“But . . . I don’t know how she’d react to that! I mean, she knows and everything, but if she actually saw you . . . She keeps talking about how much humans have messed up the world.” Nausicaa probably wouldn’t try to kill him unprovoked, Luce thought. But it didn’t seem likely that Dorian and Nausicaa would get along too well, and there was no telling what Nausicaa might do if some human made her angry.

“Let her say that stuff to my face, then.” Dorian’s smile had a cast of grim determination now. “I’ll tell her she’s right about humans sucking. Fine. And I’ll tell her that my being human doesn’t mean I shouldn’t love you!”

Maybe he was being reckless, Luce thought. But she couldn’t say no to him, not when his recklessness was so strong and beautiful. She found herself grinning back at him.

“Let’s go.”

∗ ∗ ∗

Half an hour later they were skimming out across the unstable sea, the water brushed pale green and milky blue by the glowing sky. White seabirds flocked in strange, continually shifting patterns against the delicate blue above, all of them rushing south. The rowboat knocked rhythmically against the low swells, and the water hummed around Luce’s scales and trembled on her bare skin. The haunting soprano moans of the gray whales echoed inside her skull. Now closer and now farther away, their spouts rose in frost-colored plumes, V-shaped, spanning the blue air. Dorian kept twisting in his seat, his face luminous with excitement. All at once Luce had an idea and started laughing.

“I want to try something. Okay? Wait right here.” Luce had almost forgotten that Dorian didn’t have any choice about waiting, until he cracked up laughing, too. She smiled at him and slipped just below the surface, watching the golden light weave through the green around her. She gathered her voice into two narrow, soaring notes, sweet and as focused as twin beams of light, then sent them vaulting into the air above her. Two jets of water leaped skyward in sympathy, and Luce heard Dorian’s shout of astonishment. They weren’t quite as tall or diffused as the spouts of the whales, and they arched as they fell; the result looked more like a fountain in a park, Luce thought. Still, it wasn’t bad for a first try.

She came up thirty feet from the rowboat and grinned at him. “God, Luce!” Dorian shouted; he was out of breath, leaning so far toward her that the boat tipped dangerously. “I know you told me you could do that, but actually seeing it, and the way you sounded . . .”

“I didn’t get it right, though,” Luce told him.

“What wasn’t right about that? It was fantastic!”