Page 99 of Storm and Sea

“Yeah, I know. I was just curious.”

He remained silent for the rest of dinner. Nyel scarcely closed the door to his room for the night when Atreus yanked it open.

“What was that? What the hell are you doing?”

“You know exactly what I’m doing. The Mer can help⁠—”

“Shshsh!” Atreus hissed, darting his head to the hall before closing the door. “I thought we were past this. You’re being reckless.”

“It’s not reckless. It’s a solution, Atreus. Can’t you see? We can help each other.”

Nyel sat at the edge of his bed, crossing his legs, hoping Atreus would do the same and calm down. He didn’t.

“You’re out of your mind. It’ll ruin everything. Realizing there are sea monsters on their doorsteps will only drive the humans off the island. We’d be speeding up its end.”

“Not if the fish come back. It’s the lifeline of this place, and it’s dying. We can fix this! And we aren’t monsters, Atreus. We’re Mer. So get that out of your head.”

“Fine, we’re Mer. But to them, they’ll only see monsters. People don’t change overnight.”

“I did.”

Atreus chewed his cheek, and Nyel pressed on.

“I changed my mind about you. About halflings. All it took was for me to get to know you.”

“Fine. But you’re one person. An entire village can’t get to know me well enough to justify what I am.”

“They already do!” Nyel leaned forward, the words pulling him towards Atreus. Begging him to understand. “How can you still not see it? These people, all of them, they already love you. You’re a pinnacle of this community. They rely on you.”

Atreus shook his head, and Nyel knew he’d failed. It would take a cataclysmic event for Atreus to finally believe him, to see what only took Nyel a few weeks to see.

“It would never happen.”

“You said this island is desperate. Maybe desperate enough to accept the help of Mer?”

Atreus pinched the bridge of his nose, pacing the room. “Fine. Let’s say, by some unholy miracle, the humans accept us. You think the two of us can herd entire schools away from those ships? I hate to break it to you, but two of us swimming back and forth won’t be enough.”

“The Sireni in Corallina will help.”

Atreus scoffed. “Sure.”

Nyel’s face turned pink with indignation. “They will. I’ll talk to them. They’re being hurt by the ships, too.”

Nyel vaguely remembered Chel’s father mentioning something about the kelp dying the day she came for dinner.

“The ships are polluting the waters. Corallina is losing crops because of them.”

“How much?” Atreus prodded.

“A—a few acres. I think. I don’t remember.” Nyel cursed himself for not paying more attention to the conversation on that fateful day. Granted, he had other things on his mind.

“A little crop damage isn’t enough for them to break age-old tradition. They won’t reveal themselves. They won’t accept a union. They can’t even accept one of their own if their scales don’t match up.”

“I’ll talk to them,” Nyel tried to sound stronger than he felt. “I promised Nephi that I’d talk to my parents about halflings. And I will. I just… need more time.”

Atreus sighed, falling into Nyel’s desk chair.

“You see how many things are against you? How many ways this idea of yours could go wrong? It can’t happen, Nyel. Drop it.”