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This time, I succeed.

An old, familiar tug pulls me back into a physical form. I look down at the water, and the sun shines through my wings.

For the first time in over ten years, I taste the sky again, and in this moment, I’m happy, blissfully unaware that everything has changed.

1

CORDELIA

The Undine Sea is no place for little mermaids.

The old warning rolls through my head as I swim beneath a snapped mast concealed by long strands of seaweed.

When I was a guppy, my grandmother told me frightening stories about the haunted waters beyond the dark kelp forest. The back of my neck still tightens as I pass over the ruins of wrecked ships scattered along the boundary, although it’s been years since I discovered what she was really hiding from me.

Scooping up a handful of brine shrimp, I lure a smack of crystal jellies to follow me into the forbidden territory. They bob alongside me, soft pink orbs glowing in the darkness.

I don’t need their bioluminescence to see, but I appreciate the company.

Reaching the end of the tangle, I use my claws to slice through the vertical kelp stipes and break into the Sunken City.

This place was once the beating heart of two neighboring kingdoms before the continent shattered into seven pieces, and their shared capital was swallowed by the sea.

Now it lies beneath me–a paved stone slab at the bottom of an underwater canyon.

I tunnel into it slowly, letting my body adjust to the growing pressure as I follow the narrow clearings running between short, square buildings.

There’s a better word for these pathways–streets.

That’s right.

I always forget that term despite the countless hours I used to spend on beaches with the master linguists my father hired to prepare me for a land marriage.

Using the streets as a guide to the Temple of the Undine, I move over a set of steep stairs and pass through a pillared archway into the cella to make an offering.

Shelves spiral along the inner chamber’s tower like an auger shell, each level organized categorically. They hold the artifacts and cursed objects left by the keepers who came before me.

Twirling up to a section filled with looking glasses, I pull a hand mirror from my shagreen bag and add it to the collection. My face stares back at me from a dozen reflective surfaces, my dark brown eyes capturing the sliver of moonlight sneaking in through the ceiling and shimmering eerily.

I understand why these tools of vanity are prohibited in my father’s kingdom. There’s no telling what would happen if we were to look too closely and find the power in our allure, the luscious smile of a deadly weapon.

It’s more beneficial for him to tell mermaids to fear humans than it is to teach us how to defend ourselves against them.

But I have ventured into these abandoned depths, and I’ve learned our secret history.

When the full moon rises tomorrow night, I’ll use the tools available to me—my charm, my voice, my beauty—to coax a marked soul from the shore and drag him down to the Altar of the Undine.

After years of studying and preparing, I’m going to reawaken a dormant magic that grants one the ability to move freely between the land and the sea.

The altar is already set for the ritual.

I swim down to it and scrape a patch of algae off the round platform, skimming my sharp nails over the moon phases etched into the stone and up to the sculpture rising from the center of the circle.

A scaly fin like my own blends into a foamy wave that crests above a human woman’s knees, her arms reaching for the faded mural on the ceiling. I touch the place where the fin becomes legs, admiring the portrayal of divine transformation.

Trailing my hands to the swell of the statue’s hips, I dip my thumbs down to the mound at the junction of her thighs and wonder what could be hiding inside that cleft.

We’re taught that the ocean provides all we need. It’s a sin to want for more. We’re not supposed to yearn for answers that lie above the surface.