“No,” said Kai. He turned his arm in Ceri’s grasp so she wouldn’t twist it clean off in her eager exam. “That’s the opposite of how this works. Daithí believes that wearing the pendant delayed the evolution for a number of their people.”
Of course, wearing the pendant had also driven the Sealgair mad and vengeful. It offered a rather clean segue into the discussion he needed to broach with Ceri and with the merrow wading into the waters behind her. But somehow, Kai could not bring himself to raise the topic—not yet. Not with Ceri’s eyes lit up as they were, a vibrant sort of wonder that he hadn’t seen from her since she was a child. A touch of longing too, one he recognised so keenly that it sent a pang of sorrow beneath his pendant. He watched Ceri trace the line of the water around his wrist, and grinned at her gasp when he sent the glittering rope spilling over her own wrist. Ceri stepped back to raise her hand and admired the shimmer of the water as it snaked over her skin.
“Wow,” she breathed—then sent him a sideways smirk. “A little pathetic, though, Koo, I must say. You reallyareout of practise if all you can do is make pretty little bracelets.”
With a scoff, Kai spun his thoughts out to the lap of the waves behind Ceri’s back and pulled a sheet of water over her head like a blanket. His sister’s squeal was drowned for a moment as she bobbed beneath the surface of the water, then emerged from the foamy crash with her hair plastered over her face and her eyes gleaming.
“Youprick.Give me a go.”
He twisted away from her reaching hand, still chuckling.
“So you can retaliate? I think not.”
“Kai!”
Kai rolled his eyes but relented, as he was always going to. He’d known from the moment Ceri grabbed his arm, that ache audible in her very breath, that he could not deny his sister a chance to call on the waters so long absent from their hearts and veins. As Kai lifted the Adhlian pendant over his head, an odd sensation settled in his chest; at once hollow and warm as though the magic had both chilled his blood and given it vital substance. He tried to ignore it as he handed the pendant to his sister and watched her draw it over her own head—and in the next moment, he was distracted from his disquiet when Ceriwyn, rather predictably, called on the Mother to dunk him beneath the waves.
Kai let Ceri experiment with the pendant for long enough that other Merrow began to gather tentatively around them. They swam over in twos and threes to watch Ceri spin great arcs and spirals of water in the air like a shimmering display of fireworks against the sunlit sky. She ended her impromptu performance atop a pedestal of foam, bowing before she dove gracefully into the waves to raucous applause.
Kai did not stop her as she handed the pendant to a teary-eyed merrow woman; he had taken this from them, after all. Who was he to deny any one of them a moment in the Mother’s lost embrace?
“Stop,” Ceri said firmly, gliding over to join him where he stood a little ways apart from the others.
Kai blinked at her. “I’m not doing anything.”
“You’re brooding.”
He scowled. “I am not brooding, andMother help me, I’d appreciate it if my entire Court would stop accusing me of such.”
She ignored him. “We are where we are, Koo. There’s nothing you can do about the past, and you’ve done all you can for our future. You found us a home.”
A new kind of ache compressed Kai’s ribs, and he could not withhold the sigh that came with it.
“Kai?”
He couldn’t find his voice at first; just stared, for a long moment, at the distant splash and shimmer of the waters. The laughter of his people rang in his ears as he forced his gaze away from their merriment and settled on Ceri, watching her face sink in time with his own heart as she took in his expression.
“What is it?”
“I have to tell you something, Ceri. All of you.”
Ceriwyn gave a minute nod. He couldn’t say how she knew what he’d meant byall of you—that this was a conversation for his Court, their little family. Perhaps it was something in their shared blood, or just having known the language of each other’s faces for so many years. Either way, Ceri understood well enough to turn and wave at something beyond him, one warm hand wrapped around his arm in a steady and comforting gesture he was not sure he deserved. It was only a moment later that the waters lapped and shifted around their waists, Oswalt and Alun arriving to round out their small huddle.
They said nothing, but Kai felt his cousin’s eyes on him; felt the notable absence of Al’s eyes, too.
“Kai has something to say,” Ceri explained.
She squeezed his arm, a small prompt. He wanted to respond to it, but the words stuck in a wadded lump in his throat. Adhlas, he should have known this would not be so easy. In the warmth andpeace of their bed, with Adeline’s eyes softened by something she had not yet put words to, this had seemed simple. The most natural conclusion. He’d been decided the moment he emerged from Nua Laune; it was in the Merrow’s best interest. A home in the waters, a community to protect them, and a promise of peace from the Sealgair, as long as Kai was not among their number. It was the only logical solution, and hehadto tell them. His Court, his family. The people who had trusted him, and whose trust he had so long abused.
Tell them.
“He’s not coming to Nua Laune,” said Os.
His words were flat; so matter-of-fact that Ceri’s grasp on Kai’s arm tightened as she whipped her gaze around to stare at him.
“Of course he is.”
Kai’s voice was thin, raking painfully out of his tight chest. “I’m not.”
