“Which one is Neptune?” I asked, allowing myself a moment to admire all the eye candy. Most of the surfers were shirtless, wearing standard knee-length cargo shorts, or brightly colored wet suits, all of them showing off physiques honed by years of swimming and surfing. There were surprisingly few women included, although the ones who were there were as buff as the men.

“I think that’s him, down there,” Cyrene answered after scanning the people. She pointed to the far end of the beach, where two men were emerging from the foaming surf, water glistening on their wet suits, their boards slung to their sides. A third man stood with his board balanced on his head, clearly about to go into the water.

“Which one?” I asked as we set off toward them.

“The one who looks like Neptune, of course,” she said with an exasperated roll of her eyes.

The two men stopped in front of the third, shaking water from their hair as they set their boards down.

“Brah!” the dry man said to one of the two guys. “That was sick air! Epic, totally epic! It’s just too bad that frickin’ Grom snaked you and knocked your stick. You’d have that tail slide otherwise.”

“Snakes suck,” the taller and blonder of the two surfers agreed. “It was a perfect barrel, too. The big mama is fully macking some sick grinders. For a couple of groats I’d shove a tin of surf wax up that snake’s . . . whoa, femmes.”

“Er . . . hello,” I said as the taller man noticed us. The other two men turned to look at us. “I’m sorry, this is completely random, but snakes? In the ocean?”

All three men looked at me as if I was the crazy one.

“You didn’t actually mean snake snakes, did you?” I asked the largest of the men. He had an air of relaxed command that I took to mean he was the head of all the water elementals.

“Dude, a snake is someone who drops in out of turn.”

“Not epic,” the dry man said, shaking his head. “Totally.”

“No, of course not,” I agreed, not having the slightest clue what they were talking about, but deciding to leave the surfer lingo alone. I turned back to the large man. “Are you by any chance Neptune?”

“Name’s Ned when I’m on the circuit, but you two femmes aren’t heavies, are you?” the man said, flashing me a very white-toothed smile before his gaze slid over to Cyrene. His eyebrows rose a smidgen. “Dude! You must be the naiad with the dirty doppel! Tasty! But weren’t you like totally owned last week?”

“I don’t suppose any of you speaks actual English?” I asked.

Cyrene gripped my arm and made a half bow, half curtsy, hissing at me as she did, “May! You don’t speak to Lord Neptune like that!”

“Groms,” the dry man said with a little shake of his head as he headed out into the surf.