Then heat and softness consumed her completely. Again there was that disturbing concentration of smoky warmth in her core, an eager feeling that wouldn’t go away no matter how she squirmed. Her fins rippled over the stones, and her blood grew so warm that she felt almost human again. She began and ended in that kiss. What else could matter?

After they parted for the evening Luce realized she still hadn’t told him everything Nausicaa had said. She was sure he’d be interested, especially in the things Nausicaa had told her about the god Proteus and how he was the “father” of the mermaids. In a way it turned out Dorian had been right all along: the mermaids did have a kind of boss, even if a lot of them didn’t know it.

She needed to find out more, Luce realized. If there was a solution to her impasse with Dorian, Nausicaa would know what it was.

Her argument with Dorian had made everything unavoidably clear, after all. They couldn’t go on like this forever. Sooner or later one of them would have to change. It was either that or . . .

But Luce couldn’t bear to finish the thought. If they loved each other, why shouldn’t that be enough for both of them?

Luce waited impatiently through the rest of that evening for Nausicaa to return while a rising wind whistled savagely, sometimes blowing a long, hollow musical tone through a chink low in the cave’s wall. A storm must be coming, howling up from the direction of the Aleutians. After a while she stopped feeling annoyed and instead became worried that Nausicaa was in some kind of trouble. When she finally started drifting off to sleep Nausicaa still hadn’t appeared, and Luce began to wonder if she’d ever see her again. The idea depressed her, and the wind lashed through her dreams.

She woke to a noise like an explosion and jolted upright before she understood that lightning must have struck a nearby tree. “Such violence to this storm and to the currents,” Nausicaa said. She was leaning back against the cave’s wall, the glow of her face filtering through the maze of wild hair that obscured one eye, and Luce noticed that she’d brought back a haul of oysters in a rag of torn net. “The struggle of swimming through them is too much. So you can tell me your long story if you like.”