and my chest expands. Out of habit, I have the urge to kick as if I’m in the pool. The movement jerks me forward and turns into a flick. I spin in a circle at first, just to get used to the fins. It’s constricting, being one movement instead of two, but the speed is addicting. I press my arms at my sides and get into the undulating rhythm of the current. When I turn around, the shadow of our ship is long gone.
Kurt swims ahead of me by a foot, keeping closer to the surface for now. His long tail is a flash of violet, barreling into a swarm of fish. They scatter, then reform their circular pattern. We swim side by side until we’re the only ones as far as I can see.
Then Kurt stops abruptly.
I double back to where he’s floating and staring into the faroff darkness.
“What?” I ask.
“Listen.”
But I don’t hear anything aside from the swish of our tails and the slow current. I kick out to swim again, but Kurt grabs my wrist and anchors me. He shakes his head and shuts his eyes. “You have to sense it.”
His gills open and close with the deep gulp he takes. I try to do the same. Above water, this hypersensitive sense allows us to smell emotions. It’s annoying—and nauseating when I’m surrounded by tons of hormonal classmates. But down here, it’s different. I can taste fear, like melting copper on my tongue, and it’s coming right at us in a cloud of white.
I nudge Kurt. His eyes snap open.
Leading the pack is Thalia, her deep green hair pulled back against the current. Her powerful tail is a good chomp away from the mouth of a great white shark, his jaws wide open in a perpetual bloody grin. As they come closer, the white cloud comes into focus, shark by shark by shark.
Thalia wails again, glancing behind. I think I hear her shout, “Stop,” but I can’t be sure.
Kurt raises his sword over his shoulder like a lance.
Something is wrong.
The coppery fear I sense isn’t coming from Thalia; it’s coming from the sharks. I haven’t met many sharks, but I know one saved me. I’ve seen him in my dreams. Always the same massive one who comes and saves me from the silver mermaid’s grip. He had metal chains around him, like a shark muzzle with handles at the sides for a rider.
These sharks are not part of the guard, but I know they’re swimming away from something big enough to scare twenty sharks.
Thalia’s scream gets closer, and this time she’s waving her arms in the air. She doesn’t want us to attack.
But Kurt’s ready to strike.
I lunge and tackle him around his waist.
He pushes against me, wrestling out of my grip. “What are you doing?”
They’re feet away from us now. Thalia reaches her arms out for us to hold. She’s moving so fast she can’t stop. We grab hold of her tightly and the sharks, all of them, zoom right over our heads as if we’re not even on their radar.
Thalia presses a hand over her heart. I can hear the thud of it, the ragged strain in her breath. There’s a long gash of blood down her arm.
“No time.” She takes our hands and tries to pull but there’s no strength behind it. “No time.”
“What is it?” I ask, looking back at where she came from. “Merrows?”
“Worse.” Her eyes are brilliantly green and panicked.
Kurt shakes her, but there’s no need. In the murky darkness, something slithers. It weaves into the cracked sea floor and back out again. Kurt’s face goes slack. He grips both of our wrists and pulls us up and onto the surface.
“What the hell is that?” I cough out the water in my throat as my gills clamp shut against the air.
“Makara demon,” Kurt says. “The king buried them centuries ago.”
“The cove is three channels south,” Thalia says. “That’s where the demon rose, eating everything in sight.”
“It’s happening,” Kurt says. “Now that the trident is broken, the king’s seal is loosening. That’s how the demon must’ve broken free.”
“How do we fight it?” I ask.
“With six of my best guards and lots of luck.”
“Thalia, go back to the ship. Tell them to keep going to the cove,” I say.
She nods and swims away.
“We can’t lead the beast back to the others,” Kurt says.
He looks torn between following his sister and staying here with me. But his duty wins, and he follows me back