Luce slipped cautiously nearer to the shore, until she was just below the spot where she heard the voice. It seemed to echo out from the top of a sloping cliff where the rock cracked in a pattern of elongated diamonds. He was only twenty-five feet above her now, maybe less; Luce could just make out a hint of something golden shifting between the trees, a pale hand holding a dead trunk. She kept her body straight down in the water so that the shimmer of her tail wouldn’t give her away. Even if he looked right at her, her dark hair would blend into the dimness of the night-streaked waves, and the subtle glow of her skin was no brighter than the natural phosphorescence of the water here. The song lapsed into quiet, but Luce was so close now that she thought she could hear his breathing mingling with the steady whirr of the wind.

Now that she was so close, Luce realized the impossibility, even the horror, of trying to speak to him. She’d helped kill his family. Anything she could say would be outrageously cruel. It would even be wrong to ask for his forgiveness. She had no right.

“Fuck,” the boy said. His voice was weary but distinct, and he pulled his hand back and slapped the bare trunk, hard. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” He grabbed the trunk and shook it till it creaked. It sounded like he might be crying.

Luce’s body lifted and fell, tugged toward the rocks and then shoved back again. The waves shattered on the cliffs, flinging blots of foam against her face.

“I’m sorry,” Luce whispered. She knew that the moan of the sea would drown out her voice; she’d probably have to shout to make herself heard. “I’m sorry. I do understand how much I hurt you. I do. I’m an orphan, too.”

“You monster.” His voice was louder now. A long rasp of pain. He couldn’t know she was there, could he? She couldn’t see his face, only his forearm and hand emerging from the trees. “Why didn’t you just kill me, too? You sick, evil, inhuman thing. You know my little sister was only six years old? And you just go and wipe her out like she was nothing . . .”

Luce bit her lower lip, hard, to stifle the shriek that nearly tore from her. The words raked through her chest; she felt as if the boy had reached inside her, jerking the halves of her rib cage apart.