This new voice was human. Soft and confused. Luce was too sick to raise her head, but she could make out two fur-wrapped feet stopping just in front of her. Hands reached down and touched her shoulders, and she smelled the animal stink of seal skins. “Lucette!” The tone was getting panicky now. “It can’t be you . . .”

Luce knew she had to look up at him. She had to answer, even if the world seemed to stagger between glaring sun and devouring shadows, even if nothing would stay still.

She couldn’t do it.

∗ ∗ ∗

Luce woke to an icy, burning pain. A shivering fire sparked in all her scales, and she lashed her tail, sick with dread as she felt cold air licking her from all directions, as she writhed and strained to touch water again. The water wasn’t there, but as her eyes opened she could see its gleam, the rippling of sunset colors. Something was holding her up, keeping her from reaching it. Something warm and strong and determined, and she was already screaming . . .

“Lucette. Lucette, it’s okay.” Her father was staring at her, stunned and sad. “It’s okay. I . . . oh, God. I promise . . .”

He didn’t know better, Luce suddenly realized. He’d taken her out of the water, and he was carrying her up the beach in his arms. But her voice was out of her control, caught in the scream, even as wind drank the last drops from her scales. She was fighting, twisting, endless convulsions gripping her tail . . .

“Put me back!” Who had said that? Luce was sure she didn’t have the strength to say anything. “Please, please put me back . . .”

“In the water?” her father asked, surprised. There were a few more seconds of bewildering fire, then Luce felt the splash, the burning quenched by the liquid bliss of the sea. She was sobbing, and her tail swayed through the salty waves in pure relief. She rolled across the seafloor, gasping, trying to regain control of herself. From the corner of her eyes she saw him standing barefoot in the water, his shoulders hunched in sudden helpless uncertainty. “Are you . . . Lucette, if that’s really . . . Are you okay?”

Luce ducked under for a moment, calming herself in the cool, fluctuating waves. When she came up she felt a bit more in command of herself. “I’m okay now.” She looked up into his doubtful cinnamon eyes, his mouth pinched with worry. “I should have warned you.” But she couldn’t have warned him, not as long as he was refusing to listen to her. “I can’t leave the water anymore.”