After everyone else had retired to their cabins for the night, Elsa remained on the foredeck of the Oannes, content to sit beneath the star-lit night sky and be alone with her thoughts. She had been doing a lot of soul-searching for the last hour, and she had decided to accompany Dr. Murdoch on his dive beneath Demon Island. This had been an easier conclusion than she had anticipated. After Ron’s death, she had vowed she was done with cave diving. Nevertheless, what she didn’t know up until today—or at least didn’t acknowledge—was that she had been living a lie these last few years, merely biding her time, waiting for an excuse, any excuse, to get back in the water. Dr. Murdoch had given her that excuse. The golden safety rule of scuba diving was to never dive alone—a rule that was even more important when diving beneath an overhead environment. If she allowed Marty to dive the lava tubes on his own, and he suffered a fatal accident, she would be as culpable as if she had dived with him…yet because the chances of something disastrous happening were significantly reduced when diving with a buddy, she had a moral obligation to accompany him.

It was sound—and agreeable—logic. And now that she had decided on her course of action (and her guilt at being unable to save Ron temporarily and conveniently assuaged), she could barely contain her excitement at the prospect of the dive. Much of this was for the simple thrill of once again exploring where few (if anybody) had been before. Yet she had to admit she was also cautiously enthralled about the possibility, however remote, of encountering merfolk. She would never have entertained such a thought twenty-four hours ago, but the evidence was proving to be quite persuasive—as was Dr. Murdoch himself. Reading about his merfolk theories in dry academic journals had always been interesting and amusing but little more than that. Listening to him argue them firsthand was something else altogether. His unwavering conviction that he was right and everyone else was wrong was admirable and attractive and infectious…so much so for the first time in Elsa’s career as an oceanographer she found herself accepting, or at least considering, scientific claims on faith before completing the rigorous process of verifiability and falsifiability.

And it feels damn good to finally let down your hair, doesn’t it? she thought. When was the last time you felt so free, so alive—?

“Hello there, Dr. Montero. I thought everyone had gone to bed.”

Elsa looked away from the black expanse of sky to find Marty emerging from the salon. “Hello, Marty. I’ve just been enjoying some me-time.”

“May I join you?”

“I would like that.”

He settled into the seat next to her with a sigh.

“What’s kept you up?” she asked.