Part of Your World (Disney Twisted Tales) - Liz Braswell Page 0,98

out with the necklace unseen. Despite her life bemg in danger now, she still chose to help Ariel.

The pictures on the back of the strange-feeling vellum were far more disturbing than the weird Dry World creature on the front. There were lines and shapes that looked like they could be runes but shuddered when she tried to look at them too closely. Curves somehow didn't bend properly on the paper, and constellations of dots made her sick when she studied them, suggesting terrible things.

Ariel shook her head at the blasphemous sigils. "I don't know what these say for certain. They aren't mer runes; they're like a twisted, upside-down version of them. If I had to guess I would say they're black runes of the Deep Ones. Forbidden, evil...the whole deal."

"Can you read them at all?"

"This is just a noise, I think," she said, pointing. "Like ai ai. No idea what 'phtaqn' means. This here I think refers to a circuex, a powerful spell that is capable of disrupting—or joming—worlds. This looks like the mer word for 'blood,' and that looks like a determinative for 'god.' Or possibly 'great' or 'lots.'"

"So..."

"So she needs blood, the blood of a god." Ariel bit her lip, seeing where it was all leadmg. "Ancient blood flows through my father's veins....That would explain why she's keeping him around. She needs him for something, something involving magic. But for what exactly I can't tell."

Ariel felt sick as she said the words. She pushed the paper back at him.

"Here, please take this. I don't enjoy the feel of dead human skin."

"Dead...? Human...?" Eric took it back, aghast.

Ariel closed her eyes and rubbed her knuckles mto her forehead. "This is all... so.. .frustrating\ We do one thing, and she does another to block it. We think we know what her plans are; it turns out she has something even bigger and sicker in mind. She always has an answer, always has a countermove. And she knows what my weaknesses are—and yours, too. If I didn't care about my father, if you didn't care about Grimsby or your people, this would all be over m a flash."

"Back to your old 'children playing a game of koralli,'" Eric said with a wry smile. "But if we were human kids playing chess, at least, an adult could come over and put an end to everything eventually."

An interesting point, but how relevant? If it were her and Eric against Ursula, who was the adult in the scenario? Her father? An Elder God? Or...

Something was just at the edge of her mind, like a playful eel nosing in and out of the sunlight at the edge of the shore. Slippery, sparkling, and just out of her grasp.

"I think if adults—if everyone just knew what she was really like," she said slowly, "who she really was, they would do somethmg. But how do we convince anyone she's an evil tentacled sea witch?"

"I don't know. Even if you just managed to show one person... there's no way to prove it to anyone else, much less everyone else. Enough people to do something about it," Eric said.

Ariel thought of poor terrified Vareet, who had seen her mistress change in the tub. She was the only one m the entire castle who knew the truth of the matter—very viscerally—besides Grimsby and Carlotta. "But don't worry, we'll figure it out," he added, seeing the look on her face. He took her hand and squeezed it. "We have to, and soon. So she doesn't have a chance to do that ritual or whatever."

But Ariel didn't feel as much faith in them as Eric did. Somehow, despite bemg a rapidly agmg human, he had managed to keep some of his youthful optimism, while she had lost some of hers. It was kind of adorable. She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek.

He smiled m surprise. He put his hand up to touch her face, perhaps brush away a stray hair.. .before his fingers did what they really wanted and pulled her chin closer to him. He kissed her on the lips.

It was brief, but m the moment their skm touched she closed her eyes and consumed him: his smell, his warmth, the movement of his mouth against hers. It was like... A good-night kiss.

Over too quickly, but every moment of it meant a universe.

All those years before, and all those years m between... She had dreamed so many different scenarios of this moment! Ariel as a human, Ariel as a