He smiled encouragingly up at me.

I drew in a deep breath.

“Now remember,” Ha-Lah started, remaining close. “We are in The Deep. It will happen nearly instantly when you hit the water. A knitting. You won’t be able to control it. Don’t panic. It is natural. Just relax into it and let it happen. Jorie and I will be right there. Yes?”

“What if it doesn’t happen?” I asked.

“It’ll happen,” she assured.

“But what if it doesn’t,” I pressed. “What if, in the joining of a human and a Mer, the human wins out?”

“That has never happened, Silence, and you will not be the first. Trust me.” Ha-Lah took my hand then demanded, “Tell me you don’t feel it.”

I drew in another deep breath.

“Tell me it doesn’t call to you,” she continued.

I could not do that for just being in Sky Bay, all the way up at the Citadel, I was still close to the sea.

And it called to me.

“It calls to me,” I whispered.

And standing on the deck of that ship, the water but steps away, I realized it had been doing so all my life.

A yearning I’d grown used to denying, for I didn’t know what it was, thus had no idea how to assuage it.

She tipped her head to mine, resting her forehead to my own.

And there, she smiled happily.

“You’re about to go home, my sister,” she whispered.

Then she stepped back, undid the tie on her dressing grown, dropped it to the deck (and yes, she was wearing the same as me, a small shift, hers marine blue). She flipped off her slippers, and with taking but the time it took to aim a smile at Aramus, she dashed to the opening in the railing and executed a graceful dive into the sea.

I moved to the opening, stood there and watched the waters until she surfaced.

She did so beaming.

Home.

I looked up to Mars.

He nodded his head.

I so loved my husband.

I then took several paces back, divested myself of dressing gown and slippers, stood in the cold for a moment in my red shift, drew in one more very deep breath.

Then I raced to the opening and dove in.

I sluiced through the waters and the panic came instantly, for I felt the cold.

And it was so cold.

Relax, Ha-Lah had instructed.

A knitting, she had told me.

Even in reminding myself of these, automatically, I arced up, wishing the surface, when Ha-Lah’s words were proved true.

I felt a knitting.

All sense of cold vanished when it started at my waist, the feeling, so strange, like something was pressing through my skin, I could do nothing but float in the water and experience it.

But once it started, it went fast, speeding about my hips.

And then my thighs were forced together.