Chapter 3

KAI

The homes of cecaelia were notoriously dark and difficult to find. The reason for this lay partially in natural tendency, but mostly in the complex and marvelous world of limited real-estate. The octopus half of cecaelian bodies gave them natural camouflage, and let most of them fit through incredibly small spaces. So, can’t get rid of that tiny home? Entrance to half the caves on your newly-purchased cliffside too small? No natural sunlight in your area, and need to sell to a species who can see in the dark? Cecaelia were the answer.

Unfortunately, this made visiting cecaelian homes rather difficult—though why anyone would want to was beyond most denizens of Atlantis. Afterall, it was hard to follow directions like: ‘it’s the trapdoor under the third misshapen rock to your left,’ or, ‘middle-ish of the kelp forest. Go down to where you can’t see anymore, and then keep going about thirty feet.’ This was a helpful principle to cecaelia who wanted to be visited—but not by anyone who wasn’t serious about finding them.

Quality sea witches were a rarity in the oceans as it was, and the only thing they had in common with each other was trouble. If sea witches weren’t necessary to the nine kingdoms for things like lighting, medicine, and salt-to-freshwater travel, they’d have been outlawed decades ago. Even still, since the purges began, the sea-witches that were so vital to the kingdom weren’t exactly ‘welcome,’ anymore—especially the cecaelian ones. Thus, for the sake of business, any cecaelian sea witches who remained didn't have the luxury of remaining truly hidden, but that didn’t mean they didn’t have their own ways of weeding out visitors. Dwellings of those witches bordered on the fanatically dark, and ventured into the territory of ‘horribly creepy.’

Kai’s contracted mistress, the cecaelian sea witch Cirrina, had put in considerable effort to ensure that her home lived up to both. In a corner of the kingdom’s lowest basins, where the sunlight forgot to reach, a grotto nicknamed the leviathan emitted puffs of smoky light from between the ribs and eye sockets of the creature whose bones formed the ancient structure. It was that light that Kai and Krill searched for every day when it was time to return home.

Together, Kai and Krill summited the desolate rocky basin of the Leviathan’s Remains. There was no telling how long the beast on the basin’s floor had been dead, but the vast pile of bones still sunk dread into those who saw it rising up from the silt. Despite the skeleton’s age, a scent of death still clung to the water around them, and the clouds of arthropods merrily feasting along the length of the basin never did anything to help that. No matter how many tides circulated through that skeleton, the taste of stagnant water clung like a curse.

The Leviathan’s ghostly jaws were preserved in the seafloor still agape, as though it had died mid-hunt. The entrance to Cirrina’s grotto nestled between those skeletal maws. It beckoned with sinister allure, giving its visitors the morbid sensation of being swallowed as they tried to reach the witch inside.

“Doom is coming! Doooom!” cried a dungeness crab who had made a home near Cirrina’s cavern. He waved his claws dramatically from the weeds as Kai swam overhead. “Already the currents shift! A lance of ancient power shall rise from the depths! The time of the prophesied hero is nigh! Black of tentacle and royal of blood is its bearer! To defeat the beast that loooooms! To reunite the kingdoms and—”

“—And have terrible luck in a game of shinty!” A hermit crab was yelling his piece right next to the other crustacean. “Or was it rummikub? Either way! Bad luck! Bad luck in love! Bad luck in cards! Dooooom!” Having made his home in a broken rum bottle, with one eyestalk noticeably larger than the other, the hermit was doing a far better job of playing crab-prophet.

“You’re doomed! You’re doomed! And you, are especially doomed!” cried the first, seeming to agree.

“‘Afternoon, Frank,” Kai greeted blandly. “Herb, you really shouldn’t let him shout like this. You’ll scare away paying customers.”

The first crab, Herb, made a sound that was probably supposed to be a crab’s version of a snort.

“You kidding, eight-arms? We’re practically your best advertisement!”

Kai tsked. While Herb wasn’t exactly wrong, that didn’t mean ‘ultimate doom’ was the part of Cirrina’s services that it was wise to announce.

“Young Masters Kai and Krill!” cried Frank the dungeness, his eyes popping from their uneven stalks. “Any news from the big city today?”

“Princess Aya came to see us!” Krill said chattily. It was the first words he’d uttered since leaving Aya to Marlin. “And Kai saved her life from an Archeteuthid.”

“Oh-ho!” said Frank with a crabby imitation of a bow. “Rubbing elbows with royalty! Always knew you two would go far, I did! Didn’t I say so, Herb?”

Kai shot Krill a hard look. Frank and Herb were the mouthiest crustaceans north of the reefs. For Aya’s sake, the last people who needed to know about the princess’s run-in with a giant squid were these two. Fortunately, the event didn’t seem to stick in their shell-sized brains as ‘important.’

“Nope! You never said anything, not once,” said Herb with a distracted blink. “Hoy, Krill-boy! You got summa that brine stuff for us?”

“Yeah!” said Krill, pulling out his pouch with renewed enthusiasm.

“You got crab-treats, but you didn’t collect anything from the actual list?” Kai scolded, though his heart wasn’t in it. Krill was oddly delighted as Frank and Herb pounced on the brine-shrimp crumbles he sprinkled on their heads. “Shameless,” Kai muttered.

“So this princess, lad,” said Frank between bites. “Sure hope you don’t have the blossoms of romance for the girl. Like we said. Waters are bad for romance and cards.”

“For at least the next week,” agreed Herb, not bothering to chew with his mouth closed. “Unless you’re in a bettin’ mood?” He raised an eye-stalk at Krill.

