Thierry hadn’t said one way or the other, but the mermaids in Wink must be freshies to live so far inland. That might explain why Harlow’s attempts to soothe the kraken backfired. If it shared its masters’ hatred for salties, then it wouldn’t hesitate to attack an enemy invading a potential nesting ground. Going in a human and a saltie? Harlow never stood a chance. She should have bowed out once she realized how long her odds were, but she hadn’t. Youth tended to give us all the illusion of invincibility.

“What are the odds of us recovering—” I almost slipped and said a body, “—Roni?”

“Warrens are difficult to navigate even when you’re familiar with them. Scent markers are the only way to be sure of where you’re going, so keep your fingers crossed that it’s been a while since a pod used the lake.” She opened a jar and removed a glob of flesh-colored goo. “The fewer smells competing for my attention, the easier it will be to lock on to where the kelpie is hiding.”

I wrinkled my nose when she liberally applied the gel to the sides of her throat. “What are you doing?”

When Harlow removed her hand, pink-rimmed gills flexed from her collarbone to under her ears. “A girl’s gotta breathe, right? It takes a few minutes for them to become fully functional.” Next she removed a dagger with a shell-encrusted handle and tucked it into a pouch sewn into her top. Gingerly she eased out what appeared to be a pair of black yoga shorts from her pack. Instead of standing upright to change, she laid back on the planks, wiggling her hips to pull the stretchy fabric on over the pair she already wore. “If you like that…” she huffed, “…you’ll love my next trick.”

I waited. Nothing happened. “Should l clap?”

“Give me a second.” She scooched over to the edge, dipped her hand in the lake and poured water onto her lap. Golden scales with a rosy hue glimmered where each drop fell. “The real magic happens in the water.” She rolled hard to her left. “Be right back.”

Splash.

Her tail breached seconds later, and her head popped up five minutes after that. Streaming water, she was radiant.

I gaped after her. I owed her applause after all.

“How is this possible?” Magic was capable of many things, but giving a girl reusable fins and gills? “Can all initiates do this?”

What I meant was—did the same change that allowed the merfolk to walk on land for a year also cause a false positive? Maybe Harlow wasn’t human. Maybe if I touched her now, while she wore her tail, I would read her differently. As long as I had puzzled over her mystery, I couldn’t stem my curiosity. Being stumped by a classification for the first time had been driving me nuts.