The morning after a confrontation with Lir always felt like a hangover, even if I hadn’t finished the bottle. Which I had.
I woke up face down on my vanity. My head was throbbing. The light from the bioluminescent moss on the ceiling was far too bright.
And there was a noise. An off-key heaving coming from the entryway of the Grotto.
“Speckle,” I groaned, not lifting my head from the cool stone. “Go eat whatever is dying on the doorstep.”
“It’s not dying, Mistress,” Speckle hissed.
“It’s crying,” Speckle added.
“It’s the Princess,” they said in unison.
I lifted my head. My vertebrae cracked like snapping coral.
“Which one?” I asked, squinting. “The blonde one with the vacuous stare? The brunette with the control issues?”
“The bony one,” Dot said.
“The loud one,” Speckle clarified.
“The trashy one,” they said together.
Avis.
I groaned and rubbed my face. Of course. It had to be the favorite. It had to be the one that looked the most like Carlotta, just to twist the knife a little deeper.
“Send her away,” I said. “Tell her I am dead. Tell her I have moved to a cave in the Arctic.”
But it was too late. The wailing got louder, and then the girl herself burst into the room. She was a mess. Born with blonde hair and black roots. It was a look that I understand some people can pull off. But it was a look that she needed to pull out. Her hair was floating in a tangled halo around her head. Her eyes were puffy and red.
She was clutching a bag of human bones. Skulls and shoulders, a few kneecaps that she hoarded from shipwrecks and clung to like they were the crown jewels.
“Aunt Octavia!” she sobbed.
I winced. “I go by The Witch these days, darling. Or Your Highness of the Deepness. Aunt implies a level of familial intimacy that your father revoked yesterday.”
She ignored me. She swam right past the barnacles, who recoiled from her chaotic energy, and threw herself onto my fainting couch.
“He ruined everything!” she screamed. “He destroyed my collection! He destroyed my gathering! He literally hates me!”
I stared at her. I looked at Dot. Dot shrugged.
“What is the actual point of exile,” I muttered to myself, “if everyone keeps dropping in? It is supposed to be a banishment, not a holiday.”
I swam over to her. She was leaking tears everywhere. Completely oblivious to the pH level of my living space.
“Are you talking about that cave of cadavers?” I asked. “My dear, that’s not a gathering. It’s a psychosis. You needed to let go of that morbid den of the dead.”
She kept the skeletons gathered together. Playing dress up with them like rotted dollies. She stored them in a cavern where she arranged them. She pretended to have tea with them and practiced on them… kissing and I don’t even want to imagine what else.
“Child,” I said, trying to summon a shred of patience. “Your father has a temper. This is not news. Why are you here? Do you need a tissue? A sedative?”
“I’m in love,” she wailed, burying her face in a cushion.
I gagged. “Oh, spare me. You are nineteen. By law, that means you're an idiot. You are in love with the idea of being in love. Who is it? A dolphin? A crab? A carcass?”
“It’s a man!” she said, righting herself. Her eyes were wide and manic. “A human. I saw him. On a ship. He’s... he’s just... so aesthetic.”
I froze. “A human,” I said. “He has skin? He lives?”
“He has more than that!” she babbled, pulling at her hair. “He has this... flute thing? It’s so artistic.”
“Avis,” I said, my voice dropping. “Do you know what humans do to us? They grab us with hooks, peel our scales while we’re still breathing, then douse us in garlic and butter and call it a delicacy.”
“Not him!” she insisted, shaking her head violently. “Have you seen his eyes? No, you haven'tHe’s gentle. And he has legs. Aunt Octavia, he has legs.”
She said the word legs like it was the name of a designer brand.
“Legs are overrated,” I said. “They are clumsy. They break. You’ve seen how flimsy a knee is? Impractical design. Give me eight limbs over two any day.”
“I want them,” she whispered. “I want legs.”
She looked at me, and for the first time, the whining stopped. There was a steel in her eyes that reminded me of her mother, mixed with the absolute confidence of a teenager who has never been told no.
“You are being an idiot,” I said flatly. “Go home. Apologize to your father. Do not mess with biology you do not understand. Humans are dry and they smell like rotting crotch. Just play with the legs of your sad shipwrecked souls.”
I turned my back on her. I started to swim away toward my lab.
“He’s afraid of you, you know,” she said.
I stopped. “Who?”
