shoots up. Their voices are a mixture of curses and explanations of how they were wronged. But mostly curses. Jesse uses his hands and shushes them like children.
“Don’t mind the young soldier,” Jesse says. “He was raised to lead the Sea Guard. He could never understand us.”
Kurt’s head looks like it might pop right off his head with how angry he is. “What is there to understand?”
“That we were once sea creatures, like all of you. Some, like Penny and her little turtle boy, were born on land. Her mother was a cephalo-maid. Her father human. Her mother, ripped of her ability to shift, was left on land to raise a child she could never explain. She died when Penny was only twelve, and Penny’s father left her in an orphanage. It wasn’t until she found some of us that she could truly know what she was, who she came from.
“Ben, over there. His parents were part of the first rebellion. And now he’s banished from court. As his children will be. And their grandchildren and so on, until the blood of the sea is no longer in their veins.”
Ben crosses his arms. His muscles strain against the fine tailored suit. “I’ve got too much invested in my firm to have kids, anyway.”
Jesse murmurs a curse under his breath. “Really? I’m trying to prove a point here.”
He swipes at his watery nose with the back of his hand. Despite my really casual pose, I force myself not to recoil as he walks up to me, twirling that dart. He smiles with his horse teeth. “Do you know how your grandfather punished me? He took his trident and stuck it right in my spine. The pain was ghastly. I could barely swim to shore. I was lucky. Some of the others got eaten up by the shark guard who, by the way, weren’t fed for a week just for that purpose.
“They never had a chance. Sitting here, underground, we still don’t have a chance. Up there, we’re deformed, forever bartering with tricksy court fairies for their glamours because we have no protection of our own.”
“You have protection,” Kurt says.
“The tithes? Giving what little we have for safety from each other?” Jesse laughs. The sound is brittle, broken, like taking a hammer to glass. “Do you suppose all of us can survive as humans? Ben, he can hide his ears with that mop of his. Penny can shift back and forth from her tentacles. What about the rest? Jim and the flashlight on his forehead? Alice and her crocodile eyes?
“It’s time for a change. I’ve watched us dig our way deeper and deeper under this city, and the tunnels are giving out. How much farther can we burrow?”
“What is it you want?” It’s my turn.
“We want what the Sea Court has.” He walks back to the center of the stage. “We want a fair chance.”
The wood sinks under our weight. When I’m this close to him, I can see the eternity in his eyes. They’re black as oil slicks. “Don’t forget my mother was just like the rest of you.”
“Princess Maia knows nothing of our suffering. The Sea King made the change easy for her. He gave her gold. She had her beauty. Her human lover. She had you. We didn’t have the luxury you’ve been given, and yet you’re technically still one of us.” He puts an arm around me and I suppress a shiver. His skin is clammy and cold, but there’s a spark at his fingertips. “How do you suppose you’ll rule at court and not know the Rites of Summer? The way to control the island? The names of every merman and maid that breaks themselves to build your castles, your thrones, your weapons. How will you know?”
My heart is racing. His voice has swallowed all our breaths as he inhales steadily, calming. I look out at the motley crew of the landlocked. There’s hatred in their eyes and I know it comes from Jesse. This is what he’s good at—filling people with hate.
“I have no way of knowing what your lives are like,” I say, “and Jesse’s right. In many ways, you have been forgotten.” In the back, Adaro and Sarabell don’t like that I’ve said that. “But in a couple of days, there might not be a Sea Court to go back to.”
Jesse’s eyes light up.
“This right here,” I say, “is the city you’ve called your home. Imagine it all gone. Swallowed up by an army