Was he asking if she was something like a vampire? A ghost with a body? “I’m not dead. I have a heartbeat. It’s maybe slower than a human’s, but it’s there. And I still have to breathe, only not as much. And eat.”

“I do those things.” He smiled wryly. “Don’t stop me from feeling pretty dead.”

Luce glared at him. “You’re not!”

“Might as well be, Lucette. If I couldn’t even protect you from—” She opened her mouth to argue with him, but he held up a hand to stop her. “Listen, though. This business of you can’t grow up . . . That doesn’t make any sense.”

He was still in denial, then. How much longer would she have to keep hurting him? “It’s just how it is for us.”

He shook his head. “No. I mean, can you still learn new things? Change your mind about stuff?” He hesitated for a second. “Love new people?”

That stopped Luce in her tracks. She’d learned more in her year of being a mermaid than she ever had as a human being. And as for loving . . .“I can still learn and everything. Definitely.”

“So how can you say you’re not growing up, then?” Andrew Korchak asked.

Luce was amazed by the question. Maybe he had a point. She stared silently for several moments while he watched her. Then he grinned, brash and sparkling.

“Even if you’re not growing physically. I won’t be getting no taller now either, but God knows I’ve still got some growing up to do!”

Luce laughed and threw her arms around him. It finally felt like he was really back with her. Really alive.

∗ ∗ ∗

It was already dark by the time her father climbed inland to bring back a stick off the fire the spirits had kept lit for him. Without their help, he told Luce, he never would have survived for so long; if they were really gone he’d have to be a lot more careful. He built a new fire on the beach so he could stay near her and roasted the mussels Luce collected for him.