. More agitated than before, he shot up from the stool, and set an anxious pace before her door, swimming the length of her small quarters several times as he spoke. “Of course he is… of course this could get worse.”

“What do you mean, worse? I’ll just tell the guards. I’ll tell my father! Prince Ellian will be escorted out of the palace in disgrace!”

But Kai shook his head, raking his hands through his hair frustratedly. “I’ve tried to tell the guards—no, not even Adin believed me, Aya, and if your father is acting strange, telling him may only make things far worse. Frankly, it sounds as though he’s under someone’s influence as well, which I can probably help you with, but right now, we don’t have time. We need to get this curse off you before it becomes permanent!”

“Permanent,” she said, taking in the seriousness in Kai’s icy-purple gaze. “Kai, what does this potion do? What becomes permanent?”

“Cirrina sold it to him as a love potion.” Once more, Kai was doing everything he could to avoid meeting her eyes. He was up from the stool, unable to stay still, pacing, pulling at his hair, even straightening the instruments on her vanity, and checking the door over and over again, as though convinced someone could be listening, or about to burst through and arrest him.

“In actuality,” he continued, “it's more of a mind-altering potion. Nothing in magic can make you fall in love, but it can simulate very strong feelings that will take you over. This one, Cirrina set on a timer connected to sunlight. He got you alone in that corridor because the first person you saw once the potion hit your gills in the light of the sun, you would think you’d fallen in love with. Every time you see him, and every time you’re exposed to sunlight, his hold on you gets stronger. Then, in the light of the moon, it looks like things get weak enough for you to have your own mind again. It will get stronger in the day, and weaker at night, until on the third day after sunrise, its hold on you becomes permanent.”

He started to straighten her star charts for her, but before she could tell him to leave them be, set them down, and went back to pacing.

“As for the lines you’re seeing…that’s interesting. Only mages can see those—and even then, not all mages. If you can see magic now, that’s one side-effect that I didn’t foresee…”

Any other day, the ability to see magic would have excited Aya out of her fins, but the details of the curse had already sent her reeling.

“You’re saying, as soon as the sun rises tomorrow, I’ll be back in love with Prince Ellian? I’d do whatever he says.” Aya’s mouth dropped open in horror. All of Ellian’s off-color insinuations came dribbling through her thoughts like tar.

“And you won’t remember that you’re under a spell,” Kai added, unhelpfully.

“Wait!” Aya exclaimed, hope swelling in her chest as she rose from the bed and moved closer to him. “You said that the eclipse can ruin a lot of magic when it passes. Won’t it make this potion just fizzle out like the rest of them?”

She’d never been so grateful for her tracking charts. So that’s what Kai was telling her? She just needed to spend a few days in her room until this was all over? She had textbooks to read. She could do that.

“Ah, that—” Kai looked truly uncomfortable, tentacles tapping on the floor as though he had been trying very hard to avoid this particular question. “Perceptive as usual,” he sighed, and she felt a pang of disappointment when he turned his face away from hers, still unwilling to meet her eyes. “Since you told me the eclipse was coming, I invented a brewing method that seals magic and makes it stronger under the eclipse. If Ellian had gone to any other sea-witch, then once the eclipse happened, yes. You would have been free.”

“It’s a shame you’re so clever,” Aya teased dryly, though she couldn’t manage to convince her mouth to smile anymore.

“It’s my fault, Aya. It’s my fault you are in this trap, and it can’t be undone by anything the sun has touched—or anyone. I can’t fix this.”

Timidly, she reached out for his hand... His chin snapped toward her, then, and he regarded her as though she’d gone insane. Her heart broke a little when she read in his expression that he didn’t think she would want to be close to him, now.

“You didn’t curse me,” she said quietly, slipping her fingers into his. “You certainly don’t choose to work for Cirrina. Despite everything, you’re always protecting me and Krill…You’re also the best connection to magic that I have. I’m lucky to have you.”

Her blue eyes met his purple ones, and though she could see his obvious guilt, they both understood that if there was a chance at all, Aya needed Kai.

Kai was the only person who would never coddle or grovel to her for the sake of her status. While she’d always known she’d have to leave the palace for a suitor eventually, her father had given her hope that she might not have to go so far, that she might even be able to choose—

She stopped that thought in its tracks. Kai was a friend and a protector, but he had never shown anything but polite respect for her, and he certainly never tried to get as close to her as Ellian had—or at least she thought so. Her memories of the dances were still somewhat fuzzy. At the same time, Kai was a clever, powerful Cecaelia, and the chances of him being interested in a mermaid whose only talent was astronomy, and whose tact never measured up to her sisters…

She might be desperate and worried, but she was overstepping.

She began to pull her fingers from his, but he held them fast, drifting out of his anxious pace to face her. She felt color stain her cheeks and felt for once grateful for the cosmetics that concealed her skin. Fins and limbs included, Kai was much taller than she, and had he leaned forward, could have put his chin on her head.

“You do,” he said resolutely.

“Hm?” she asked, blinking up at him.

“You do have me,” he said.

Her breath caught in her gills and under her fingers, she could feel the pulses in his wrist going faster than a shoal of mako.

Which is normal, she scolded herself. The man does have three hearts, after all.

“I can’t fix this curse on my own, but I do know who can,” Kai said urgently. He kept hold of her fingers, which made hearing him difficult over the hammering of her own pulse. “After I was thrown out of the hall, I broke into the palace library, and ransacked the vaults for information on this spell.”

