“Why didn’t you do anything to help us?” Dana demanded fiercely. “Why didn’t you even try? Okay, we’re alive, but it was way too close.”

“I didn’t know you were in trouble,” Luce objected. It sounded horribly lame. “I just thought you didn’t want to talk to me anymore because of Jenna . . .” Was Dorian visible from this angle? It took all of Luce’s willpower to keep from glancing over her shoulder to check. Dana stopped glowering at Luce, and her eyes fixed on something back in the direction of the cave.

“What’s that rowboat doing here?” Dana’s voice was suddenly much quieter, stunned and airy.

Luce’s heart stopped, and she struggled to hold her voice steady. “Probably it just drifted here.”

“It didn’t drift! I can see the rope, it’s tied up to that fallen tree!” Violet was whispering, too. She’d spun in place to stare back the way they’d come, and her sleek brown hair gleamed in the darkness. “There’s got to be a human here, Luce! And they’ve been listening to us, and maybe they’ve even seen us . . .”

Dana’s face took on a weary, incredulous look, as if she just couldn’t believe that there was one more problem she had to wrestle with. “Luce has this thing about not killing humans,” Dana explained to Violet, loudly enough that Dorian could almost certainly hear her. “I’ll take care of this. Luce, sorry, I know you don’t like it, but you’re just going to have to deal.” Dana and Violet were swimming back toward the cave now and Luce followed along beside them. She wasn’t about to let Dana hurt Dorian, and she knew she had to at least try to explain, but she had no idea where to start. Dana would be so hurt . . .

Dorian stepped out from behind the roots and walked calmly to the edge of the water, stopping five yards away from them. He looked strangely beautiful standing there, almost princely, with the golden tint of his wide, high-boned cheeks and his tangled brown-gold hair framed by the shadows behind him. “Hey,” he said. “That’s not going to work.”

Dana’s eyes went wide. She was shocked into answering him. ““What’s not going to work?”

“Killing me. I’m not as easy to kill as most people,” Dorian announced. He sat down with his legs folded insolently close to the water’s edge; close enough that Violet and Dana could simply grab him and drag him under, Luce realized. She was dismayed at the thought that she might have to fight the mermaids she cared about most.