“He’s not,” said Kai sternly, tempted to toss the hopeful little hermit far enough from the weeds that something might do them all a favor and eat him before he returned.

“I’m pretty sure Aya’s never played ‘Row Chance,’” Krill said brightly. “Neither have I. Is that a new card game?”

“Did the barnacles tell you two anything useful today, or is it all nonsense?” Kai quickly butt in. Of all the horrors Cirrina had in store for him that week, having to explain the concept of romance to a budding adolescent wasn’t something he was ready to add to the list.

“Like we said!” reminded Frank, looking affronted. “Hero coming! And when he does, there’ll be a giant-shrimp for every pot, and a nice, big fight to watch! We can feel it in our shells!”

“Isn’t your shell a rum bottle?” Krill asked, his gray brow furrowing.

“That definitely seems to be the source of most of their prophetics,” said Kai.

Frank huffed, and folded his claws tersely over his shell.

“Well, you certainly know how to make a crab feel appreciated! Wouldn’t be surprised if you were the reason for the bad romantics in the silt!”

“Doubtless,” Kai said flatly.

“Hey, we appreciate you. Would we do this, if we didn’t?” Krill pointed out, giving the pouch with the shrimp bits one last shake over the crustaceans’ heads.

“True, it’s rare to have decent pay for our efforts,” Frank admitted, trying to beat Herb to the last shrimp crumbles.

“Well, the guards did try to pay, but what does a crab want with pearls? This is the good stuff!” Herb waved a thankful claw at Krill.

That got Kai’s attention.

“Palace guards were here?” he demanded. “Why?”

“Hey, you’re not the only one who likes our tidbits about the goings on of the to-be,” Frank alluded.

“He means people like to hear about what might or might not happen!” Herb clarified, unhelpfully.

“Yes, I’m sure news of a tentacled hero destined for power will absolutely enthrall the Atlantean nobility.”

“Hey, the hero stuff is an oldie but a goodie!” said Frank. “Draws an audience, it does!”

“Catchy,” Herb agreed, eyestalks twitching.

Kai kneaded the line between his brows. Everything in the ocean seemed to have its ways of trying to kill him. Even these imbecilic crustaceans seemed to have found a way. At this rate, his hearts would seize up from the stress.

“Have you considered telling the guards something that will send them on a nice carp-chase far away from here? We don’t need guards around scaring away the clients,” Kai emphasized.

And we certainly don’t need another purge hunting down cecaelian hero prospects, he added silently.

“Nah,” Herb waved a claw in dismissal.

“New clientele keeps us sharp!” Frank added around a mouthful of shrimp bits. “Fresh material’s like fresh produce, lads!”

Herb bobbed his eye stalks unhelpfully. “Gotta sell something!”

“Where do you get these prophecies?” Krill asked, innocently unaware of the danger.

“There’s this real pretty cave with drawings that—” Herb began enthusiastically, before Frank shoved him aside and cried:

“We're crab prophets! The real deal! The genuine article! How else?”

Kai narrowed his eyes, partially in suspicion, and partially to stave off the worsening headache.

“You two just like lying to the king’s men for money!” Krill laughed in his easy, boyish way.

Herb had the grace to tuck his claws bashfully. “Well, the job has to have a few perks. But don’t you worry! We tell our friends the real stuff!”

Krill beamed.

“Right,” Kai rolled his eyes. This conversation had taken the pounding in his head from a tolerable rhythmic tapping all the way to what felt like a school of mallet-wielding sardines trapped and bonking around his skull. His vision had narrowed to just the silty, grassy basin—not that there was much to see other than silt and grass. He sighed in defeat. Better to lean into the pain than try to fight it. “Can you tell me what mood Cirrina is in?” he asked, his voice a pained, irritated moan.

“Probably a bad one,” Frank offered, still munching.

“93% certainty,” Herb agreed with a little crustacean shrug.

“But you don’t need a prophecy for that! Ohohoho!”

“Did you two have anything useful to say?” Kai prodded the back of Frank’s shell with a tentacle. “Or shall we just drain your blood for hemocyanin, and be on our way?”

That sent both the grabs into more rolling guffaws.

“Oh-ho-ho!” Frank chortled, his legs stirring up silt with the force of it. “That’s a good one, lad! As if you’d get any value from Herb’s innards! Ho!”

“Cirrina could probably get drunk off them,” Krill said helpfully.

Kai raised a brow at Krill, surprised. “The boy has a point. Well?”

Frank shook his eyestalks in disbelief, still chuckling. “What, you’d drink the bottom-feeder that eats your own castoffs? I think not, boys! But hey, just for the laugh, here’s a new one we heard!”

“Tellin’ him about the gill rot breakout that’s a coming?” Herb asked, waving his claws dramatically in some sort of macabre pantomime of the disease.

Krill grimaced and put his forearm over his nose like he’d already smelled something bad. “Eurgh. Another one?”

“Bound to happen sometime!” Herb shrugged. “No, I meant the one with the mirror monster. Aunt Algae said a barnacle told her that an anemone in the palace told him there was a thing living in the city mirrors what could suck out your soul if you looked at it too long—”

Kai tsked. “Come on Krill, these two are about as useful as silt.”

Krill didn’t argue, giving the crabs a merry wave over his shoulder, and a last shake of the shrimp pouch for good measure.

“You say that! But I’d like to see you go on without us!” Frank retorted to their backs as they swam away. “You’d be doomed, I say!”

