It had also been against the timahk for her to save his life, of course, no matter how she tried to rationalize what she’d done. Luce knew there were good reasons for the law she’d broken—the one which demanded that any human who heard the mermaids singing had to die—but she couldn’t think about those reasons now without feeling a surge of rebellious stubbornness. Her resentment of the timahk’s insistence on murder had been in the back of her mind when she’d spoken those reckless words to Dana: I don’t know if I even believe in the timahk anymore. In retrospect, Luce knew it was a terrible idea to say that out loud. She’d been living in dreamy isolation for so long that she’d forgotten the importance of keeping her most dangerous thoughts to herself.

There was a nudge at her hand. Luce looked down, glad to be distracted. It was one of the two larval mermaids who lived beside this beach: little girls, maybe eighteen months old, who’d changed into mermaids before they’d even learned how to talk right. Now they were stuck being that age for as long as they lived—and for most larvae that wasn’t very long. Larvae were slow, awkward swimmers, easy prey for orcas; Luce was glad that these two were too babyish to understand that. They squealed and tumbled together in the water, nuzzling Luce so that she wouldn’t forget to crack extra oysters for them. Sometimes she’d sing them to sleep, even tell them half-remembered fairy tales. Not that they understood anything, but they loved the attention.

“Here you go. Wait. Want a few more?” The larvae crooned wordlessly, snuffling at her and gobbling up the shellfish. One of them was pale, but the other was probably Inuit, and gazed at Luce with eyes like black pools. Sometimes Luce thought of giving them names but then thought better of it. That would only make her feel worse when they died.

Late twilight brushed the cresting waves with strokes of indigo, moody purple, slate gray. A few scattered islands cut black patches from the blue-glowing distance. The spruce-fringed slopes of the coast began to call to Luce, and she felt the tidal pull of desire to give herself to the sea. To spiral out through the night blue water, caress each wave with soft curls of her own song, and then maybe—just for a little while—float farther north, out past the fishing village where she’d thrown the bronze-haired boy onto a pebble beach. Not that she expected anything to come of this expedition besides some painful memories . . .