Ellison flinched with annoyance. The young man’s shrill tone grated on him, and he found the words distasteful as well. He wasn’t surprised that Secretary Moreland had taken to calling the mermaids “tails.” Moreland was a crude man, and it was the kind of ugly, demeaning language that Ellison expected from him. But there was no reason everyone else should copy him.

Instead of answering, he reached to pull a thick, glossy book off the stack in front of him. The Complete Novels of Jane Austen. It struck him as an incongruous choice for a fifteen-year-old boy. The pages were warped, and the cover’s image of a carriage passing among lush trees was dotted with mold. Ellison turned the volume in his hands, wondering what it meant. Something was sticking out between the pages, and he opened the book to see what it was. A leathery brown strip of dried seaweed fell onto his desk.

A bookmark, Ellison realized.

Had Dorian been teaching her how to read? Had he also taught her English? When Ellison had watched Dorian and the mermaid together he’d been a good distance away, wearing excellent noise-canceling headphones in case she started singing, but there were moments when her lips were certainly moving; it might have been some kind of English lesson. If she’d mastered human language already, well, she was an astoundingly quick learner. But Ellison preferred this idea to any of the unthinkable alternatives. Still, it was hard to see how a mermaid could enjoy Jane Austen or even have the foggiest idea of what her stories were talking about. A mermaid would have no way to comprehend descriptions of horses or houses, dresses or dining tables . . .

The young agent stared slack-jawed at the dried seaweed, then turned to Ellison. “That isn’t . . .” he began, and then gulped pitifully.

“I wouldn’t make too many assumptions about what the possibilities are here,” Ellison told him as coolly as he could. “At this point we all need to keep our minds open and simply consider the evidence.” He felt a little sick, though. His daughter liked Jane Austen. Once again he thought what a terrible shame it was that Dorian hadn’t followed through on Ellison’s request for an introduction to this mermaid. Ellison couldn’t imagine anything more fascinating than actually talking to her and hearing what she might say for herself or about her life in the sea. Her reasons for killing . . .

Blearily Ellison glanced at the other books and then began to laugh. Our Endangered Seas, Moby-Dick . . .

“We don’t need to consider possibilities that are crazy!” the young agent shrieked. “Some freak of a tail was not reading Jane Austen!”