“Father,” she said. Her voice was steady now. “He acts all high and mighty, but he grips his Spear tighter when he says your name.”
I turned back slowly. She wasn’t crying anymore. She was negotiating.
“He thinks you’re the problem,” she said, swimming closer. “But like... if a mermaid and a human were to marry? If the two worlds were united? It would prove him wrong and basically force him to evolve. It could change everything.”
She swam closer to me. She was small, and vapid, but she was dangerous.
“And if you were the one who made that happen,” she said softly. “He would have no choice but to let you back in. He would have to welcome you home. And I know how badly you want to visit Mom’s grave. To return her necklace.”
She had done her homework. She knew exactly where the bruise was, and she pressed her thumb right into it.
“No,” I said.
The word hung there, heavy and final.
Avis blinked. “What?”
“I said no,” I repeated, crossing my arms over my chest. “I am not going to help you mutilate yourself for a boy you met five minutes ago.”
She huffed. “But I haven’t even met him yet, that’s the problem!”
I laughed at the fact that she thought that was a selling point.
“I am not going to provoke your father into a war just so you can play house on the surface,” I explained. “And I am certainly not going to get myself executed for treason just so I can visit a grave that Lir probably weeded over years ago.”
I pointed a tentacle at the door.
“Get out,” I said. “Go home. Be a good little princess. Leave the magic to the adults.”
Avis stared at me. Her mouth opened and closed like a koi fish. She wasn’t used to rejection. She wasn’t used to hearing the word no.
Then, her face changed.
The vapid teenage act slipped away. The tears stopped instantly. Her eyes went hard and entirely too sharp. Like a shark zeroing in on its prey.
“I wasn’t asking,” she said quietly.
She reached into her bag of bones. She pulled out a dagger, scavenged from one of the bodies. She brought it up to her throat and pressed the blade against the soft white skin of her neck.
“Avis,” I said, freezing. “Put that down.”
“You know how fast he’ll get here when I scream,” she said. Her voice was calm. Terrifyingly calm. “He has guards posted a mile out. If I scream... if I scream like I’m being murdered... how long do you think it will take him to storm this place? Not long enough I bet.”
She pressed the blade harder. A thin ribbon of red blood curled into the water.
“I’ll cut myself,” she said.
“Darling, suicide has nothing more than a cry for attention,” I replied. “And you are already getting enough of it. Don't you think?”
“I will shred my own vocal cords,” she spat. “And when he gets here, I’ll tell him you did it. I’ll tell him you tried to steal my song for one of your sick little rituals.”
“My dear,” I said with a laugh. “I already own the sound of seventy-two seals dying in a watery blaze. From an oil spill that was on fire. I do not want your song. Besides, how will you tell him anything if you rip out your own vocal cords?”
“Oh.” She paused to think. “Gee, I guess you’re right. I am an idiot.”
Just as I began to move toward her, her voice deepened into a sick sound of a cage door slamming.
“I guess we’ll just have to leave it up to his assumptions once he arrives,” she said resolutely. “I’m sure he'll be fair and just.”
I stared at her. I thought that she was just here to throw a tantrum.
This was a hostage situation. And I was the hostage.
“You wouldn’t dare,” I whispered.
Avis smiled. It was the smile of a predator who found a weakness.
“Well, Uncle. Why don't you fin around and find out? Or turn around and get me legs?”
This little bitch. The freak had been here eavesdropping on her father’s visit yesterday. How often does the little psychotic spend time outside of my home listening?
Then, the word hit me like a harpoon. Uncle. She called me uncle. She knew exactly what she was doing. She was aligning herself with her father’s bigotry just to get what she wanted.
I looked at the blood drifting from her neck. I looked at the madness in her eyes. If Lir found her here, bleeding, with me looming over her... I was dead. There would be no trial. There would be no exile. He would spear me through the hearts and mount my head on the palace gates.
I was trapped.
“Fine,” I hissed, my voice trembling with rage. “Fine! Put it down! You psychotic little brat, put it down!”
Avis lowered the dagger. The vapid smile returned instantly, as if the last ten seconds hadn’t happened.
“Gosh. Thanks, Aunt Octavia. I knew you’d understand,” she chirped. “So... about those legs?”
I stared at her. I realized then that I had misjudged her completely.
She wasn’t an idiot. She was a monster. A monster in a pretty shell.