“Doooooomed!” agreed Herb.

Krill and Kai glided away from the crabs, who were now loudly proclaiming very lewd facts about salmon, as well as a very unflattering comparison of Kai’s face to a rabid herring.

So juvenile…Kai grumbled to himself.

If the doomsday crabs didn’t lift Krill’s spirits so often, Kai would have ground them both for potions ingredients ages ago. Frank was wrong about one thing. He could certainly use Herb in a potion. He could cure misplaced attraction, Kai was sure. Or perhaps he could be used in a tincture to cause indigestion or even botulism. His mouth quirked upward as he considered the possible better uses of Herb and Frank as he and Krill entered the Leviathan’s mouth.

They wriggled carefully between the Leviathan’s teeth, the longest of which spanned more than the length of Kai’s tentacles. Cirrina kept them well-sharpened, and both had gotten their fair share of cuts coming in and out of the place life forced them to call home. Sure that the skeleton’s shape had been somewhat exaggerated by Cirrina, Kai was still grateful that they didn’t live in a time when creatures like this had been real.

“We shouldn’t be here,” Krill mumbled, as they descended along the spine into the beast’s belly. “We only have half the blood she wants, and you know how she gets…”

“We’re going to have to wait until nightfall before the crabs come back, anyway,” Kai soothed the younger boy.

With a decade more experience with Cirrina than Krill had, Kai was confident he could handle her outbursts. At the same time, if he was present, then Cirrina was far more likely to target him out of habit than Krill. Blood or no, Krill would be fine, Kai was certain.

“Kai…” Krill asked softly.

“Hm?”

“Do you think Aya will be okay?”

Kai blew a stream of bubbles through his teeth.

“Aya will be alright as long as Adin stops being an idiot and leading her into forbidden territories.” Some of the day’s irritation returning to him, Kai’s words came out harsher than he’d intended. Krill flinched.

“That’s not…” Krill started, but then clicked his teeth shut, as though changing his mind.

“She’ll be fine,” Kai responded through clenched teeth, making an effort to calm himself, as well. He paused before they could exit the throat’s corridor, and selected his next words more careful. “Listen, Krill, Aya might not have time for us in the future, but that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t care, or that she isn’t alright. The princesses have an army to keep them safe. She’ll be fine.”

Krill’s mouth puckered, and he turned away. “Aya hates hiding, though…”

Kai bit back a groan.

“Krill. Focus on what’s in front of you, for now. Let’s just survive this week, shall we? You can’t to anything you want to do if survival doesn’t come first.”

Krill tentacles turned slightly transparent, but he nodded. Kai knew it wasn’t exactly a speech to inspire the ages, but it would be enough to keep Krill moving. It was also all Kai had the energy for. The adrenaline from the squid attack had long since faded. All he wanted—all he needed, was rest. They were going to swim inside, deposit ingredients, and then, he was going to sleep until Cirrina broke down his door.

At the exit to the throat corridor, a creepvine curtain kept the outside currents from chilling the beast’s innards—or, at least it was supposed to. Its leaves weren’t thick enough to keep much warmth actually inside, giving the inner cavern an eerie and chilled feeling when the cauldron boilers were off. Leading Krill through the hanging leaves, the curtain closed naturally behind them. Though he’d just replaced it, it was already wilting in the weak light of glowing algae and potions bottles that peeked out from the brewery’s thin cabinet doors.

Kai’s senses pricked as they waded carefully into the cauldron room, where the freshly-scrubbed cauldrons and pots of that morning sat waiting for more work. Yet, there was no sign of Cirrina. Unconsciously, he bared his teeth. There was something different about the cavern since that morning.

For the most part, the Leviathan Grotto looked as it always did. This cavern had seen better days, despite being under Kai’s care. Rib bones the size of roman columns lined the central brewing room, lit by gently pulsating corals. The ceiling at least remained its healthy, lively self. A mosaic of undulating polyps had made their home along the thickest part of the Leviathan’s spine, feeding on the cauldron fumes that Kai and Cirrina produced. The gentle hum of their anticipation when Kai entered the room was the only sound that Kai could detect, and though it was familiar, the little creatures never failed to make him gag. Kai had been tempted many times to clean them off, but after so many years of them ingesting magical residue, there was no telling how toxic they were now.

In the center of the cavern, Cirrina’s collection of cauldrons sat on enchanted boilers, carefully calibrated not to heat anything but what was on top. A cluster of phosphorescent anemones managed to grow in their shadows. Carefully organized cabinets of ingredients and pre-made potion stock lined every available shelf. As before, nothing looked out of place…

“Kai… you see this?” Krill asked, pointing at one of the only open-faces shelves. Its bottles and tinctures had been arranged by color, to emphasize their variety. Efficiency had nothing to do with it. It was blatant showing off.

At last, it struck Kai what was odd about the room. Nothing had been thrown or smashed. Nothing had been thrown in disarray as Cirrina was wont to do with her experiments. If anything, things were even more organized, and it wasn’t like Cirrina to be helpful—at least not like this. This sort of behavior meant that she was Up To Something, and Kai doubted it would be in their best interest.

“Ah,” he said, his lip curling. “I see it. Let’s drop the ingredients and go.”

One of Krill’s best qualities was his ability to read the difference between Kai’s regular irritation, and when he was saying something truly urgent. Krill didn’t question him as they both got to storing and preserving the meager ingredients Kai had brought home.

