“I love her.” Dorian said it so fervently that Luce’s heart skipped. His love had never felt so definite to her before, so real. She wanted to pull herself into the boat and drown in the warmth of his skin. Meanwhile Nausicaa was skimming closer to them, her bronze-dark face rising and falling with the water in a smooth, hypnotic dance, her black hair cresting over her head in heavy whorls.

“You love her, and yet you promise her a thing you cannot give.” Nausicaa’s voice turned low, meditative; the air seemed to vibrate in time with it. “Why?”

Luce didn’t know what Nausicaa was talking about, but still she started to feel alarmed. What if Nausicaa started telling Dorian about all the other mermaids she’d seen fall in love with humans? From the fierce way Dorian and Nausicaa were staring at each other, it was clear that there was nothing she could do to put a stop to the conversation. They were both determined to have it out.

“I haven’t promised her anything, actually,” Dorian announced; his cool tone sounded a little strained. “But when I do make her a promise I’ll definitely keep it.”

“You give her your promise now. With every breath you promise her that she has found a home for her heart. You promise her that she is no longer one of the lost. And that promise is an unending lie, human.”

Dorian sat back in the boat, and Luce felt the startled pain in his face reflecting in her own. For the first time she almost hated Nausicaa for being so sure she was right—and for being so merciless. “She isn’t lost. I found her.” Dorian’s forced bravado was obvious now. “Or she found me. Has Luce told you how we met? Because it wasn’t online . . .”

Nausicaa didn’t deign to respond to this, just scowled away into the distance. Several gray whales crowded around them now, silently staring, jostling one another so that the patch of open sea around the boat grew constantly smaller.

“I care for Luce enough to offer her the truth,” Nausicaa pronounced at last. She hadn’t so much as glanced at Luce through the whole conversation with Dorian, but now she swung her head and shot her a quick, cutting stare. “She can do with it what she likes.”

Nausicaa dove, but not quickly. Instead her movements seemed deliberately lethargic, her tail swinging in midair long enough that Luce knew it must burn. “Like I haven’t seen any damn mermaids before . . .” Dorian hissed. Then Nausicaa was gone, with a last hard slap of emerald fins. The gray whales squeezed in so close now that Luce began to feel a little panicked, staring around at the stony banks of their hides. She could easily dive and escape, after all, but Dorian?