She gasped. “How did you get into the vaults?”

“Princess Sephina,” he said simply.

“So Sephina knows?” Aya whispered. Somehow, the thought of her closest sister knowing that she’d gotten cursed was both comforting, and painful. Sephina never did anything rash, but if knowing could put her in danger, then Sephina would find a way into that danger. It was just who she was.

“She doesn’t. I told her that I needed to find something for you, and she found what I needed in less than a minute. The locks didn’t seem to matter that much.”

“She’s scary that way.”

Kai snorted, and muttered something that sounded a lot like: “she’s your sister.” Then, a little louder, “the only sea witches better than Cirrina don’t work in Atlantis. The ones who could leave fled to the depths when the purges started.”

By your father, he left unsaid.

“Then we’re going to the depths,” Aya said. It wasn’t a question.

“Not to the depths. Even your libraries don’t have its location recorded.”

He held up a long white finger before she could despair. “We don’t need to make it to the Depths. We need to find the Twilight Market. The craftsmen for dark magic—sunless magic—will be there.’

“And we have to go before the sun rises, or else…I probably won’t go with you.”

Kai swallowed and nodded.

“Alright.” To Kai’s visible surprise, Aya agreed.

“Excellent. The guards change shift again in half an hour. That’s the only time I’ll be able to get you out of here before dawn.”

She shook her head. “Ten minutes. They change the patterns after high moon.”

Kai pushed his fingertips to his forehead where a faint line was prematurely etching itself between his brows. “Then let’s go to the gardens now. I’ll buy anything you need on the way.”

“Ah—well…” Aya fidgeted, tugging on the end of a sleeve that was barely clinging to one shoulder. They were about to swim who-knew-how-far, and who-knew-where. She wasn’t a fussy princess, but even she thought it was reasonable to not want to do that in a dress she’d tried to cut off her body. “I’m ready, I just need something I can travel in, if that’s alright,” she said, hoping he’d get the clue, before she had to ask.

No such luck.

“Do you have something that will cover your tail? The red is noticeable,” he said, tapping a finger impatiently.

“I do, it’s just—” She took a deep breath. Aya had taken the possibility of living with a permanent mental curse in stride—somewhat desperately, but in stride. “Can you help me with the buttons on this thing? I was going to just cut it off…”

She turned around and gestured to her dress, still half unbuttoned and clinging stubbornly to her torso.

Cheeks staining themselves a light purple, Kai’s jaw snapped shut.

“You were making fine progress before.”

“I can’t reach,” she said, flipping her tail in frustration. “Just be fast.”

Aya tossed him the pencil knife before he could argue further, and he caught it with a hiss. Stubbornly, she presented him with the back of her dress.

He hesitated, and she thought she heard a small huff, before the seconds ticking away seemed to catch up with him. He pulled her close enough to reach, and two of his tentacles steadied her waist while he worked.

Like any good potioneer, Kai was really good with a knife. What had taken Aya a considerable amount of reaching and struggle, he managed in seconds, hardly having to touch her. Once the tightness on the lower half of the bodice was cut away, Kai tossed the knife back to her vanity, and whirled away from her to face the wall.

“I trust you can manage from here,” he said to the wall.

“Can I put a blouse on myself, you mean? Who knows?” she teased, trying to bring the levity back. “Just don’t look.”

He snorted, and didn’t dignify that comment with a response.

Aya only needed a minute. Throwing the dreaded red dress on the bed, she redressed in a long, ocean blue blouse designed to hide the bulk of her red scales. Then, she snatched a matching purse, and stuffed it with her jewelry. Her mother’s necklace was still around her neck, and she considered leaving it there, but after some thought, decided that she could use all the luck she could get.

“Ready?” Kai asked, when he heard the pull of ropes as she tied the purse strings around her waist.

“Ready,” she said.

The signal for the shift change went up in the garden. Under her newly magic-sensitive eyes, the sparks he sent up looked more like a flare-gun.

She let Kai pull her from the windowsill, and into the kelp beds at the base of her spire. They passed through the gardens unnoticed tracing the usual path Aya took to the surface. Aya was impressed with how well Kai was able to blend in with so many surfaces. Once, they were nearly spotted, but Kai threw his tentacles over her, and blended himself so perfectly with the flowering plants around them, the guard swam right past.

It was of course right at the most crucial part of the escape—actually leaving the palace grounds where they would be recognized—that they were spotted.

“Stop!”

Pastian, chief of the night guard, and direct subordinate to Captain Kael came swimming toward them, summoning the rest of the night guard to him. Immediately, twelve guards, fresh, attentive, and still nearby, responded to the disturbance. Aya’s fins seized as it became clear they’d never get away cleanly.

“Silt,” she cursed under her breath, feeling Kai’s hand immediately curl around her arm.

“Princess Ayalina?” Pastian said a little more loudly. “Stop! The Princess! The princess is being kidnapped!”

“Swim!” Kai ordered under his breath, already pulling her along with him at a speed she could never manage on her own. Hopefully that meant that neither could the guards. Together, they sped over the garden wall, and practically flew over the marked paths to the inner city.

As they turned the corner into the winding streets of Atlantis, Aya had time for one last glance backward, and instantly regretted it. One of the guards had predicted their path better than the rest, although even he couldn’t keep up with Kai. He watched them as though he couldn’t believe what he saw. The look of utter betrayal that Adin gave Aya and Kai as they escaped boiled in her lungs, under this pursuit, every second could decide her future, and this time, there was no time to explain.