As the sea witch Cirrina’s reputation worsened, selling the benign spells had fallen exclusively to Kai. Cirrina herself had deviated from the ‘helpful’ spells over the years, and had leaned farther and farther into poisons, dark magic, and what she liked to call ‘experiments,’ which nearly always ended up in someone getting hurt. Usually Kai.

Cirrina had begun using her own ink to write the contracts of payment as well—a nasty trick. The ink acted like a blood-bind where her contracts were concerned, and her customers often found themselves owing her more than they’d expected. If Cirrina, who had no need of advancing her devious reputation, was showing off, it meant that someone Important was coming, and someone Important wouldn’t be coming over for anything helpful, or simple. The more they saw of the cavern, the stronger Kai’s urge became to not be home when that happened.

Kai processed the ingredients they’d brought home with an efficiency that would have made a team of trained chefs weep. He would never understand why having eight tentacles wasn’t a more sought-after commodity. Two of his tentacles pressed seaweed and bottled the gel, while another two powdered a sack of pearls. He deposited the live anemone buds into a makeshift habitat under the warm boilers where they’d be happy, and began the hemocyanin extraction for a truly pathetic amount of horseshoe crab blood, all in a matter of minutes.

Krill was quiet as he handed Kai plain sea glass bottles, all vestiges of his earlier chattiness gone. Kai frowned at the storage supply. Cirrina was nearly out of sponge corks and hadn’t told him. He’d have to collect more that night, or they would catch the blame for it whether they’d known or not.

He’d said as much to Krill, and all he got from the boy was a surly: “Alright.”

His helpfulness spent, Krill’s tentacles turned white, and he drifted off to hide on one of the colossal ribs as he waited for Kai to finish the work. Under Krill’s sullen gaze, the prickling sensation returned. Kai made a sound between a sigh and a growl.

“I can feel your worry from here, Krill,” Kai said over his shoulder, nearly finished. “Adin will still be friends with you, I’m sure. It’s not you he dislikes, believe me.”

Krill was quite a little longer, but eventually croaked: “He’s just been…different.”

It seemed the merman didn’t even have to be here to cause Kai trouble.

“He doesn’t like me because I tell him he’s wrong,” Kai grumbled. It was a gross oversimplification, and he’d left out several biases and theories that Adin was possibly, even now, embracing, but none of those things would be helpful, and so Krill didn’t need to hear them.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“That doesn’t make sense. You only do it because you’re trying to keep him alive,” Krill grumped.

Kai shrugged, keeping his eyes on the blood. “I’m very unlikable when I’m keeping people alive.”

That got a snort out of Krill, and almost against his will, his easy childish smile returned.

“He’ll still come around, then,” Krill pronounced with a confidence Kai wished he still had. Finally, he peeled himself off the wall and came back to help with the bottling. “He’ll still have to have fun with all of that extra work they’re giving him. I think he’s just mad because you looked better than him in front of Aya. I’m pretty sure he likes her.”

Krill wrinkled his nose, and Kai didn’t hold back a snort of bubbles. If Adin was obnoxious enough with his affection that even Krill had noticed, then clearly his own irritation hadn’t been entirely misplaced.

“Adin will have plenty of opportunities to show off for Aya back at the palace where he won’t almost get her eaten. Just remember not to be so annoying when you like someone,” Kai admonished, which only earned him an annoyed shove from Krill. Kai jumped. He hadn’t seen Krill get so close.

Kai made a small sound of amused disdain to cover his surprise, and poured the blue blood residue into the last bottle. Up until now, it had always seemed as though Cirrina had a bottomless supply of bottles and such, and now they were either all full, or missing. He would have to remember to ask her about them later.

“Aya thinks you don’t like her,” Krill said, swimming over Kai’s head to get a better look at the extraction process.

“And she would be right,” Kai said quickly. Blue blood passed in and out of the refinement tubes. Its constituent parts separated by color and chemical into their vials.

“You like how much her studies help you,” Krill pointed out annoyingly, dripping himself behind Kai’s desk.

“Hold still. I’m trying to concentrate.”

“Aya’s helpful,” Krill repeated, ghosting in and out of his view, and not holding still. “She finds things that are impossible to find, and she’s the only astronomer who’s ever predicted eclipses.”

“Mm.” One more vial, and Kai would be done…

“I wish she could be around more often. She’s saved us so much work, and she’s nothing like Cirrina. Well, almost nothing…”

“Mm,” he muttered. This last step of the process was particularly tricky….

“Why do you keep calling her Princess? You know she hates it.”

“She’s not a child anymore. She’ll have to get used to it,” Kai said curtly. At last, he coaxed the pure material into its vial. Purified and ready for use, there was even less of it than he’d thought, but it was capped, stored, and finished. They could leave.

“If you hadn’t been there with us today…” Krill’s face had turned glum once more, a frown very unbecoming of his age wrinkling his forehead.

Kai reached out a tentacle, and pushed Krill’s gray hair back just enough to tug the lines on his face smooth again. “But I was.”

He would never say it out loud, but he sometimes shared Krill’s worry. Aya had gotten herself in trouble plenty of times that had required Kai’s help. However, he knew that Aya’s future couldn’t keep mixing with theirs. The working class and royalty didn’t mix, and that went triply so for cecaelian sea witches. The little princess had to learn to handle things on her own. As much as she had royal responsibilities to meet, in that gilded world of hers, Kai had his own problems to face.

