Ariel clutched Joe's hand in one of hers, and the little blue vial in the other, amazed at how sturdy it was for something so delicately made. Even so, she was terrified of it breaking. She felt as though she was holding her whole future, and the feeling was both exhilarating and awakening. Letting Joe pull her through the midnight street traffic, he directed them toward the Cozy Cod.
The midnight traffic was just as bad as that of earlier that evening, and it was only made worse by the stares they received wherever they swam. Ariel couldn't understand why. There were cecaelia and mermaids like themselves everywhere.
"What's wrong, Ariel," Joe asked without turning to look at her.
"Nothing's wrong," she said too quickly.
When he didn't respond, she knew she'd been caught, and tried to talk her way out of it anyway. "Nothing. We have a cure. We know where an how to use it. We'll be…we'll be fine by morning," Ariel listed, trying to think of everything good that was happening. And things were good. She just could shake the feeling of….of down-ness since Lophius' cave, but there was no way Joe could have known that.
At the same time, she herself hadn't put a finger on exactly why she was so miserable. She should be elated. For all those reasons she just said. But she wasn't. Her head was swirling with questions.
Sure, she would have her mind back soon, but what then? What then, what then? The only thing that was certain was that things couldn't stay as they were—well, perhaps not the only thing. A second thing she was quite thoroughly convinced of was that she would rather swim off the dropoff a second time than alliance herself with the Aegeans.
"You're not happy at all, Ariel."
At last, Joe did look back at her, the briefest glance from his purple eyes seeing more than anyone else ever did.
She blinked, realizing that several moments had passed.
"Nothing—nothing's wrong," she repeated, cursing herself for stammering. Why was she stammering, anyway?
Joe had to keep his gaze forward to navigate them through the ever-changing shoals and passing creatures ferrying loads between the homes, market-stalls, and workplaces that seemed to be built amongst each other with no rhyme or reason.
"You don't have to tell me…" he said as quietly as the bustle would allow. "But you know you always can."
But the only thing she wanted to ask Joe was the one thing she had no idea how to do. Among the uncertain questions about her future was why Joe had been unwilling to try a potential cure before they'd journeyed down here. Was Lophius right? He'd mentioned a kiss might have made a dent in her curse. Joe had been aware of that.
Yeah, but he'd rather swim to the bottom of the ocean before trying that, remember? she scolded herself.
"And now you're sighing." She could hear the eyeroll in his voice. "I know when you're not happy, Ariel."
"You haven't exactly been yourself since Lophius either," she pointed out. Joe was never as chatty as she was, but ever since they'd left the cavern with the cure, he'd been downright taciturn.
"I know when you're deflecting, too," he said.
"Joe, why are there so many mages down here, and almost none in Atlantis?" she asked, presenting at least one of the questions on her mind honestly.
It was Joe's turn to sigh.
"Young cecaelia are often hunted during architeuthis season under the pretext of being mistaken for squid. It's an excuse soldiers from every ocean use every year."
She felt like Joe was holding something back, but couldn't really tell as his face was turned away from hers out of necessity. Several streets ahead she finally recognized the turn for the Cozy Cod. They were getting closer to the entrance to the lava tubes, but they would certainly need directions. At least she still had enough jewelry left to buy an answer from the Cods.
"Why?" she asked, gripping his hand tighter. "The kingdom needs its mages. Looking at Atlantis, and looking at here, there's so much that could be improved on if we had more. The lights alone…"
Joe was already shaking his head. "No matter where they rule, the kings want mages and sea-witches they can control, and that means population control."
She gasped—or at least she would have, if she'd been breathing normally. "That's barbaric!"
"That's your own home, Ariel," he said, keeping his voice low. He pulled her past a group of bard melusines filing out of what looked like a pub being closed for the night. Two of them were supporting a caterwauling merman still singing about a mermaid who married a very gullible fisherman.
"Isn't King Ezra supposed to be providing a territory?" she asked, letting him pull her away from the brine-drenched group, and down the Cod's street.
Joe nodded, opting to pull her under his arm when a door slammed open and an older mermaid—presumably one of the wives of the bards—began shrieking down the street toward the pub. Her heart did a small flutter. She didn't hear a word of what the mer-matron said, honing in on Joe's voice, rumbling in her ear.
