“Well, I guess you’d have to, yeah.” Dorian almost sounded like he thought this was funny. “He’d probably notice the tail. But Luce, I’m pretty sure he already knows. He said some things . . . I can’t explain exactly, but I think the FBI knows you guys are out here. He said something about—that him and me are both in a select society, that almost nobody alive has heard what we’ve heard—

“If they know,” Luce snarled, “then it’s probably because somebody told them.”

“I knew you’d think that.” Dorian sighed. “But it’s totally unfair. I didn’t tell them shit.”

“But then—”

“Jesus, Luce. It’s not like I’m the only person who ever got saved by a mermaid! Maybe there aren’t a lot of us, but . . . And the FBI might have other ways to find stuff out, anyway. I mean, all those ships your tribe sank. Did any of you ever think that they might have surveillance cameras or something?”

The camera, Luce thought. The words were like a slow-motion explosion that obliterated the world around her. Dorian was still talking, but she couldn’t make out what he was saying. That black, furtive boat and the black-suited diver planting the camera she’d smashed. How could she have been stupid enough to believe it was the only one?

“They’ll try to kill all of us,” Luce said breathlessly. Her own voice was part of the white burst still spreading through her mind.

And if the mermaids were threatened, how could she even consider changing into one of the creatures that wanted them dead? She’d have to do her best to defend her own kind. Not that Dorian would be too happy with her if she announced her intention of fighting on the mermaids’ side.

Some evil is coming to this place, Nausicaa had said.

War.

“That’s exactly why you should talk to Ben Ellison,” Dorian answered coolly, and Luce struggled to focus on him again. “Look, Luce. He needs to know that you’re not all the same. You’ll be a lot safer that way. And if we can figure out some way to turn mermaids back without killing them . . .”

Luce had never felt so angry with him. Did Dorian actually believe that she would abandon her fellow mermaids, even give the FBI information about them, simply in order to save herself? “No.”

“He said he wants to meet you, Luce. I think he might be pretty . . . open-minded about the whole thing. If you just gave him a chance.”

Luce was leaning back propped on her hands, trying to think through everything Dorian was telling her. Her fingers curled over the pebbles of the seafloor, and she felt a subtle disturbance in the water. Maybe there were seals playing nearby?