“This apartment is still under the king’s protection.” Kurt stands and closes the blinds. “For four more days, anyway. And then the championship will be over.”
“So was Greg’s house,” I say, “and look at what happened.”
Kurt paces around the kitchen counter. “What if Kai—”
“What if Kai what?” Kai says, walking from the living room into the kitchen/Command Central.
“Kai, these are my parents. And you probably know Kurt and Gwen.”
Still with a dazed look, she takes the stool my dad gives up for her. Then she takes in the room, the framed family pictures, the rooster magnet collection on the fridge. She smiles at the maps on the wall. Then she gets to my mom and freezes.
“Lady Maia!” She gets up so fast that she fumbles with the blanket around her shoulders. “I forgot myself.”
Princess Kai takes my mother’s hand and bows. Even though she reminds Kai that she’s not royalty anymore, Mom isn’t exactly shooing her away. Maybe it’s hard to forget everything about being the daughter of the king.
“It’s okay, sweetheart. You’re safe here.”
I fill Kai in on what happened after she passed out. Assuring her a hundred times that “Yes, the dragon is fine.” Even though I don’t know that for sure. “Remember what we were talking about before the dragon came? About the trident?”
“Yes,” she says, embarrassed. “Forgive me for not being more grateful for saving my life.”
“No sweat.” I give Kai my full attention. It makes her uncomfortable, as if no one ever looks at her. “Do you think you could look at something for me?”
She rests her hand on the bandage around her arm, thumbing the unfamiliarity of it. “What is it?”
I grab the parchment drawings from the kitchen and rest them on her lap. “This is—”
“The Star of the Sea.”
“Come again?” I say.
“It’s the symbol, right here. This star? It’s the symbol of an ancient oracle. She was called the Star of the Sea because she was so beautiful. Her magics made mortals believe she was a goddess. Though there was no way she could be. Her power made her lose her mind, stuck between her sight, the future, past, and present.”
“Crazy oracles,” I say. “That doesn’t surprise me.”
I catch Kurt’s scowl when I say this.
“But Tristan.” Kai goes to get a better look at the maps on the wall. “How did you come by these parchments? They’re not supposed to leave the Hall of Records.”
I tell her about Gregorious. The manic look in his eyes. The way he changed after drinking the water. The way I did, for a little bit. I roll my shoulder and remind myself that I’m clearly no longer impervious.
“He’s dead?” She sits back down, clutching her heart. “He was friends with my father. I remember the last time he came to visit us. They argued and my father sent me away to collect items from a shipwreck for study.”
I can practically feel her mind racing. She gets up and traces a hand over my crappy drawings of the oracles. “You didn’t say you found another oracle. The nautilus maid?”
“Nothing to say. She didn’t have a piece of the trident.” I say it so quickly that I can hear the guilt in my voice. But I agreed to kill her, or die myself.
“I don’t understand,” Kai says. “What makes you think I can help?”
I read the prophecy aloud.
“When known is the last son of kings,
Only the sea will remain.
The sky will shatter
And the king will rip the earth once more.
Beneath, the heart of the sea awakens.
When Death sets fire to Eternity,
The daughter of the sea weeps darkness
In darkness we will remain.”
I study her face as I say it. She’s more wonder-struck than frightened. Then a tiny smile plays on her lips, and I know she’s thinking what I’m thinking. “Can I ask what your theory is?”
Theory? I wouldn’t go that far. I don’t have theories. I have accidental enlightenments.
“Greg was in possession of powerfully healing water.” I pace back and forth in front of my parents, Gwen, Kai, and Kurt. “I drink it and for a little while, I heal like I’m in one of those fast-forward sessions on the Discovery Channel. This makes Shelly suggest I’ve already been to Eternity.
“Now I know it has to be a place because her sister Chrysilla, the nautilus maid, said that’s where she belongs. But oh no, my mom and Sir Doubts-alot over here think I’m wrong because it doesn’t fit in their old mer-textbooks.”