"Yes, but it's been shrinking every year since Ezra left. He has left his people over and over. Even if he claims that this time his position with Triton is because he's trying to re-rally the cecaelia, the people back together, I suspect he wants to do it at the cost of exacting justice, and that wouldn't change anything."
"He wants to take the circumstance of the cecaelia out on the people of Atlantis, you mean?" she asked. "Even if he does it within his own borders, you're right. It would only flip the circumstance."
Joe seemed impressed, which ironically only annoyed her. She aimed an elbow at his ribs.
"I grew up around politics, remember? I couldn't escape them if I wanted to."
"And you did want to," he said, the ghost of a smile lifting the corner of his cheek she could see.
"I did…" she trailed off.
"Not anymore," he said, understanding before she did.
Examining the street as they neared the Cozy Cod, Ariel knew that Joe was right. SHe hadn't known things were this bad, and part of that was her own ignorance. Although the desire had been growing over the journey, she was suddenly faced with an intense, desperate desire to make a change in the oceans, but now that she wanted to, also knew that she couldn't.
She needed allies, and as her sisters left the palace one by one, she had only lost her closest ones over the years. The Kingdom of the Depths was clearly well-loved by its residents, but—oof!—it was overpopulated. Lophius hadn't lied. Every shopcorner, streetside, and even the dingy holes carved through the once-fine masonry in the back alleys had some creature or other living in it. How many here were citizens, and how many refugees from their own kingdoms? And it occurred to her:
"Joe, how come you haven't sent Krill with someone like Djeval?"
Joe paused for what seemed like a very long time before answering her.
"Because there's no guarantee on the other end. It's not just cecaelia, Ariel. It's anyone who stays too long out of their own shoal. Fish flock together. So do mer. But not without their own species. Have you ever seen them mix outside of the palace? So what happens to the ones who move, or get separated, or can't manage a proper livelihood?"
He took her silence as an answer.
"Exactly. It might be the worst with us because we are so…distinct. But every species with fins has the same trouble. Cecaelia are just more noticeable, because we have more potential."
"You think they'd want more of you."
I do, she wanted to say, but knew all the same she might never be able to get those words out.
"More are harder to control," he said. "And that can be a real problem if the ones you're trying to control are like Ursula. In some ways, I don't blame the kings. It's not a simple problem."
Her mind flashed back to her strategy games with Ezra. Even though he'd abandoned his people, he certainly knew a few things about having to abandon things for the sake of strategy. But then what was his strategy if he was failing so badly? Could it be that her father was foiling him by insisting he stay to be an advisor? But why? She abandoned that train of thought. None of it made sense.
"Ariel," Joe said, much more gently, "Adin a bit of a barnacle-brain when it comes to…well, a lot of things, but he is right that you need more influence than you have if you want control."
She opened her mouth to interrupt him, but he tapped one long finger on her cheek to signify he wasn't done speaking.
"Not that kind of control, Ariel. I'm talking about making the sort of changes you mentioned at the monolith. You will still need power, and influence is a better kind of power than force, and that is what Ezra and your father have used in the past."
"And how do you recommend I go about doing that?"
He seemed surprised that she was willing to listen to an outright criticism of her father, but she withheld any feelings of offense that he once more didn't think she could understand the harder version of truth from him. It was so rare that Joe was willing to be forthright like this.
"Ah, we're here." Joe interrupted their conversation once they swam in front of the Cozy Cod. "A moment."
He dipped into the entrance and was back with directions so quickly Ariel wondered how the Cods were able to explain where the lava tubes were and still make Joe hear. She was even more surprised when Joe took her arm, and instead of continuing down the busy streets, swam straight up.
The smoother cobbles of buildings below transformed into jagged black and gray volcanic rock as they scaled the oceanic mountainside. After a few minutes, the jagged ledges transformed into bubbling tubes, venting from the mountainside. The only indicator of which ones they needed to take to the Dutchman's Observatory was the fact that there was really only one big enough for them to fit through.