Atlantis was dangerous for an unprotected cecaelian. Cirrina offered them shelter, but not a life. Kai’s apprenticeship with Cirrina had only months left on it. He had only a few lunar cycles left to find somewhere to go before she forced him into something worse than an apprenticeship—like an unpaid managerial position, or a lifesize blood bag—though of the two, the latter sounded better. At the same time, when his apprenticeship expired, Krill was next for the position, and Kai wasn’t prepared to watch the young cecaelian boy be forced into the same path. However, managing Cirrina’s orders to protect unfortunate souls from her dirty cecaelian-ink-contracts was exhausting and time-consuming than he’d planned. For both their sakes, he had to find somewhere else where two cecaelia could make a living—and he had scant months to do it. Kai was tired. And he was nearly out of time.

“And just where have you two been?” Cirrina appeared, her snarling hiss echoed throughout the cavern.

As though she could sense him thinking about her, Cirrina appeared, billowing out from the back corridors in a wave of dark green tentacles. Arms crossed, she wore the same mottled gossamer dress and sickly smile she reserved for dastardly deals.

Kai considered lying, but Krill beat him to it.

“We found the hemo—the hemysi—” he mumbled.

“Hemocyanin.” To Krill’s visible relief, Kai produced the bottle of extracted blood and tossed it into Cirrina’s open claws.

“Oh…oooooh!” she crooned, stroking the bottle. “This is quality stuff, perfect for your little lunar-protection potion, I say, Kai.” Then, as expected, her face twisted in annoyance. “But where’s the rest of it?”

“This is what Krill found. Mine still needs collecting,” Kai said, crossing his arms protectively, though even he couldn’t do anything when Cirrina’s arms shot out and smothered Krill.

“Oh, Krill, my baby! My boy! Most older apprentices struggle with this sort of thing—” there she glared at Kai, “—and you’re already doing extractions this fine! You’re going to make the best of apprentices when you come of age! What’s this, Kai? Letting the little one show you up already?”

“There was a giant squid in the valley today!” Krill defended him—or at least he meant to.

Cirrina’s white eyebrows shot up her head. “Then, I don’t suppose you boys brought me back some powdered beak? No?” She glowered over their empty-handedness. “Oh, you don’t have to tell me what really happened… do you think auntie doesn’t know what goes on with her boys?”

“Cirrina,” Kai said quietly, trying not to look at Krill’s panicked face as Cirrina squeezed him just a little too hard.

The sickly smirk returned to her face as soon as she saw his concern, and though she loosened her grip a little, Kai could practically see her filing this information away for later. Lying to Cirrina about where they’d been was a gamble rarely worth making. The scrying-pearl in her private quarters was one of the farthest-reaching in the oceans. She didn’t need spies when the crystal could tell her more than just the visual events. A pearl of that strength could see intentions, direction, potential futures, and even sometimes the feelings of those living in its images. Of course, there was no way she could watch all of that information all the time, but Cirrina would have had to be both blind and luckless not to know about their friendship with Aya.

Cirrina glowered, and he knew she meant to let him know that his scolding her was a mistake. Her tentacles twitched menacingly in Kai’s direction and she drew closer, as though to grab him, too.

“Returning empty-handed? Behind on orders? Cheek? It’s a wonder you have the time to run about chasing royal tail, Kai,” Cirrina hissed.

Kai fought to keep his shoulders relaxed, and his expression bored and indifferent as she pulled a shaking Krill close enough into her chest to pet his little gray head.

“I was gazing at the pearl today, and I saw all sorts of things. She’s quite smitten, your little princess… such a shame. The poor dear is in for a rather terrible day…many of them, in fact.”

Still in Cirrina’s clutches, Krill’s nose scrunched up in confusion, but Kai needed no more explanation. Cirrina wasted no opportunity to remind him how far beneath the palace-dwellers they were. Trying to make him think that Aya had feelings for him was one of her tactics for trying to make him feel hopeless—or at least so that he would keep up a friendship with her for the sake of the information she provided.

As though on cue, Cirrina said, “Still, I suppose the palace brat has had some use over the years. I don’t know of any other sea witch who has such a reliable celestial seer. If she were a proper cecaelian, I’d take her on, too! Hah!”

Aya would have hated being called anything other than a scientist, or perhaps an astronomer, but those semantics weren’t something to argue with Cirrina. For one long, tense moment, Kai waited to see if she had forgotten her ire with him when, abruptly, she let go of Krill, swooshed over to a cabinet and pulled out a familiar bottle. Kai watched Cirrina take a long draught of bright pink absinthe, now hopefully too distracted to try to inflict any punishment. He swallowed a disgusted noise in the back of his throat. He could smell the alcohol from across the cavern.

“I don’t suppose I need to ask why we need to order more bottles?” he said when Cirrina drained one and smashed it against one of the freshly-cleaned bone walls, staining the fibers a tacky shade of pink. No doubt Krill would be up late trying to bleach it from the bones. He’d be sweeping up a fair amount of near-invisible glass shards as well.

Taking up another odiously-colored bottle, Cirrina ignored the mess and swathed herself over a banister to the outer corridors. One of her mottled tentacles waved the half-empty bottle of pink liquid at him.

“You do what you must for information, Kai. Believe me, Auntie understands. Besides, I don’t have time to scold you all day, or rather, you don’t have time for me to scold you all day.”

Kai almost sighed in relief. At least Cirrina didn’t seem in the mood for one of her tirades. Instead of ranting, she took another swig of foul liquid, and produced a scroll from her pouch. The edges were gilded, and the script written in cecaelian ink. Krill perked up from his place, becoming a little more opaque as he watched curiously. Cecaelia didn’t just sell ink willy-nilly. This message was personal.

