“You didn’t start clawing at Catarina, but you didn’t do anything to help her either. You would have just let the tribe rip her apart right in front of you!” Luce was surprised by the savagery in her tone, the sudden racing of her heart. She hadn’t realized how angry she still felt until she’d seen Dana’s beautiful face again. Dana was shifting from hurt to aggrieved now, her lips tightening and a golden heat in her eyes. Dim bluish light wavered on her cheeks.

“Like we had a choice! Me and Violet! Like, you think if we’d gotten in their way they wouldn’t have beat the crap out of us, too, or just killed us? Luce, everyone was wasted. We’d all drunk like a ton of scotch that day. And Anais got them totally crazy. Jenna and everyone, they didn’t know what they were doing.”

“You’re trying to tell me your own sister would have helped Anais kill you?” Luce’s tone was cutting, but in her heart she had to admit that Dana had a point. The mermaids had been out of their minds when they’d thrown themselves on Catarina; they’d been in an alcohol-fueled frenzy, wild with hysterical cruelty. Of course, Luce’s uncle had been drunk when he’d tried to rape her, too, back when she was still human. And no mermaid would have thought that was an excuse for him.

Dana didn’t answer at first. She suddenly looked horribly sad, gazing down at the flash of her own scales under the water. “I think Jenna might have killed me then, actually. Yeah. I do.” Dana whispered the words. It took Luce a moment to understand her, and another moment to absorb the mournful helplessness of her tone.

“Dana, I . . .”

“Luce, that’s the problem!” Dana looked up, the golden light in her brown eyes broken by urgency and awful regret. “I mean with having Anais be queen. Having her get to people. Like, Jenna and some of the others, they’re just completely different now than they used to be, and I have to look at them every day, my twin sister and my best friends, and think how they’d probably strangle me in my sleep if Anais told them to!”

“Dana, I’m sorry! I mean, I’m sorry I blamed you . . .”