“Because it is dangerous to get involved in such affairs, halfling,” the head naiad said with exasperation. “We do not know who killed the boy or why. There are those who have hunted our kind for sport over the ages.” She waved one alabaster arm, indicating the broad sweep of the river. “In this age, it would be altogether too easy to take vengeance on us. Mortal folk have all but poisoned the waters through carelessness. Imagine what one of the soulless ones could do out of spite.”

As much as I disliked her, I had to admit she had a point. “I’ll do my best to keep my sources off the record.”

The naiad gave me a tight smile. “That may work in the mundane world. In the eldritch community, everyone will know it was a water elemental who gave you this information.”

“Yeah, and most of them will be grateful for it,” I pointed out to her.

She tossed her hair. “It is the ones who will not that concern us.”

Lurine said something foreign and scathing. Her coils stirred, waving me absentmindedly in the air and making my stomach lurch. Remembering my presence, she steadied her coils and switched back to English. “Your concerns are small and selfish, little sister. You do not understand the stakes. If those who did this are not brought to justice, the eyes of the mundane world will turn to Pemkowet.” Her eyes flashed. “There will be talk of rooting out evil. There will be talk of destroying the underworld, of razing the city beneath the sands. If that came to pass, Hel would perish, and the rest of us would follow. As below, so above. Do you understand?”

This time the naiad really did look chastened. “Yes, kyria. I understand.”

“All of you?” Lurine persisted. “And if there is anything else you remember, anything else you learn, you will come forward with it?”

There was a silvery chorus of agreement from the bobbing figures of undines, naiads, and nixies.

“Are you done with them, cupcake?” Lurine lowered me so she could look me in the eye.

“Yeah, thanks.”

She dismissed the assembled water elementals with a foreign word that sounded like a thunderclap. Once again, they scattered like minnows—like scared minnows. I had to admit it was infinitely more satisfying this time.

Chapter Thirteen

Thirteen

Back at the river’s edge, Lurine deposited me gently on solid ground before shifting back to her human guise, the imposing millennia-old monster resuming the form of every heterosexual fourteen-year-old boy’s wet dream.

I’d always been fond of Lurine, but I had a whole new respect for her.

“Did you get what you needed, baby girl?” she asked me.

I nodded. “More than I’d hoped. Thanks, Lurine.”