“I’ve received a message from an old friend. We’ll have a very important customer tomorrow. Be sure to have the other orders done before he arrives. I don’t want the rabble seeing him—nor him, them,” she said with a disdainful sniff, as though the Atlantean citizens who bought servile cures from them weren’t their primary source of income. “Neglect my orders, and it will cost you a tentacle, boy. That’s just the contract, I’m afraid. Not. My. Fault.” She punctuated each syllable with a sharp slashing motion.

Both Kai and Krill cringed. Kai wanted to point out that everything in Cirrina’s contracts was very much ‘her fault’ as she had written them. Kai had had to regrow several tentacles over the years when Cirrina’s indulgent requests resulted in a ‘breach of contract.’ While it seemed both he and Krill wanted to know who in all the oceans would call himself an ‘old friend’ of Cirrina’s, the desire to see her leave was overpowering. Neither boy said anything as, just as abruptly as she’d appeared, Cirrina disappeared back into her room in a whirl of tentacles and disturbingly pink alcohol.

“Krill?” Kai said quietly, dreading the words he was about to say.

Krill blinked, still rubbing his ribs from where Cirrina had squeezed them.

“Wake me up at midnight.”

*

The next day was a trial in keeping his eyes open. Cirrina had only emerged from her chambers since the night before to bark orders and add tasks to their already impossible list. When she wasn’t in the brewery, there was at least enough peace for him to prepare extras of the usual orders, but strange smells and smokes were tainting the water that bled out from beneath her door, which made it difficult for Kai to keep his brews pure.

Krill had offered to help gather the last of the supplies Kai would need, but his work was superfluous, as Cirrina demanded that Kai keep an overstock of all the more vital materials. What Kai truly needed was another mage to assist the brews, but Krill was still vastly untrained. Kai could run a brew in five cauldrons at once on a good day, but today he was pushing eight, and barely keeping up. Still, insisting on doing something to help, Krill left early-morning to chase after the remaining items on Cirrina’s personal list.

Truly no good lie goes unpunished, Kai thought when Krill was sent out for the rest of the crab blood in his stead.

Kai’s lie about Krill’s success the day before had certainly saved the boy from punishment, but Cirrina had sent him out for more, which didn’t do anything to lighten Kai’s load for the day.

Then, at dawn, the Leviathan's Grotto opened for business.

Mermen and mermaids of all breeds, tropical fish, and out-of-kingdom visitors alike poured in through the creepvine curtain, making Kai seriously doubt the wisdom of opening the cavern to the public, but there really wasn’t much alternative. Part of what kept their home afloat had been the decision to have one open day per week for pre-made potion sales. Suddenly, their customer base had gone from rare-and-desperate, to plentiful and desperate. Kai could hardly keep up with the demand. Today, Krill’s absence kept Kai swimming frantically between purchases and keeping Cirrina’s favorite cauldrons from exploding.

“I’m coming, I’m coming!” he snapped at an impatient angelfish who was making a scene over the direness of his need for a fin-glittering solution.

Despite the business, some of the customers still had the audacity to swim in on a day like this and order custom mixes. Unfortunately, the financial situation of the cavern was such that he couldn’t say ‘no.’

Cirrina had managed to advertise the impending lunar eclipse in the time since Princess Aya’s prediction. Of course, she’d waited until the last minute so that any competition practices would be unprepared. Using the hemocyanin from past collections, Kai had made an additive to the potions that would presumably make magic last through the lunar eclipse—an event that would make any magic not directly summoned by a god-weapon useless. A lunar eclipse like the one Aya had warned them of would break or undo a lot of the magic that normal sea-witches sold. He himself had used the advance notice to make a protection solution that would reverse that effect. Since nothing else like it existed, Cirrina’s cavern was the only one offering such a solution, making the rush of customers today one of the worst days for service Kai had ever seen.

“I need three cases of scale shine!” said a crooked-nosed merman with hideously unmaintained scales.

“I ordered the skin-softener twenty minutes ago!” clamored a wrinkled mermaid-triggerfish conglomerate.

“You’re sure you can’t get my left fins to grow back? There’s still a stump to work with!” argued a finless hagfish.

And so it went for hours.

Frantic border-dwellers who lived on the city’s reefs were particularly demanding. Many wanted spells to make the currents around windows more gentle as the moon’s pull strengthened. The palace library wanted him to protect their air-domes and had ordered an entire crate of bubble-strengthener. However, those were the only merfolk who seemed concerned about construction. Everything from safe egg-laying elixirs and cosmetics sold by the crate. Completely unprepared, Kai made more last-minute beauty products than had graced the kingdom since Princess Adriatta’s engagement ball.

“One lunar eclipse and everyone’s concerned more about looking pretty more than safety? Why?” he grumbled, stirring three cauldrons at once, while throwing alligator scales and bubbleroot into two others. He was so busy, he nearly threw a whole bottle of niacin into a cauldron of saline, which would have sent green sludge all over the cavern if he hadn’t caught himself in time.

The day passed in a tumble of narrowly-avoided catastrophes, and Kai never thought he’d felt more relieved in his life when the last bottle of digestive tonic swam out with a granny grouper nearly too old to move.

Consumed by the business of what had to be the busiest sell-day any sea-witch of the kingdom had ever seen, Kai didn’t notice who the last customer was when he came in that evening.

“We’re sold out,” Kai called over his shoulder without looking.

