“Whoa,” he said by way of greeting.

“Jonas, Prince Artur of the Black Sea. Art, Jonas.”

“Prince what of the what? Oh my God! Your hair! Your eyes!” The prince courteously stood and Jonas wrung the man’s hand like Fred would wring a wet washcloth, craning his neck to stare up at the man. “Have you thought about modeling?”

“I do not know what that is.”

“Didn’t you get my message?” Fred bitched. “I told you our dinner thing was cancelled.”

“Oh, you always try to punk out on me. I didn’t think you had, you know, an actual real reason. Like a date!”

“It’s not a date,” Fred began, but Jonas was already sliding into the seat beside Fred, forcing her to move over or be squashed.

“Hi, I’m Jonas, like the lady said. So, what’s up with you, dude?”

“Bipeds are poisoning our waters.”

Jonas arched a blond brow and turned to Fred. “So you were saying the other day. What’s going on?”

Fred shrugged. “Nothing new.”

“Nothing new? Have you seen this guy?” he cried as if Artur wasn’t sitting three feet away. “Is he like you? He’s a mer-dude, isn’t he?”

“Yeah,” she sighed. “A mer-dude.”

The waiter stopped by the table, set a tray of sushi in front of Artur and a bowl of miso soup in front of Fred, took Jonas’s order, and glided away.

“So again with this biped thing?” Jonas demanded. “What are you talking about?”

Artur quietly ate his sushi (with his fingers, she noticed; probably didn’t get much practice with chopsticks at the bottom of the ocean) and said nothing. Fred assumed it was up to her to explain.

“Jonas, I know the bipeds are wrecking the planet. You—they—can’t help it. As far as they’re concerned, they don’t feel the sea; it’s just something else to claim and fish and gut and leave dead.”

“Uh,” Jonas said. He paused, then, again: “Uh.”

“Quite right,” Artur agreed with his mouth full.

“Come on,” he protested. “We’re not that bad.”

Both Fred and Artur stared at him stonily.

Jonas, the chemical engineer, couldn’t keep up the facade. “Okay, we’re pretty bad. We wreck the planet and we’re not potty trained. But I don’t think anybody’s dumping bad stuff in the water to—I mean, on pur—uh…” He trailed off, no doubt hearing the absurdity of his words.

Fred sucked down half her miso soup, waited to see if her tongue would blister, then said, “I still don’t know why you want my help. I’ll be frank—”

“Not Fred?” Artur teased, tossing a chunk of tuna sushi into his mouth.

“—and tell you I’m not real interested in solving your little mystery. I just wanna feed the fish and stay out of my mom’s living room for the rest of my life. Like I said to Dr, Pearson—tried to say—it’s not really my field.”

“The sea belongs to you as well.”

“Oh, sure. All the mer-guys would welcome me with open arms.”

“They would.” In went some halibut. “And if they did not, they would answer to me. Would you like some? It’s very fresh.”