“Well, I can’t explain it,” Selena said unhelpfully, ignoring the unspoken message in my words. “It’s like trying to explain how to walk. I know how to, and I’ve done it all my life. There is thought involved, but not conscious thought, not deliberate thought. You don’t think about where to point your feet or how to move fast enough to catch yourself while slow enough to keep your balance. But it’s there, in the workings of your brain. Try.”
She cocked her hip and waited.
Sighing, I raised my tail, curving it toward my face at an angle that no legs could ever curve into. There was a firmness to it, a strength I’d never felt. I swallowed and willed my tail to change.
It didn’t.
Selena watched, expressionless.
I twisted my tail, moving it right and left. I imagined it changing, tried to feel my legs or feet, buried deep inside. I tried creating knees in the tail, making a corner to prop myself up on, but that didn’t work either.
The sky brightened. Carrying on fruitlessly, I waited for Selena to interject with helpful advice. But she only gazed back, releasing a slow exhale, as if trying to telepathically transfer an ability she couldn’t explain with words.
“Is it my breathing?” I asked, watching the slow rise of her chest. Selena made a face, considering this herself. Turning back to my tail, I closed my eyes. I gathered air in, relaxing my muscles, and felt it happen, a pulling in my flukes like someone tugging on each toe at once, a squeezing and stretching, a separation of one limb into two, and when I opened my eyes, long after I'd stopped feeling the change, my legs were back, the gold scales receded into familiar golden-brown skin.
I tried to swallow my disappointment.
30
Islept the entire carriage ride back.
Selena woke me with a gentle hand as we pulled up to the palace. Pike opened the door, all the kind intelligence returned in his gaze. I wondered if she’d sung to him to transfer her power over him, or if any Naiad could control a human once they were under the spell of a siren’s song.
Daylight shined heavy in my eyes, and Selena leaned close, smoothing my dress sleeve. “Let’s get you to bed.”
Still unfamiliar with the endless halls and bridges, I was grateful when she walked me all the way up the spiral staircase tower that ended at my rooms. Dusk had claimed the sky when I’d traipsed these stairs before. I hadn’t noticed that the glass windows on all sides made it feel as though we were ascending through a crystal prism.
She bid me goodnight in the middle of the day, leaving me on the top step with my door in sight. I fumbled the rest of the way on my own, fitting my key in my lock, and heard hinges creak behind me.
Kye stood over his threshold, his shoulder leaned into the jamb.
I considered slamming my door in his face, but something about his expression slowed my hand over the knob. His eyes fell from one corner of me to the next in wonder. My dress creased from sleep, my hair in a hurried knot on top of my head, loose strands escaping as I moved. I’d cast my boot and stockings off at the bottom of the stairs, choosing to carry them instead as I climbed barefoot.
“So,” he said, his voice dangerously quiet. “You can’t leave the islands.”
Mihaunaalive. I crossed my arms and leaned into my own door, wondering what the stupid traitor wanted now.
He flicked his wrist in an easy motion, and the shine of a blade flashed under the sunlight, the metal unfolding into the shape of a jackknife, though the motion seemed like a nervous twitch. Just as easy, he snapped it shut, golden eyes never leaving mine.
“Looks like you can leave just fine.”
Send it all to Perpetuum, I didn’t have the energy to listen to him. The man had a brain half the size of a lentil.
“Play your games tomorrow,” I snapped, wrenching the door open behind me. “I’m too tired for this right—”
Kye threw his boot into the crack of the door as I closed it on him. He shoved his way inside and stared me down, his body vibrating with an intensity I couldn’t pinpoint. The door flew shut behind him with a crack. I edged away, my eyes caught between him and his knife.
He laughed coldly, tossing the folded blade onto the closest cushion. “If I wanted to kill you, I wouldn’t need that.”
“Then whatdoyou want?” I spat, my resolve hardening as anger began pouring in, taking control over my weariness.
“To make something very clear.”
“And what’s that?”
Jaw hard, he crossed the room, cornering me into the wall. I lifted onto my toes to escape him, but he set his hands on either side of my shoulders and bent forward, piercing me still with his gaze. The scent of fresh rain on mint leaves lashed over me as I watched his mouth approach, my fingers splaying across his hard chest in a futile attempt to force him back.
His eyes dug into mine, his breath awash over my face.
