When Pip wailed for mother and her stories, the mewling grated horribly on Father’s nerves. One night, one dark and stormy night, it proved too much. Pip had worked himself into a lather, and although scolded by Father to stop, he could not. The mewling echoed through the room and Father went at him, striking him with blow after blow until blood shot from Pip’s ears. I believe he would have killed our brother if Bryndis and I hadn’t pulled him away. Pip was never the same after that. Some portion of his brain was knocked loose and rolled under the bed, never to be seen again.

I remember this now, as the waves close over Pip’s terrified face, and he disappears into the depths. If the water blooms red with his blood, I do not see it. It ripples black, then silver.

There is a hand on my shoulder. I don’t need to lift my head to know it’s her.

“Come, Kaspar,” she says. “It’s time.”

Agnet holds out her slender hand. I take it and she pulls me up.

“Time for what?”

“You are the last man.” Agnet leads me by the hand to the pier. There is something wrong with her neck. “That makes you king now.”

I try to laugh but cannot. I can taste saltwater in my mouth.

“King of what? A village of rotting octopus?”

Framed in the silvery light are three strange slits running along Agnet’s neck. They throb and pulsate, and I realize these are gills. Agnet is not singular in this. My sister sports them too, along with Sabine. All of them have gills.

I do not want this, whatever it is. I try to pull away, but Agnet’s grip is too strong. The bones of my leprous hand break under her iron grasp.

“You are lord of the realm now, Kaspar. Hero and king to a village of women. Doesn’t that make you happy?”

They march me down to the end where the stone pier drops away into the sea. I see their hands, pushing and dragging me along, are strangely webbed between the fingers.

“Don’t do this, Agnet. Please.”

I am reduced to begging, to bargaining for my life, but I have nothing to barter with.

“Don’t beg, Kaspar. It’s unkingly.”

There is a coronet in Agnet’s hand. The same crown of wriggling starfish that Pip made for me. She places it on my head, and I feel the creatures squirm over my scalp.

“God save the King,” she says sweetly.

The water ripples. The mermaid is nigh. Is this what Hagar meant when she spoke of the luremaid marking me for a reason? My reward, my doom.

“She’s the queen? Is that it?”

Agnet smiles. One last glimpse at the gap in her teeth. “Oh, she’s much more than that.”