"You're fixating on what will happen after all of this, aren't you?" said Joe just ahead of her. As usual, he scouted the way ahead to ensure she didn't run across anything more dangerous than a seaweed-tangle, and even then, he was rather meticulous about clearing those away. "I don't suppose I could persuade you to focus on this stage of things first?"
Focus on the task in front of you, he was saying. You're not cured yet.
"Not even the slightest chance." Her fins would have flared out stubbornly had they had the room. "You were interrupted earlier. What were you saying—oh!"
The tubes were starting to get wider, although not so much that they could swim side-by side, until quite suddenly they opened up into a vast room—no, 'room' was far too large an understatement.
The ruined underwater observatory had clearly once been a marvel of engineering and scientific exploration, although Ariel couldn't fathom why a celestial observatory had been built so far underwater.
Unless it wasn't built by mer originally….and it sank?
Her curiosity got the better of her as she looked around, and before she knew it, she was swimming ahead of Joe to examine every inch of the place.
The Dutchman's Observatory, long abandon, still remained a skeleton of scientific study it had been built to be. Although the place was desolate, starlight filtered through mirrors in an upper tunnel system that extended who knew how far illuminated the place. The moon's feeble, early glow barely penetrated the depths, but was there all the same. Above their heads, a viewing dome covered with mirrors displayed views of the night sky from various angles. Some were coated with algae and barnacles that fed on the weak light and gentle warm water vents that streamed in through the mountain.
Across the expansive floor, remnants of scientific equipment and fine velvet furniture lay scattered and broken. Rusted metal frames, and the debris of vellum scrolls decayed quietly. It was the sort of place she'd have loved to have spent more time.
"Joe this is amazing!" she said with real excitement. "Come and sit with me here."
She indicated the seat of a luxurious red divan perched on an upper viewing balcony beneath the dome. It was the best place to wait for the moon to come into view of the mirrors. The view was so well-made she could almost imagine that it was only a thin pane of glass between her and the real night sky.
"You were saying?" she said, as he came to swim next to her. "And Joe just sit down! We have a while to wait before the moon comes into view anyway, and you know I don't bite. I'm not some faiting princess, but I'm not a barracuda either!"
He shot her an insultingly skeptical look, but sat down stiffly next to her all the same.
He relaxed a little when she rolled her eyes at him.
"So," she said, when he was a hair more comfortable—and how couldn't he be? The velvet on the furniture might be decrepit, but was still extremely fine to sit on. "What do you think I should do when all of this is over?"
She hadn't meant for it to come out so teasingly. It just did, earning her another skeptical appraisal from Joe as he answered.
"What you need isn't to become a snobbier royal, it's to gain allies, and allies aren't gained through snobbery. You only have to look at your precious prince to know that," Joe said, once they'd managed to shinny through the opening.
"Don't call him that," she said vehemently, shifting her tail to rest on the old stone-and-plank floor in agitation.
He let out a short, punctuating guffaw. "What, snobbish? Sorry to say, princess, but he is the snobbiest example of snobbery that ever snobbed."
"Could you turn on those star-lights you used for us while we were traveling?—thanks," she said when he obliged. Joe seemed to forget that not everyone could see in the dark like he could. "And no, I mean don't call him mine. I'm holding the cure right here, and the only way I'll ever call him mine is if he's my reason to escape, my enemy, or even my idiot ally from a distant sea I pray iIl never visit," she ranted.
"A decent call. I've seen sharper things than that eel's intelligence in a sponge nursery," Joe muttered.
"That's insulting, Joe."
"Well, you wouldn't want him to feel insulted."
She laughed, enjoying the relief it brought into her wound-up chest. "You know, sometimes Joe, I really, really envy you."
That got his attention. Joe made a sound between a cough and snort.
"Why on earth would you want to be me?" he got out.
"You're going to work on your song and dance living a lovely time with Krill and find yourself a lovely cecaelia to court and swim off into the sunset, and I will be dancing at balls and making friends with royals, and being diplomatic so I can non-snobbily make allies. I'm going to have to be diplomatic about it all."
"I didn't realize that was one of your strengths," he said very dryly for a mer who was submerged underwater.
"It isn't. Why do you think I'm complaining?" she groaned. "D'you think if we dressed Krill up like me, he could camouflage well enough to pass as a princess?"
