“I don’t believe it,” Quince says with absolute certainty. “I don’t believe anything magical can make someone more in love.”
He jams his hands into his jeans pockets and leans back against a locker, lifting one heavy biker boot to pound on the gray metal door. He looks me right in the eye as he says, “Love is already the strongest magic in the world.”
The laughter drains right out of me. It’s obvious that he truly believes this. He believes in the omnipotent nature of love. I never knew he was such a romantic.
But he doesn’t know my world. There are magical forces he can never understand, and love is not at the top of the list.
“Quince and Lily,” Mr. Lopez says, walking up to us. “You two need to get to class.”
“Yes, sir,” Quince replies, but doesn’t move from the lockers.
Thankful for the reprieve, I turn and hurry to my earth science class. I’m so lost in thought about Quince that I barely register when my teacher says, “You’re late, Lily. You’ll need two sheets of notebook paper for our pop quiz.”
My mind is still out in the hall with that unexpected romantic version of Quince. Where has he been hiding the last three years?
16
Peri is waiting for me beneath the buoy one nautical mile out from the pier. I can tell from the look on her face that she’s eager to hear all the exciting details of my first week as a bonded mermaid. She’s not going to like them.
“Hey,” she says, swimming over to me. “How are you—”
“I think I’m losing my mind.”
“Why?” Her elegant brown brows draw together. “What happened?”
“Quince is being nice to me.”
Her laugh bubbles out before she can slap her hand over her mouth. “What does that have to do with it?”
“He’s never nice to me,” I complain. “Rude, yes. Obnoxious, always. But never nice.”
“That can’t be true,” she says as we swim down to the seafloor. “The boy is obviously nuts about you.”
“You’ve got that half right,” I mutter as I drag my hand through the sand, idly watching a flathead dart from his uncovered hiding place. “He’s definitely nuts.”
Peri twists into a sitting position and pulls her long brown waves over her shoulder. With swift, elegant fingers she deftly weaves her hair into a braid. “I think you’ve got blinders on, girl,” she says, very matter-of-fact. “He was perfectly pleasant last weekend.”
“It must be the bond.” I reach back for my blond frizz—thankfully turned silken in the sea—and start a braid. “It’s messing with our feelings. I’m like a frogging tidal wave of alternating emotions. And he’s no better. He practically bit off my head for walking with Brody yesterday.”
“You were walking with Brody?”
“Yes!” Why am I talking about Quince when I have Brody news? “Coach Pittman made us it in freeze tag, and we caught everyone in class, and then afterward—”
In my excitement, my hands get tangled in my hair. Peri swims to me, moves my hands out of the way, and takes over the braiding.
“—and then afterward he put his arm around me and said we make a great team.”
I twist around to look at her, tugging my hair out of her hands. Ignoring her annoyed scowl, I say, “Isn’t that great? That has to be a good sign. Right?”
“I suppose,” she says, grabbing my shoulders and turning me around so she can finish my hair. “But terraped boys aren’t as easy to understand as mer boys.”
“Tell me about it.” I think back to the afternoon of the swim meet. “I mean, one second Quince and I are arguing, and the next he’s kissing me because Brody’s ex is walking by. Then, at the swim meet, he’s all hugging me and whispering in my ear like we’re true mermates or something.”
Peri gets really quiet behind me. She takes my now-perfect braid and hangs it carefully over my shoulder. I turn around to find out why she’s gone silent, but then I see. A massive Portuguese man-of-war is floating by just a few feet away.
We may live at peace with most of the ocean world, but there are definite exceptions—namely, sharks, poisonous jellyfish, and killer whales (they aren’t all Shamu). We’re no more immune to jellyfish stings than humans—maybe even less so because of our delicate skin.
Without saying a word, I wrap my hand around Peri’s wrist and swim as stealthily as possible in the opposite direction. Man-of-wars aren’t intelligent predators, but disturbing the water around them could send their tentacles into deadly motion.
I know why Peri is petrified. When she was six, her younger brother was killed in a man-of-war attack that left her badly scarred but clinging to life. It took the palace medical staff weeks to nurse her back to health. They never could erase her scars or her nightmares.
When we get out of range, I place my hands on either side of her face.
“We’re okay,” I say reassuringly. “We’re safe now.”
Her eyes are wide and unseeing.
“Peri.” I move my face in front of hers. “Peri, come back to me.”
Slowly, gradually, I see her return to the present. I’ve been with her during sightings before. I don’t know where she goes in that faraway look, but I always bring her back.
“I—I’m—”
“It’s okay,” I say, hugging her close, forcing myself not to cringe at the feel of the scars lacing across her shoulders. I see them in my mind as clearly as I’ve seen them with my eyes a thousand times. Dozens of thin, pearly white, almost iridescent lines crisscrossing over the copper mer mark just beneath her neck. I’ve always been proud of her for not hiding them. I don’t know if I could ever be that unself-conscious.