He could tell it was more than one merman, just by the sound. The clanking of armor and rustle of uniforms was enough. He didn’t acknowledge any of them beyond that, however. Kai had had more than enough brewing that day that he couldn’t have been paid a treasury to serve one more whiny merman, let alone a whole shoal of them. He had cauldrons to scrub. Far too many cauldrons to scrub.

He was fully prepared to throw the irritating lot of them out on their tails, but before he could do just that, Kai was alerted that something was different about these customers by the appearance of Cirrina.

“Prince Ellian, welcome. What my servant means to say is that our more inauspicious clientele have all been served. Do come in,” she said, pouring herself over the banister when the cavern had nearly emptied.

Kai bristled. Servant?

Even the risk of provoking her ire didn’t stop him from glowering at Cirrina who, after neglecting the cavern all day, came swanning out from the back rooms, in a mass of green tentacles and gossamer fabrics. As she did so, he at last saw what she’d been doing in her room all day. Cirrina appeared to have used at least half a crate of their most expensive beauty potions on herself. Her wrinkled purple skin had smoothed back to a lighter lilac, and her hair had been meticulously combed and styled. She had even managed through some miracle to remove the reek of alcohol from her tentacles, and slimed them to a highly-polished green shine.

She smiled toothily, preening. All of her time had been spent on making herself look more impressive, and she knew exactly what effect her appearance had on the gob-struck guests.

“Ezra told me you’d be coming. Looking for something…special?” she crooned, descending with more flourish than necessary.

Kai glared over at the newcomer flitting about the entrance, and instantly disliked him. One average-looking merman swam in the middle of at least six over-muscled guards. And he was trying desperately to look important.

Prince Ellian had a long orange and yellow eel’s tail, covered in black spots that dotted up both his tail and torso. His yellow hair and complexion were entirely unremarkable, apart from a lone black spot that seemed to have wandered unattractively onto his cheek. In all, he would have been the most ordinary merman in the world had it not been for the clinking gilded maille he chose to wear, and the orange copper spear he carried far too proudly, painted to match his tail. The effect of all that orange was… eyewatering, Kai decided.

The most noticeable quality of this eel was the slightly puffed way he held himself as he slithered into the cavern—as though already challenging Kai for the right to his territory. Kai scowled. Tired as he was, he’d like to see him try.

“Ezra assured me you would be…discreet?” said the ‘prince’ Ellian, in a tone of such haughty arrogance, Kai was tempted to fling pink absinthe all over his highly-stainable tail.

He turned his attentions back to the cauldrons, and resumed his scrubbing viciously. If he could finish the cleaning before Cirrina was done posturing, then perhaps he could avoid dealing with her ‘special guest.’

“But of course, Your Highness,” Cirrina preened, as she looped past Kai to welcome the eel further into the cavern. Clearly, Cirrina had been busy that morning, and not with work. She’d taken extra care to lace her hair with floating magic so that it trailed behind her in a great white blanket when she moved. Kai might have been impressed by that clever bit of magic if her help hadn’t been so badly needed in the cavern that day.

“What can we make for you?” Cirrina tapped a finger over her mouth. She was doing her best to look innocent, and failing at the effort magnificently. “Ezra mentioned in his letter that your predicament was…unique.”

“I can’t say as though I think it’s a dire need. Only, erm, time sensitive, if you catch my drift.”

“Indeeed.”

The eel cleared his throat with a haughty tip of his angled jaw, and seemed to make a decision.

“Leave us!” he ordered.

Without hesitation or question, the guards turned tail and clanked out of the grotto.

“Impressive, highness,” Cirrina crooned.

“Yes, well,” the eel stuttered. “Well, as I said, time is of the essence.”

“Yesss?”

“I’m here to buy a love potion,” he scoffed, as though even he found the idea absurd.

“Not for a specimen such as yourself, surely.” Cirrina batted her lashes with a stomach-turning simper.

Ah, and there it was. The eel shifted uncomfortably under Cirrina’s gaze, as though the idea were preposterous, even to him.

“It’s more for, ahm, insurance, you see.” The eel-tailed prince swam somewhat agitatedly under Cirrina’s sharpened gaze. Though he seemed smart enough to stay away from Kai glaring over his finished cauldrons, he kept his chest puffed, and his head annoyingly cocked to one side. “I’m more than confident I can turn the girl in question to my many finer qualities, but you see, as I have no choice in the matter—”

More like the poor girl in question has no choice, Kai wanted to growl, but he also needed to get out of the cavern.

Now that his attention could return to him, Kai noticed that Krill was still missing. With the giant squid in season, the deeper waters were unsafe. How long had he been gone?

“—I need something fool-proof! Something discreet, easy to use, and of course it should preserve most of the girl’s faculties. I do need her functional for a time.”

Functional? Kai scowled, but his distraction was quickly sinking into worry. Had Cirrina given him an extra task? So late at night?

Cauldron cleaning could happen later. Discreetly, Kai stowed the stack that he was working on, and began to slink toward the exit.

“But of course,” Cirrina smarmed. “I assume you can afford something that strong? This kind of custom magic isn’t simple.”

“Oh, most assuredly!” Ellian primped. Kai rolled his eyes. “I’ve come with a fresh bag of Tyrian snails, a rather fetching set of green pearls for you, my lady, and if I may say so, a fine pair of dorsals.”