It was a barrel-scraping sort of joke, but Joe chuckled all the same, before turning grim.
"What is it?"
"You really think I'm going to swim off into a sunset? There's no sunlight down here. I might never see sun again," he said blithely.
"No, not that." She shook her head, catching his face when he refused to look at her. "You've been avoiding talking about Krill for days. Every time I've mentioned him you've changed the subject. Has something happened? Krill…oh…oh, no…"
When the grim expression didn't fall away from Joe's face, several memories of hers started to slide into place. She never missed things like this. How could she not have known? Considering her luck, of course it had been someone she knew….of course her engagement had brought the monster who hurt him into the kingdom in the first place.
"I've been so selfish," she whispered. "Was it him? Was he the one…."
Joe gave the briefest, cutest of nods, and started to pull his face back from her hands, but Ariel was starting to feel her eyes get salty, and in an effort not to let him sea, opted to throw her arms around his shoulders instead.
Ariel thoroughly expected Joe to gently throw her off as usual, there was something quite different about this time. He pulled her closer and let her perch on two of his tentacles to hug him properly. As though of a mind of their own, two more curled around her tail while one of his hands stroked —albeit awkwardly—soothing motions through her hair.
"Tell me he's alive," she whispered.
Joe shifted a tentacle to balance them on the divan better and put his arms, which hadn't lost their awkward tension, down to rest around her waist. He spoke into the hair on the top of her head when he answered. "He is. Don't worry, he's fine."
"Fine?"
"Well, not fine, but he will be. Trust me, Ariel. Ursula might be the witchiest of witches, but when she wants something, it always happens."
She took comfort in that. Joe might withhold information from her on the daily, but he never outrightly lied—at least not in a way she couldn't see through. She didn't know when it had happened. She could just tell. And Joe was telling her the stone-cold truth.
"I do trust you," she breathed, letting the relief take her in a way only Joe could provide.
"You're frankly taking this better than I expected," he muttered, and she imagined him raising that quirky silver brow over her head.
"No fainting princess," she reminded him, the ghost of a smile perking up her face through the salt. "I'll make a life for you and Krill, Joe. They can't have put me through all of those cross-kingdom economics and diplomacy lessons for no reason, hey?"
He stiffened under her, just a little. "You might have to make….alliances for that."
She knew what he meant. Allies could be made and kept or thrown away, and they could be as numerous or few as anyone could manage. Alliances were different. You needed some sort of legal document for those. Like a treaty. Or a marriage certificate. She tried not to shudder.
"I have you, yes?" she plowed through the tension. "This curse is complicated stuff. You even had Lophius impressed with how hard your magic is to undo."
Joe leaned back, looking wary. She would have expected apologies, or floundering from anyone else, but neither of those were very Joe. His actions were penance enough, and he'd always put more value on action than words. If she wouldn't have forgiven him near the surface, after seeing him fight that squid, he could have asked pretty much anything.
"I didn't think you knew."
"I didn't," she winked, dispelling the last of the shock over Krill from the moment. "You just told me."
"I suppose it was only an eventuality," he admitted at last, going quiet. "You would find out."
"So tell me then. How many people have you had to brew for who you came back to save? Like me?"
Joe sighed, blowing bubbles over her cheeks and through her hair as he did.
"How many, Joe?"
He avoided her eyes rigidly.
"Hm?" she prompted, after a few moments' heavy silence.
"Just you."
"Why?"
He only stared, refusing to answer her.
Ariel turned a serious glare on his obvious guilt. "Joe, you never would have used this on someone. I'd bet a sackful of pearls and my favorite human socks—yesIhavehumansocksdon'task!—that Ursula made you brew it, and you're too good at this sort of thing for your own good."
"Or anyone's good," he grumbled.
Her glare intensified, which she found was quite easy since she was inches from his face.
"No. No I wouldn't. I wouldn't force anything on you. And yes, I am your ally."
Later, Ariel wouldn't have been able to say where it had come from, or why, but something in his voice, or something in her seemed to shift when she heard it. If felt like one of the great tumblers like the ones in the city gate had gotten stuck right before falling into place. She couldn't be certain whether it was her heart or her head that managed to connect to her mouth, and though to her relief the words sounded deliberate, her innards felt like she'd poured cement in them as her nervousness threatened to drown her when she heard her own voice.
