Page 84 of The Demons in the Deep: Extended Edition
Flay came up beside her and leaned on the railing with his good arm.
“She didn’t tell us,” Kestra said, low. “The belts can give humans mermaid tails. Isn’t that something she should have told us?”
“To be fair, Blossom, we’ve kept things from her, too. I’ll wager the Sparrow wanted to give us a taste of our own medicine.”
When she looked at him reproachfully, he grimaced and shrugged. “Let it play out, love. They’ll be back. Rake won’t let anything happen to her. He looks at her now like he used to look at you—maybe with less fear.”
She pushed his shoulder, and he grinned—the sunny grin she could never resist. Her anxiety softened at the edges.
A splash from below snapped her attention back to the surface. Rake was there, holding Mai.
“Is she hurt?” Kestra screamed down to him.
“Tired,” Rake called back.
Ropes were cast, and the pair were hauled aboard. Mai plucked the breathing device out of her mouth and inhaled deeply before ripping off the goggles as well. She and Rake both transformed into human shape, him by adding a belt and her by removing one. Flay and Kestra quickly wrapped blankets around both of them and hustled them into the captain’s cabin. Jazadri came along as well.
Kestra opened her mouth to berate her cousin for hiding the fact that the mermaid belts worked in reverse; but then she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror on the wall, a sheet of spotty glass half-covered by Flay’s sketches—and she looked so sour, so much like her mother, that she bit back the words of rebuke, and instead she listened.
Mai, bright-eyed and brimming with excitement, described the city, while Rake stood silently by. When her cousin finally paused, Kestra interjected quickly. “How did you feel, Rake? Seeing your people’s ancestral home?”
“Sad,” he said. “And proud. I wish I could have seen it when it was whole and functional.”
“So much technology has been lost,” Mai added. “But they were brilliant, these mermaids.”
“Is it dangerous?” Flay asked. “Can we send people down with you next time?”
Mai and Rake exchanged a long look, and Kestra noticed her cousin’s cheeks flushing.
“We suspect there is a lingering contaminant in the water that incites a mating frenzy,” said Mai primly. “It was probably released during the Great Upheaval, along with other chemicals and gases which altered the inner codex of the mermaids and triggered their skewed development into merlows, mermidons, and High Mermaids. That exposure could explain their compulsive breeding habits. I think the chemicals have changed or lessened since they were activated a century ago, but still—it’s best not to go diving until we’re sure of the long-term effects, or until I find a way to counteract it.”
“And what makes you suspect that this contaminant triggers a ‘mating frenzy’?” Kestra asked.
Mai stuck out her tongue at her cousin, and Kestra grinned.
Flay looked horrified. “Sparrow? And—Goldfish? You coupled, in that form, with the—with thetails?”
“Of course with the tails,” Rake said. “How do you think we bred in the Realm Below? There are all the necessary apertures and—protuberances—”
“Sucking whelks!” Flay exclaimed. “Never use the word ‘protuberance’ again, Goldfish, or I swear I’ll de-bone you.”
“As I said, until I can test the water somehow, we might want to confine our exploratory efforts to land,” Mai cut in.
Flay nodded. “It will be tricky getting closer to shore with all the ruins under the water, but we’ll see what we can do. And then we can take the dinghies to the beach, if there is one. Did you see any monsters below?”
“No,” replied Rake.
“But that doesn’t mean they aren’t present,” Jazadri’s deep voice rumbled. “We should be wary, Captain.”
“Aye, and we will,” Flay assured him. “But first, a good night’s rest for all. We’ve had a long trip to get here, and an anxious time before that.”
Flay was restless that night. He kept getting up to prowl the deck and watch the surrounding seas, and every time he climbed out of the creaky captain’s bunk, Kestra woke up too. Finally she gave up trying to sleep, wrapped a shawl around herself and paced the deck with him. They did not speak at first, because she knew him—knew the anxieties that drove those quick steps of his. She knew how the shadow of his father and brother lay over him, tethering him to Stragnoag.
They had discussed it before—the possibility of breaking free from his family entirely, of running away with the ship. But Flay always gave the same excuses, and Kestra always saw through them to the root of it all—fear. The ship belonged to his father, and so did Flay. He was terrified that if he claimed the ship and himself, he’d be pursued and enslaved—or ended—along with everyone he cared about.
This stop at the ruined cities made him nervous, because if anything occurred to cause a delay, he would be behind schedule again, suffer his father’s wrath again, be put in peril again.
Kestra dreaded the day when they would have to go back to Stragnoag. If she stayed with Flay, the port city would be part of their regular route. A quicker stop next time, hopefully, but still unpleasant. Part of her groaned for the bracing winds and blue peaks of Kiken Island, for the inn of The Three Cherries and the lovely garden behind it. She wanted to cook again, to have herbs and spices and fresh ingredients at her fingertips, to perform the dance, the science, the magic of mingling various edibles and creating something delicious.
