They were moving down the corridor, and Luce was vaguely relieved to find that she could hear his footsteps as well as her own. The glow ahead got gradually brighter, more silvery, and then they turned a corner and entered a large window-less room. Blocks of ice much taller than she was were lined up around its gleaming walls, and each clear mass seemed to have a flaw at its core: a milky impurity. Those flaws were the source of the light, each of them dully luminous. Luce stepped closer, her heart pounding savagely, and saw that there was a mermaid frozen inside each block. And, Luce realized, she knew all of them: there were Rachel and Jenna, Regan and Kayley, Samantha and the red-haired larva Anais had tortured, along with other girls from the tribe. Luce spread her hands on the cold glassy blocks, leaning close to see. The mermaids’ eyes were closed, their mouths open around knots of ice they could never swallow, but Luce felt sure they were still alive. She had to find the block with Anais, Luce thought. It was important to make sure that Anais was in here somewhere; if she wasn’t she might cause terrible trouble.

“I can’t get them out, Lucette,” her father said. Luce forgot her search for Anais and turned to stare at him. He was visible now, oddly hunched and much older than he should have been. His curly hair looked dusty and brittle. “I’ve tried everything I can think of, but I just can’t break through that ice . . .”

Luce looked at her pale blue sneakers on the gray marble floor. She understood what her father was trying to tell her, and shame overwhelmed her until she could barely stand. Her old tribe was trapped in frozen suspense as payment for the legs she was walking on, and there was only one way to free the mermaids. Her legs would have to be cut off, Luce realized, and her father was holding the saw . . .

Luce screamed in terror. Something was holding her fast, and the blade was coming closer. Her body twisted and whatever was gripping her middle bent like rubber and then ripped, and she screamed again as her eyes opened wide.

∗ ∗ ∗

More darkness was around her, but now it was darkness she could see through. It took her a few moments to understand that she was back in her own small cave, and she lifted her hands to confirm their faint inhuman shine: she was still a mermaid. The wind moaned, and the clamor of her heart beat through it. Had that really been only a nightmare? There was still something catching at her middle and keeping her from moving freely. Luce looked.