"My ally… or my alliance?"
She said it hoping against hope that he would know what it meant, just like he always did, so that she wouldn't have to come up with some way to explain herself…but Joe didn't say anything.
A heartbeat passed like an age. Then two.
Ariel saw something shift in Joe's deep purple irises. Something hesitant and deeply wary. Then he moved. Carefully. Deliberately. Gently his tentacles tightened around her tail, keeping them stable and comfortably tied together. One of his hands appeared under her chin, bringing her eye level with him, and he bowed his face toward hers, giving her ample opportunity to jerk away. She didn't.
Just as their noses brushed, a horrid clanging tore through the peace of the observatory, making her jump hard.
"You!"
Prince Ellian's voice promised murder—the deranged kind—as he led guard after guard, and finally, his own nasty hunters into the room.
"You beast!" Ellian said, the picture of a hunter. It would have been impressive had it not been for the unrecognizing, empty stare he was giving her. "Unhand my princess, and swim away from her quietly. I promise your death, if you cooperate, will be… somewhat painless."
"I'm certainly not yours, and he won't be doing any such thing. How did you find this place?" Ariel demanded immediately.
Joe's growl at her back was fitting, but she realized with some surprise that it wasn't Ellian he'd directed it to. Following his line of sight, she saw what he did with as much shock as seeing Ellian.
Trailing after the guards, and wearing an expression of such utter guilt she could almost feel bad for him if he hadn't been helping tow a cecaelia-made lockbox, was Adin.
Joe leveled a glare at him so potent it could have stripped paint off a ship hull.
Adin glanced up just enough to meet her eye, and looked away just as quickly, cowering.
Why? She wanted to ask, so badly it was hurting her scales, but she wouldn't be able to.
Ariel did quite the opposite of what Ellian demanded, recognizing her own father's guards posted among Ellian's men—the kind that had never once listened to her. She tucked herself closer to Joe, trying to put herself between him and them. Unfortunately, he was trying to do the same to her.
"See how she objects to you, beast? She is realizing how you've poisoned her—polluted her mind!" Ellian called over, as they tousled. He swam up to meet them far too quickly. "It will be far better for you to comply."
But now, Ellian didn't look as if he wanted him to comply at all. Even Ariel could tell when someone was looking to pick a fight, and Ellian was practically dripping with blood-lusty intent—and when he looked at her…other kinds of intent. Joe saw it too, one arm pulling her tightly to him.
Ariel's heart sank as the rest of the mermen swam to surround them.
Joe's eyes darted from each merman to the next, and just like Ariel, he knew there would be no escaping this. Joe was looking for a fight, too.
"Joe, don't," she whispered, trying to shake his shoulders so that he would break his own murder glare. "There are too many of them. You actually will be killed, and you haven't finished knitting up from the squid!"
"Need to buy time…" he said very carefully through gritted teeth. "Moon."
The tiniest sliver of the moon was coming into view of the mirrors in the viewing dome above. Joe was right. In a few more minutes, she could take her potion—but they didn't have minutes. A quick glance at Adin showed that he hadn't moved. He had no idea of the severity of the situation—not that it mattered anymore, she thought with a twinge in her chest.
Joe set her down firmly, and rose to meet the guards.
"Ah, so glad you've chosen the path of dignity," Ellian goaded.
"Dignity? I don't believe the two of you have met. If you were any less threatening, eel, you'd be a goldfish." Joe scoffed, and though he folded his arms across his chest lazily, Ariel noticed that he never took his eyes off the guards moving to surround him from above and below. Joe might be trash at riddles, but he never missed a single twitch.
Ellian scowled, but as quickly as it had appeared, the sneer on his face shoved off to make room for a crazed grin that sent shivers down her spine.
"I have no care for creatures lesser than me, octopus…squid? Whatever wretched thing you are….and nearly all creatures are lesser than me."
