Luce lifted her voice a bit higher, and a tiny wave no bigger than a sparrow edged up out of the sea. Luce caressed the delicate thing with a long, soft stroke of music until the wave was glass-thin and elegantly curved, a scimitar of water glinting in the sun. Samantha goggled in tense disbelief, and Anais tried to smirk. Dreamily Luce sent her voice in a sweeping trill, and the wave spun quickly around her once before it collapsed. One of the larvae splashed closer, twittering with joy, and pawed at the air where the wave had pranced a second before. The redheaded little thing warbled eagerly, trying to beg Luce to raise another wave.

“Anais? Oh, why did she have to come here? What does she want?” Samantha was practically squeaking. Luce laughed outright, but something about Samantha’s questions also sent a rush of sadness through her heart. Wasn’t all of this showing-off basically silly? What was the point of it?

It wasn’t like she even wanted to be queen. Not of a tribe like this one, anyway.

“I was wondering that, too, Samantha. After all, she knows we said we’d kill her if she ever showed up again.” Anais was trying to stare Luce down, but it wasn’t working. Samantha kept her eyes on Luce and jerked hard on Anais’s arm. “What, Samantha? Are you worried about her stupid little singing tricks? What’s she going to do?” Now Anais’s sneer looked more genuine. “Get you wet?”

Maybe she didn’t need a point, Luce thought. Maybe it was enough that they’d brutally attacked Catarina. Maybe it was enough that . . .

Suddenly Luce realized why she was playing around this way, trying to intimidate mermaids she didn’t even respect. It was all because she’d been foolish enough to believe a human’s kisses meant something. All at once Luce felt ashamed of herself, and she stared around at endless waves, the sunlight winking on all sides like a sarcastic audience.

“I’ll see you around,” Luce told them vaguely, and turned to leave.

A moment later a sharp squeal pierced the air at Luce’s back, followed by a kind of high-pitched chattering. Luce swung back around and saw that Anais had the redheaded larva gripped in both hands. Smiling straight at Luce, Anais flipped the thrashing little thing upside down and held it by its tail. She held it far enough under that, no matter how desperately the larva twisted its babyish torso, it couldn’t bring its head up into the air. The other larvae—there were three of them—clung to each other and stared, chirping out half-musical cries of alarm.

“I guess it’ll take too long to drown this thing, huh, Samantha?” Anais delivered the line with icy cheerfulness. “What does it take, like half an hour? I’ll get totally bored if I have to hold it that long.”