Violet looked expectantly at Dana, ready now to argue with her if she refused to try. It wasn’t a stupid idea at all. For a few seconds Dana looked impatient, even angry, then Violet watched something shift in the older mermaid’s face. Dana’s eyes got wider, and her full mouth narrowed with concentration.

“Luce did say one time that she thought I could do it, too!” Dana exclaimed. She sat up higher, and her eyes flashed with golden intensity. “She said I could learn! I thought she was just embarrassed about being the only one, but maybe . . . but she’s not even here to teach us, Violet.” Dana’s excitement was already collapsing. “I don’t know, actually. It’s nice to think it would be possible, but Luce—she doesn’t want to admit it, but probably she just has powers the rest of us don’t.”

“But Dana . . .” Violet had never felt so strong before. She was even smiling secretly to herself. “Do you remember how Luce sounds? When she sings that way?”

“Pretty much, I guess. It’s kind of a weird sound. It’s really different from her other singing.”

“Try it.”

Dana flashed a skeptical look at Violet, but then she grinned. Some of Dana’s old warmth and hopefulness was coming back, Violet thought, feeling her tail starting to switch a little with enthusiasm. As awful as everything was, Violet suddenly felt a kind of exhilaration that went deeper than mere happiness.

“I guess we’ve got plenty of time on our hands,” Dana admitted. “Okay. Let me get a jolt of that air, and I’ll see if I can get close.” Violet passed Dana the hose and watched her breathe in again and again, a sparkling veil of bubbles racing across her brown eyes. Dana was stalling for time, Violet realized. She was scared of failing, scared of letting them both down.

Finally Dana dropped the hose and sat stiffly with her eyes closed tight. She looked so nervous that Violet glanced around, half imagining a vast and highly critical audience jostling in the corners. Then Dana let out a slow, sustained, velvety note, as soft as summer air.

It was wonderfully beautiful, Violet thought as she listened. So beautiful that her skin shivered and her heart seemed to blossom into flowers with the shapes of castles, with petals curving into high turrets. Dana’s singing was splendid and strange, but the sound she was making was also unmistakably wrong.

Dana opened her eyes, and Violet could see at once that she knew perfectly well how far she’d been from getting the song right. “Not even close,” Dana said sadly, shaking her head. “It’s got to be some kind of magic only Luce has, Violet.”