It could have been Ariel's imagination, but Ellian's eyes definitely flicked to her when he said it. He hadn't been like this when she'd seen him in the palace, had he? He'd been cocky, to be sure…but this was a new level of crazy. Prince Ellian was acting like he'd lost his mind—and she should know.
"Am I lesser?" Joe asked languidly, and Ariel realized all these taunts and goading were only making things worse for him—but he was trying to buy her time. The moon was nearly half crested now. Just a few more minutes. "If I'm so lesser, I'm sure you'd be willing to fight me one-on-one, eel. I'll even do it without a weapon. Even the odds."
It was Ellian's turn to scoff. "A fight with a peon? ….No."
It was the wrong thing to say. Joe twitched ever so imperceptibly toward the prince but before he could so much as reach him, Ellian lifted his hand in a silent command. It was as though the guards so well-trained by her father's captains had become nothing more than slavering sharks. Ellian wasn't the only one hungry for a fight.
Someone screamed as they all descended on him. It could have been her.
Then, she heard the tiniest tinkling of glass, and looked down in time to see the little glass vial falling in slow motion through the water. The moon was three-quarters crested.
She dove after it.
Ellian followed her gaze, spotted the vial, and beat her to it.
"What's this, hey? You planned to…" he looked from Ariel to Joe, understanding dawning in his unevenly dilated eyes. "Ah…" then, he lied as smoothly as though he were born to do it. "Planning to poison my bride, octopus?"
The skirmish happened so fast Ariel didn't see all of the details, but as Ellian retrieved the vial and held it up, she was in time to see Joe restrained, one guard wrestling each of his tentacles and arms. Adin wasn't one of them, but he wasn't helping either. Though Joe struggled madly, there was no way he could beat all of them, and everyone in the room was becoming increasingly aware of that.
"Honors for the guards of Triton!" he announced over Joe, waving a delighted smile. "Who have saved his most beloved daughter in honor of his memory."
Then, Ellian hurled the potion at one of the dome's mirrors, shattering its contents to be lost in the wavering currents of the observatory, and the view of the moon coming near-full at last.
"NO!" Joe snarled, ripping and tearing at the guards' grips on him. He nearly managed to get free until Ellian put his spear at his throat. Likely remembering the cursed poison it had managed to wreak on Krill, Joe went still under its gnarled, broken point—but only just.
"What did you mean…in my father's memory?" Ariel said softly, and it turned out to be just enough to distract Ellian from his kill.
"Why, my princess," Ellian turned to her with a near-regal bow. "In a few days we are to be wed in honor of him as well. I fear that the heartbreak of your departure was enough to do in the great king. He will be sorely missed. But I must say, at least the mer-men he's left behind will have a suitable leader. And now that we know the way down here, the hunts in the name of the new high king could be as frequent as there are criminals hiding in these rocky streets."
Every word he said made her jaw drop a little lower.
"You're lying," she accused blandly, not daring to make eye-contact with Joe. "There's no way you could know that."
Ellian produced a pearly orb from the expensive pack at his waist, and effortlessly turned it to her wherein she stared…at an image of her father, lying unmistakably lifeless in his room. Triton's guards were subdued and just as hunt-thirsty as Ellian, and no wonder. With this sort of change, everyone would be trying to prove themselves and scrambling for rank. Her father…her father hadn't named an heir yet either, and she was the only one not tied off yet. Ellian would probably….
"No…" she whispered, the last of the hope draining from her fins.
His grin widened along with her understanding, and though he didn't have nearly enough teeth to meet the trends of the Depths' city, it was far more eerie.
"It would be barbaric to murder in front of my princess…" Ellian said in a way that might have passed for concern if she was deaf and blindfolded. "I would never make you view two corpses in one day…well, not in the same room, at least. Variety is the spice of love, they say!"
In the brief glance she allowed herself at Joe, she could see he thought he was just as bonkers as she did. It was the last of him she saw before Ellian snapped his fingers at the guards.
"Throw him in the box! We'll deal with him later. Two of you, escort my princess to the surface. Once that's done, the rest of you take whatever you like from down here. We all have something to prove, gentlemen! The creatures down here are yours for the taking!"
The last things she saw before the sack went over her head were Joe's struggles, and the side of Adin's face. He wouldn't even look at her.