The Twice Lost

flying blots of foam. Luce felt herself flushing under the heat of hundreds of stares. She’d hurt Catarina so terribly once before by showing off like this, and now she’d made an even bigger display of herself. She wouldn’t have blamed anyone there for thinking she was nothing but an embarrassing egomaniac.

Now the clatter of falling water was fading. The silence seemed so dense and pressing that Luce half imagined it would be impossible to move until someone spoke.

“Luce?” The voice was Catarina’s, very soft. “How did you . . . I know your gift, but that was . . .”

“It’s not a gift, Cat,” Luce murmured defensively. “It’s just something I taught myself how to do, and—and other mermaids can learn it, too.”

“That’s why the divers want to kill you even more than the rest of us?” Imani whispered. Her eyes were wide and starry, staring around at the drifting whorls of foam.

“They want to kill me because I smashed their boat,” Luce said. She barely registered her own voice. “After they murdered everyone in my old tribe, I called a wave that threw their boat into a cliff.”

There was another lull. Luce shifted uncomfortably, wishing she could leave.

“Well . . .” Catarina was pulling herself together now. “I don’t see how anyone could, but . . . is there anyone here who doesn’t agree? Luce has to be our queen from now on. Even if she did break the timahk.”

Something in Luce hardened; her chest knotted with the urge to resist. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but she was sure that what Cat was saying was wrong somehow.

“A twice lost queen for the twice lost mermaids,” Yuan mused morosely. “And at least she can fight. I guess I agree . . .”

That is no one’s queen, Dana had once said of Luce. Dana’d been in a rage at the time, but hadn’t she been right anyway?

“Cat?” Luce said suddenly. “I don’t agree.”

“LUCE!” Cat’s voice whiplashed through the cool night.

“No—I mean—I never wanted to be queen, Cat! I always told you that. We’ve had queens for thousands of years, and—and everything has to be different now! But if everyone really wants me to, I’ll be something else.”

Luce was quiet for a moment. She was thinking of her father, remembering something he’d said to her years before. Then she’d really been the person Catarina imagined: clean and innocent and honorable—all those things she couldn’t possibly be any longer. But still . . .

Catarina moaned impatiently. “Then what are you, Luce?”

He’d said, You’re my secret weapon, honey. You’ve got the mind of a great—

“General,” Luce announced, looking up. Her mouth suddenly curved into an irrepressible smile, and she didn’t feel nearly as embarrassed anymore. “I am the mermaids’ general.”

Murmuring spread like a wave through the assembled mermaids. Imani looked dismayed, but Yuan’s tail flicked with excitement. “Because this is war!”

“Yes,” Luce said softly. “This is war. They’re trying to kill all of us.”

She inhaled hard, doing her best to gather her strength. In a minute she’d have to start explaining how she wanted to do things. Even if they were impressed by her now, very soon they would regard her as a traitor. The sky above was suffocated by clouds and darkness dragged at the waves.

“And maybe they will, but we’ll take millions of them with us!” Yuan trilled. Her eyes were shining, her movements quickening like fire.

“Luce, is this really . . .” Imani started, and broke off.

“If I’m going to be general, though,” Luce went on, trying not to think about what would happen next, “we need new rules. We need a new timahk, and we’re not going to do things the same way we used to. I’m only staying if everyone will follow my—” Luce couldn’t quite make herself say the next word, but Yuan did it for her.

“War is war! We have to be strict about it! Of course we’ll follow orders!”

“Okay, then.” Luce braced herself. “No killing humans.”

A wild clamor of voices broke out, just as Luce had known it would. Catarina’s eyebrows shot up, Yuan’s mouth gaped as if she was choking, and someone Luce didn’t know was shouting, “She’s crazy! She’s totally crazy!” But Imani was smiling to herself in a way that let Luce know this was exactly what she’d wished for. Not everyone was rushing to condemn her. Some of the faces around Luce were enraged, but others looked confused, or curious, or even hopeful.

“No killing? Just when we’re starting a war?” Yuan shrieked indignantly. “But how?”

“How many thousands of humans have mermaids drowned?” Luce demanded. To her surprise the pandemonium quieted a little. Was everyone actually prepared to listen to her? “We’ve been sinking their ships for centuries now, doing the same thing over and over again, and it hasn’t helped anything, or changed anything, or even made us feel any better! It’s not like we’ve protected other girls from being hurt the way we were, because there are new mermaids all the time! All we’ve done is convince the humans that they have to wipe us out.”

“War, Luce . . .” It was Catarina. “I know you’ve said before that you think we shouldn’t . . . humans . . . I really couldn’t take you seriously . . . But even if you do believe humans deserve to live, well, war is no time to be insisting on this . . . this wild idealism!”

Luce wondered if Catarina was right, but she didn’t care. If leading the twice lost mermaids meant committing more reckless murders, she knew she wouldn’t be able to stand it. “A new kind of war, Cat! We need a way to protect ourselves, and—and I can teach everyone to control the water the same way I do.” Luce desperately hoped she was telling the truth about this, but after all, Dana and Violet had learned. It must be possible. “But if I do that, I have to know no one will use their power to kill unless they absolutely have to, in self-defense, or if it’s the only way to save another mermaid. There can’t be any more killing for fun, or for revenge.”

“This is ridiculous,” Yuan snarled.

“You said you’d follow orders,” Luce snapped back, then had to fight to keep from grinning in surprise at herself. Where had this sudden confidence come from? “You saw what I can do. I’ve proved I have the right to be in charge, and if you can’t accept that”—Luce looked around— “then I’m going. I won’t lead this war in any other way.”

The silence stiffened as Luce waited for Yuan to turn away in contempt, for a clamor of voices to tell her that they didn’t need a pathetic freak like her as their leader and she should just get lost and never come back.

It didn’t happen.

She kept waiting, half-eager for the blasting anger that would free her from responsibility for these strangers. But it just didn’t come.

The crowd of mermaids stayed quiet. Dozens of faces glowed softly, lofting up and down on the foam- streaked waves, and while some of them were biting their lips or grimacing, no one said a word. Luce could hardly believe it.

“Well, generalissima,” Catarina purred sarcastically, “then doing things your way is the only choice we really have, isn’t it?”

Luce’s first impulse was to feel wounded by the edge in Cat’s voice until she saw how proudly her former queen was looking at her. But there was something else in Cat’s gaze as well: a tension, a coiling darkness.

“Cat . . .” Luce suddenly felt horribly shy again. “But . . . I mean, I need to know . . . Does everyone here agree? No more killing people?” She didn’t sound anything like a general, Luce thought. She sounded like a nervous child. Luce made an effort to sharpen her tone. “Is there anyone here who isn’t willing to follow me on my terms? Um, raise your hands.”

A few mermaids fidgeted, their elbows shifting up slightly. Then they glanced around and lowered them.

“We need her,” a pale stranger said. “She’s right: until she teaches us how to do what she can, it’ll be a total disaster if they find us! Right now we’re all basically waiting to die.”

Of course; that was the only reason most of them were prepared to go along with her bizarre ideas. Luce