“Maybe.” Ellison nodded. “But if you took a boat, you did it long before the Dear Melissa crashed. You were discovered on the beach exactly fifty-three minutes after the time of impact, but by my estimate it would have taken you at least four hours to paddle that distance alone. And that”—for the first time his mouth bent like Smitt’s—“that would suggest you had some advance knowledge.”

They were getting back to the whole criminal conspiracy idea, then. In a way it was a relief. “I didn’t know anything.”

“Then you didn’t take a boat.”

Dorian met Ellison’s brown eyes as Smitt burst out laughing behind them. The gaze Dorian shared with Ellison went on for too long but it was also somehow unstable, disorienting.

“We know how the brat got to shore!” Smitt yapped. “Stop pretending we don’t.”

“Agent Smitt . . .”

“He knows it, too. He just keeps spewing lies.”

“Withholding information isn’t the same thing as lying.” There was a lull. Ben Ellison started flipping through the stack of photos again, and Dorian clung to the edges of his chair. He was feeling terribly unbalanced, as if ocean waves were pushing up beneath the dull beige floor and tilting it subtly from side to side. Something cold and vast and seething was coming too close.

“Dorian . . .” Ellison seemed genuinely concerned. “At a certain point I was forced to entertain the idea that there were some things you weren’t telling us. But I couldn’t believe you would have willingly participated in anything that might hurt Emily. I had to try to come up with other explanations for why you might be choosing to keep quiet, even though you must realize what’s at stake here. We’re trying to make sure no other little girls have to die the way Emily did. You do understand that, don’t you?”

“Yes.” Dorian thought of Luce insisting that she didn’t want to kill humans. Even if she’d been telling the truth, though, it was pretty clear the other mermaids didn’t feel the same way. They’d just go on murdering as many people as they could until someone stopped them. The floor kept pitching dizzily, and he could feel the blood drain away from his face. Ellison was watching him closely again.

“I can think of two very good reasons why you might not have told us everything you know. The first one is that you were convinced nobody would accept the truth.” Dorian swayed. “Agent Smitt, would you please get Dorian a glass of water? He’s looking a bit peaked.”

Smitt was sneering so hard that Dorian thought his face must ache, but at least he left the room.

“Reality is far, far more complicated—and much richer and more amazing—than the vast majority of people could ever imagine. Would you agree with that? Dorian?”