She nods and holds out her hand. Resting against her long, spiny fingers is my seashell. She throws it onto the grass by my feet. “I heard your call,” she says quietly. “Do you have the prince’s heart yet?”
I frown as her head stays bowed. “What’s the matter?” I ask. “Can’t you look at me now?”
When Kahlia does nothing but shake her head, I feel a pang. She once admired me so venomously that it drove my mother to hate her. My entire life Kahlia remained the only one in our kingdom who I thought to care about and now she can’t even look me in the eye.
“It’s not that,” Kahlia says, like she senses my thoughts.
She lifts her head and there’s a tenuous smile on her thin pink lips as she fiddles uncharacteristically with the seaweed bodice around her chest. She takes in my human form and rather than look scared or disgusted, she only looks curious. She cocks her head. Her milk-yellow eye is wide and glistening. But her other eye, the one that matches my own so perfectly, is shut and bruised black.
I grit my teeth, grinding bone on bone. “What happened?”
“There had to be a punishment,” she says.
“For what?”
“For helping you kill the Adékarosin prince.”
I take an outraged step forward, feet teetering on the edge of the lagoon. “I took that punishment.”
“The brunt of it,” Kahlia says. “Which is why I’m still alive.”
A chill runs through me. I should have known my mother couldn’t be satiated with punishing one siren when she could have two. Why make me suffer alone? It’s a lesson she’s taught me so often before. First with Crestell and now with her daughter.
“The Sea Queen is entirely too merciful,” I say.
Kahlia offers me a meek smile. “Does the prince still have his heart?” she asks. “If you bring it back, this will be over. You can come home.”
The desperate hope in her voice makes me flinch. She’s scared to return to the Diávolos Sea without me, because if I’m not there, then nobody will protect her from my mother.
“When we first met, I was too weak from almost drowning to kill him.”
Kahlia grins. “What is he like?” she asks. “Compared to the others?”
I consider telling her about Elian’s truth-discerning compass and the knife he carries that’s as sharp as his gaze, drinking whatever blood it draws. How he smells of anglers and ocean salt. Instead I say something else altogether. Something she will find far more entertaining.
“He locked me in a cage.”
Kahlia splutters a laugh. “That doesn’t sound too princely,” she says. “Aren’t human royals supposed to be accommodating?”
“He has more important things to worry about, I suppose.”
“Like what?” Her voice is eager as she swipes a string of seaweed from her arm.
“Hunting legends,” I explain.
Kahlia shoots me a teasing look. “Weren’t you one of those?”
I raise my eyebrows at the jab, pleased to see some of the spark return to her face. “He’s looking for the Second Eye of Keto,” I say.
Kahlia swims forward, throwing her arms on the damp grass by my feet. “Lira,” she says. “You’re planning something wicked, aren’t you? Do I have to guess?”
“That depends entirely on how much you enjoy playing minion to your beloved aunt.”
“The Sea Queen can’t expect devotion if she preaches the opposite,” Kahlia says, and I know she’s thinking of Crestell. The mother who laid down her life for her in an act of devotion my own mother could only scoff at.
It doesn’t surprise me that Kahlia would be eager to turn against the Sea Queen. The only thing that has ever surprised me is her continued allegiance to me. Even after what I did. What I was made to do. Somehow Crestell’s death bonded us rather than tearing us apart as my mother had hoped it would. I can’t help but feel smug at the look of cunning in Kahlia’s eyes. Expected or not, the display of loyalty is all too satisfying.
“If the prince leads me to the eye, then the power it holds would make me a match for the Sea Queen.” I hold my cousin’s gaze. “I can stop her from ever daring to touch either of us again.”
“And if you fail?” Kahlia asks. “What becomes of us then?”
“I won’t fail,” I tell her. “All I need to do is share enough of our secrets to get the prince to trust me and he’ll welcome me on board.”