Whatever they were, they gleamed wickedly sharp in the phosphorescent light, and I had no interest in meeting the receiving end of them.

“Beau,” I murmured, smiling pleasantly at their hostile faces as they swam closer. Closer still. “Apologize, you blithering idiot.”

He backed into me, nearly breaking my foot. I stomped on his toes in return. He swore roundly, snarling, “They couldn’t have heard me.”

Coco spoke through her own fixed smile, imitating Célie, who curtsied low, and elbowed Beau when he didn’t do the same. “Good idea. Let’s risk it.”

“It was an honest question—”

The melusines didn’t pause at the walls of water, instead gliding seamlessly through them and stepping—actually stepping—onto the footpath, their split tails transforming to legs before our very eyes. The scales on their fins disappeared, and glistening skin wrapped around feet, ankles, calves, thighs, and—

A beat of silence passed as Beau’s alarm promptly vanished, replaced by a wide, shit-eating grin.

They were naked.

And, contrary to Angelica’s assertion, they looked very human. Célie gasped.

“Bonjour, mademoiselle,” Beau said to the one in front, bending to kiss her long-fingered hand. He hesitated for only a second when he saw she had one extra knuckle per finger. Each clenched around her spear as she pointed it at his face, hissing and revealing a pair of thin fangs.

“You dare to touch me without permission?”

The male nearest her lifted his trident to emphasize her words. Unlike the female, he wore a thick golden rope around his neck, its emerald pendant the size of a goose egg. Matching twin emeralds glittered at his tapered ears. “He likened us to amphibians as well.” When he tilted his head, the movement was predatory. His silver eyes glittered with menace. “Do we appear as amphibians?”

Angelica swept into a deep, immaculate curtsy. “He meant no offense, Aurélien.”

Beau lifted placating hands, nodding along hastily. “I meant no offense.”

The female slanted her black eyes at him. Against her narrow silver face and her long—long—silver hair, they appeared . . . disconcerting. And far too large. Indeed, everything about her and her kin’s features seemed disproportionate somehow. Not wrong, exactly. Just . . . strange. Striking. Like a beautiful portrait meant to be studied, not admired. She didn’t lower her weapon. “Yet still I hear no apology. Does the human prince think us ugly? Does he think us strange?”

Yes.

The answer rose to my lips, unbidden, but I bit my tongue at the last second, frowning and averting my gaze. The movement attracted the melusine’s attention, however, and those black eyes turned to me, flicking over the planes of my face. Studying me. She grinned with dark cunning, and my stomach dropped with realization.

The women who dwell here are truth tellers.

Drink of the waters, and spill their truth.

Oh god.