The journey back took two long, tiring days. Luce’s thoughts flurried on in a dreamlike whirl of images: sometimes Dorian was kissing her, sometimes Anais had a knife at her throat. She’d made up her mind that she was going to do something, anything, to get her old tribe out of danger, but she had no idea how she could actually help. Not when they were all so certain that she was their enemy. Anais would treat anything Luce said as a joke, and the rest of the tribe seemed to be utterly under Anais’s control, too intimidated to even question her. Had they really stood by and let her murder Fiona? Had they known?

But maybe she had some time to come up with a plan. As long as the tribe didn’t bring down any more ships, maybe the humans wouldn’t realize mermaids were still living near there or maybe the humans wouldn’t do anything to hurt them after all. Luce did her best to find the idea comforting, but when the coastline finally began to bend into familiar cliffs and zigzags she only grew more anxious. It was already late at night, much too late to look for Dorian, and the sky was moody and starless. Luce made her way to the inlet that sheltered her own small cave. She felt entirely depleted, ready to sleep for days. In just a few moments she would be resting with her head on Dorian’s old jacket, and she sighed gratefully as she turned toward the cave’s entrance. The entrance was usually completely submerged, but the tide tonight was exceptionally low: low enough that a sliver of jet emptiness showed above the lapping water.

Then Luce stopped short. Something froze her where she was, some thrum of agitation. It was like a silent noise she couldn’t put a name to, a stiffness in the way the night held itself, an indrawn breath. Luce hovered in the water, her tail barely stirring, and listened.

All she could hear was the savage drumming of her own heart, the light repetitive slosh of waves on rocky walls. But for some reason the quiet did nothing to ease her terror.

She was being irrational, Luce told herself as she backed slowly away from the dark hollow in the rock. Silly and cowardly. She should be ashamed to let her fears control her this way.

Luce skimmed out of the inlet, still insulting herself in her thoughts, but even so she stayed under the surface as she went. She needed to leave a message for Dorian: something simple, something that would make sense only to him. She’d spell out I’M HOME in pebbles on the edge of the dock where he kept the rowboat tied. Then, Luce thought, she’d go sleep in that shallow cave where she used to take him, the one with the fallen tree spanning the water.