“Settle down,” I snarled, turning toward my desk. “And shut up before I change my mind.”
I pulled a scroll of kelp-parchment from the shelf. I grabbed a quill. “Here are the terms,” I said, writing furiously. “I will strip away your tail and split the fins. That will allow me to construct a pair of human legs. You will have six days.”
“Six days?” she asked, hovering over my shoulder.
“Six days,” I confirmed. “You must get the Prince to fall in love with you by the time the sun reaches its highest point in the sky on the final day. The humans call it noon. And not just puppy love. I mean the real thing. He must marry you by then.”
I rolled my eyes as I wrote the words.
“If he makes you his bride,” I said, “you remain human. Permanently. You get your boy. You get your legs. We get our revolution.”
“And if he doesn’t?” she asked.
“You die,” I said.
She swam back in shock.
“No, you idiot,” I sighed. “You become one of them.”
I gestured toward my garden of barnacles. She looked at them and then at me. I tapped the parchment.
She swallowed hard. But she didn’t back down.
“Okay,” she said. “I can do it.”
“Sign it,” I said, thrusting the parchment at her. “Right there at the bottom, Princess.”
I didn’t think she would do it. I thought for certain that the barnacle part would sway her. She signed it with her eyes wide open.
Avis.
The scroll rolled itself up and shot into my vault.
“The potion,” I spat, grabbing the vial of red sludge. “Drink it.”
“Is it poison?” she asked, tilting her head.
“Technically, yes,” I said, wishing it was fatal. “Poison is my potion.”
“Will it hurt?” she asked. They always do.
“Not at all, my dear,” I lied. “It will feel like a tickle from a school of minnows.”
I gestured for her to float in the center of the room.
She drank it and let out a horrid scream from the searing flavor of sulfur.
“Liar!” she retched.
“Shut up and sing,” I commanded.
“Now,” I said, cracking my knuckles. “Hold still.” “Sing,” I commanded.
She opened her mouth. The note came out, pure and annoying.
“Ahhh—gahhg—kk—“
It then turned into a grotesque gag. Though one could say there wasn’t much difference. She heaved and she hurled. Then she choked. It looked for a moment like she might die. Her eyes bulged as she silently pleaded for help. I thought for a moment that if she just died then this would be over. But then I would still be blamed for her death.
Because I didn’t feel like being executed and filleted, I used one of my tentacles to punch her in her tiny stomach. The force made her offensive voice burst from her throat. Most people's voice is like a glowing light. Hers looked like tar. I caught the sticky glob of audible heresy and I tossed it into a small glass bottle and sealed it with wax.
Avis gasped, clutching her neck. No sound came out. Just a rasping breath.
“Now for the legs,” I said. “Drink this.”
I forced another vial into her hand. She drank it. She grimaced at the taste. I added extra bone dust and rot because she earned it.
For a second, nothing happened.
Then, she screamed. Or she tried to. Her mouth opened in a silent shriek of agony and bubbles.
Her tail began to spasm. The amethyst scales cracked. They peeled back like dead skin, revealing the raw pink meat underneath.
The sound was terrible. The snapping of cartilage. The grinding of bone realigning. The tail, a single fused limb, began to tear itself apart down the middle.
Blood bloomed in the water.
Biomancy is not pretty. It’s trauma tearing the body apart to build something new. It’s pain made manifest. Pain is the entry fee to fabulous. If becoming who you wanted to be didn't hurt, then you're probably ugly and did everything your parents told you.
Avis thrashed. Her eyes rolled back in her head. The single fin at the bottom of her tail split in two, the bones shattering and reforming into feet. Toes popped out one by one, they were hideous.
She convulsed once more, and then went limp. She floated there, bleeding and unconscious, with two useless, wobbly meat-sticks hanging where her tail used to be.
“Dot, Speckle,” I barked.
The pusses uncoiled from the ceiling, their eyes wide with hunger.
“Take her to the surface,” I ordered. “Dump her on the beach near the castle. Make sure she doesn’t drown on the way up. She has lungs now. She can’t breathe water.”
“Yes, Mistress,” they hissed.
They wrapped their tentacles around her arms and began to drag her upward, toward the boy.
I watched them go. I watched the trail of blood disperse in the water, a red ribbon leading to the surface.
I picked up the bottle containing her voice. It hummed against my palm, warm and vibrant.
“Now,” I whispered to the silence. “We wait.”