“Yes,” Dorian said again. At least he hadn’t lied to Luce. He’d told her straight out that he thought he had every right to expose the mermaids if he could just find someone who would believe him.

“Then let’s just assume that, in this room at least, there is nothing whatsoever too incredible to be believed. I’ll accept absolutely anything you tell me. Does that change your story?”

Dorian opened his mouth to tell Ben Ellison everything, and stopped. His breath hissed abruptly. They wouldn’t understand that Luce was different from the others, and he’d have no way to make sure she didn’t get hurt. He pictured her dead body, back arched and fins dragging, floating in a giant tank of formaldehyde. Luce, short for Lucette. Dorian felt a sudden surge of desire to bury his face in her hair.

Ellison waited patiently, his deep eyes studying Dorian as if this choked silence was remarkably interesting.

“I see,” Ellison said at last. “You want to tell the truth. There’s something stopping you.”

Dorian was having trouble breathing. The ocean followed him everywhere.

“That brings me to my second theory, then. The other reason why you’d refuse to talk. It might sound a bit far-fetched, but personally I’m convinced that it’s the right explanation.” Ellison started nodding to himself. “Dorian, I think you’ve been subjected to a form of mind control. You’re not telling me what you know because the ability to do so has been stolen from you.”

Subjected to mind control, Dorian thought. Wasn’t that just a fancy way of saying he was enchanted? When he considered the way Luce’s song stayed with him, traced like razor cuts all over his thoughts, he had to admit that made a lot of sense. He had been so arrogant, thinking he was somehow totally immune to a power that was strong enough to kill practically anyone.

Luce seemed too sweet and straightforward to control someone’s feelings with magic that way. But that could be an act, or just another way her spell was working through him, warping and reshaping his perceptions. Dorian still didn’t want to accept the idea, but if Luce had deliberately enchanted him— if she had—then that would definitely explain why he couldn’t make himself hate her. It would explain why he thought about her constantly and why he was starting to have feelings for her that weren’t hatred at all.

“Dorian?”

Dorian looked up. Even the walls seemed to ebb and swell.

“What if somebody saved me?” His voice sounded terrible, the words torn off like shreds of old paper.

Ellison nodded his enthusiasm. “That seems very plausible.”