“But I don’t know how much time we have now. I don’t even understand why Ursula kept my father around this long. Yes, she likes an audience and probably loves bragging about her triumphs to him…but even she must get bored of that eventually. What if she’s keeping him around for some other reason? Which I have…interrupted?”
She squeezed her hands in sudden panic, pulled at her braids since she couldn’t run her fingers through her hair.
“Now that you’ve found him, you’re terrified of losing him again,” Jona said quietly.
Ariel nodded, too full of emotion to trust her words. That was exactly it. What if she had set something in motion by trying to find him? What if something happened? It would be her fault, all over again. And she would never get him back.
“I have to go back to the castle,” she said, fighting down the childish surge of panic. She stood up and tried to give her friends a reassuring smile. “Even though it’s a risk. At least I have a better understanding of the situation now. I’d better disguise my voice, huh? Since up until now everyone has only heard Vanessa using it. Mebbe I shood tahhk liiike this.”
She deepened her voice and put her hands on her hips, made a frowny face.
Flounder couldn’t help laughing. Jona leapt into the air for a moment, letting out a squawk.
She wrung the water out of her skirts and prepared for the walk back to face a castle full of sea witches and soldiers who were probably waiting to grab her.
“Hey, Ariel,” Flounder called shyly. “Before you go…could you…could you sing that lullaby? The one you used to sing to me after I lost my mother?”
Her eyes widened. “Flounder, you haven’t asked me that in years…even before I lost my voice.”
“And I won’t ask again! It’s just that”—he looked around. Jona politely pretended to watch something out in the sea, over by the far rocks—“we’re alone here. No one from Atlantica is going to hear us. I don’t know when you’re going to have another chance.”
And Ariel, who lost her voice for years and had mixed feelings about singing for others, sang more sweetly than she ever had before, or ever would again. And no one heard but one fish, one seagull, the sand and the water and the evening breeze coming over the waves, and the rising moon.
“I have been waiting over a week now for an answer!”
A barracuda towered over the throne in a way Sebastian was pretty sure he wouldn’t have if Ariel had been sitting there, voice or no. The little crab glanced nervously at the guards: one a mer, one a surprisingly large weever fish with venomous spines. The two exchanged a look that was certainly not respectful, but nevertheless leaned in protectively, the tips of their spears coming close enough to touch above his head.
The barracuda scooted backward—but recovered himself quickly.
Fortunately there weren’t many there to observe the scene; it was late in the tide and even the most dogged petitioners had gone home to wait until the next day. Or have dinner.
Or do something civilized, because they are civilized people, unlike this shiny-scaled bully.
Threll and Klios, the dolphin amanuensis, floated on the dais, but otherwise the throne area was empty except for a few cleaning sardines and some planktonic jellyfish that couldn’t fight against the current enough to leave. Dark water curved overhead in a deep turquoise dome, full and empty as the sea always was before a storm. Despite the guards, Sebastian felt very, very alone.
“My boys took care of the wreck,” the barracuda said defensively. “We cleaned up everything real good. Now it’s time for you guys to hold up your end of the deal.”
“Royalty doesn’t ‘hold up’ ‘ends of deals,’” Sebastian said haughtily, emboldened by the sharp spears overhead.
“Especially when the vendor is asking for far more than what was originally agreed,” the amanuensis muttered, looking over a row of figures on his tablet.
“If Ariel was here, she would deal with me fairly.” The barracuda opened his mouth a crack, a move that usually foretold a strike.
“Oh, she would deal with you fairly, all right,” Sebastian said menacingly, snapping a claw at the fish. “Be glad it is me and not her dealing with you. Now go away, and maybe if you’re lucky I’ll see you another week.”
The barracuda gnashed his teeth, and with a last warning flip of his tail, angrily swam off.
The moment he was gone Sebastian collapsed on the armrest, a little tickticktick pile of exoskeleton and claws and sad eyes.