Kai nearly choked when he saw the display. As usual, his gut feeling had been correct. The snails and pearls were valuable, if that was the sort of thing you liked, but he found himself biting back bile at the dorsals. Someone, somewhere had been maimed by this prince. Mer-folk didn’t just regenerate tentacles like cecaelia. A young adult merman or maid had lost would be stunted for life…or worse. He’d seen enough. Turning his dark-colored tentacles the color of the wall, Kai moved around Cirrina’s back, and managed to wade around the cauldron stack without making a sound.

Cirrina, of course, was purring over the whole set, no doubt having heard from her ‘old friend,’ of some horrible potion that could be brewed with merman parts.

“That will almost do,” Cirrina was already pulling a black sheet of oiled vellum from a shelf. Her contracts were pre-drafted these days, and Kai, for once, didn't pity the merman about to sign one.

This eel was truly foolish to have given Cirrina advance notice of his arrival, and even more so to have offered all of his trinkets upfront. Had he arrived after the rush, Cirrina might have drawn him up a fresh contract—and she might have left the eel some loopholes, perhaps made some mistakes. More importantly, she wouldn’t have an entire crate of beauty potions to make up the cost for.

“I’ll take these,” one of her tentacles cleared away the trinkets he’d brought. Even if the eel left now, he’d never get his payment back, “…and one of your spots. Shall we say…that one?” Cirrina pointed at the black mark on his cheek, a grin spreading over her face.

Eel-tail coughed, and the yellow bits of his tail paled. Kai couldn’t fathom what she would need his spot for, and concluded that she only wanted it for the sake of making the eel squirm.

“My—my spot?” Ellian spluttered, slinking back from her half a stroke. “Out of the question, I’m afraid. No, no. You see, this isn’t any spot,” he said, indicating the hideous black mark on his face, “This! This is the royal birthmark! A symbol of my right to inherit! A sign of my claim to princehood since birth!”

“Yesss.” Cirrina swished around the eel, waving a tentacle distractingly at the contract, and producing a pen from one of the cavern's dozens of shelves as though the eel had just agreed to her offer instead of his hesitant refusal. “You want the girl to fall in love with you, yes? Not just anyone, I reckon, either. Who is she? Not a peasant, to be sure. Those are too easy a prey for a prince. A wealthy noble’s daughter, perhaps? Another sea-witch to do your bidding? My, my, the possibilities. Therefore, I need a bit of you for this potion, and not just any bit will do, dear.”

‘I—I see.” The eel cleared his throat nervously. He obviously did not see.

“Don’t go anywhere just yet, dear!” Cirrina called over her shoulder. “Auntie sees you trying to sneak off.”

“I’m not—!” The eel huffed, thinking she was calling to him, but Kai froze mid-swim.

He’d almost been out of the room, when Cirrina caught Kai around the middle and dragged him back to the brewing station. The eel jumped as Kai let his camouflage drop, and returned to his usual black. To the unobservant prince, Kai had likely appeared out of thin water.

“Kai, love? One more spell for today, I think.”

Oh, he was Love, now that she needed a favor. He grimaced in reply.

“Oh, there are two of you!” the prince cried, looking from Cirrina to Kai with comically wide eyes. “With the tentacles, I thought…I just—”

“Snapper got your tongue?” Kai smirked down at the eel, letting all his pointed teeth show. He was unwilling to let the eel have the upper hand, even if he had been trying to escape.

The eel shut his mouth with an angry click.

“Now boys,” Cirrina shot a warning glance at Kai, “A love potion is tricky business. Now, my handsome fellow, you want your girl in love with you to the point of distraction, but also want to leave her functionally intact? In that case, the best I can do is make her think that she loves you. The mind is much easier to mess with than the heart. An unimportant difference, you’ll find. Trifles! Now, young prince, I can make her fall for you completely in just three days.”

With that, Cirrina waded over to a locked cabinet, and undid the mechanism with the tip of a tentacle. She began pulling out a set of rare ingredients that had taken Kai months to find, and laying them out carelessly on one of her work tables.

“Three days?” the eel demanded.

“Start the boiler would you, dear?” Cirrina said to Kai. “It’s not often you’ll get to brew something this fun. And you,” she turned to the eel, not letting him get in a word edgewise. Slack-jawed and floundering under her presence, the fellow never really had a chance.

“When this potion is done, lovely princeling, sprinkle the potion in the sunlight, where she can breathe it in—gills, mouth, nose, it doesn’t matter. Then, you have until the last light of the lunar eclipse before the spell becomes permanent.”

The eel looked unconvinced, flipping his hair back in a way that communicated he was not used to being ignored, but didn’t know what the protocol was for negotiating with terrifying sea witches without his entourage.

“Why the sunlight?” asked the eel.

“Sunlight starts the clock, dear,” said Cirrina, placing an expensive bottle of sardine entrails next to a knot of hatchling hair. “It also completes the potion. I don’t have every ingredient here locked in a bottle, much as I’d love to.” She shot a wicked look at Kai.

A bit of orange drained from the eel prince’s face as he took in the ingredients.

“Isn’t that more than three days?” he asked, apparently unable to tear his gaze from the entrails.

“Well, I imagine you’ll have to travel to her, dearie. Give you a bit of a buffer, yes?”

The eel hesitated—a wise, but futile endeavor. “What happens during those three days? She won’t love me then?”

“Oh, she will,” Cirrina assured, pulling Kai back down to his place behind an empty cauldron. “It will just be more…spotty than afterward. Afterall, I’m only taking a spot. Unless you’d rather I took your heart? Or your tail? Those would work much faster.”

Prince Ellian blanched again, shaking his head.

Cirrina cackled. “I didn’t think so. Begin the brew, Kai. And you…sign here.”