The rain died down until there was no sound beyond the sullen drip of water from the roots above, but still the story went on. He interrupted her a few times; he seemed especially interested in what Luce told him about the dark shimmer around each mermaid and how it revealed the private horrors that had turned each one of them from human girls. He asked her more than once about Catarina, who had always refused to let anyone look into the nightmare images of her own transformation. Something about the topic seemed to make him uncomfortable.

When she described how she had come to help Catarina with the sinking of the Coast Guard boat, Dorian made a rough, strangled noise, and snapped, “Are you saying you murdered people because of peer pressure?”

“Partly. But it was more like if they were going to die anyway, I didn’t want them to die with so much pain. Not when I could take it away just by singing . . .” It was hard to overcome the impulse to justify herself, but at the same time she didn’t want to sound like she was making excuses.

She told him about the coming of Anais, her own fights with Catarina, the terrible moments that had led up to Miriam’s death. Dorian became very still and so quiet that Luce was momentarily afraid he’d stopped breathing. Her own voice quieted, too, into a numbed chant. They both knew what was coming next, and Luce thought this might be the end for them. Dorian had said he was in love with her, but that didn’t mean he’d be able to forgive her once he knew the whole truth. Probably nobody in his position could forgive something so awful; probably she didn’t deserve that much generosity from anyone. Luce tried not to think about how he’d react, to keep the story coming as steadily as falling rain. It was his life, too, and he had a right to understand as much of it as possible.

She came to the first moment when she’d seen him, his bronze hair flicking in the golden dawn glow. She described it all: how he’d sung back to her and then she’d seen something sparkling in the air around him. Like a cloud of black mica or like tiny glittering insects . . .

“No,” Dorian said. His voice was cold.

“But you do. You have the indication, so I thought in a way you were one of us.”

“I’m not one of you. There wasn’t anything like—like with your uncle. There wasn’t anything that sick at all! My parents were really great people, Luce. Like, maybe you just want to believe they deserved it, but . . .”