The Twice Lost

buildings, almost as if her lost memory might reappear in one of those broken windows. She shook her head. “I apologize. Where have we met? I can’t recall.”

“You can’t recall?” Catarina simpered the words mockingly. “I suppose you can’t recall Queen Marina, either?”

“Marina, yes, of course. I have not traveled through her territory for some time, however. Do you have news of her?” Nausicaa looked at Catarina again. “You were in Marina’s tribe, once? Oh . . . perhaps I do remember something of you . . .”

“Marina’s been dead for twenty-five years.”

“I am sorry ..”

“And she never should have trusted you!”

There was a swing and a clap of Catarina’s bronze-gold fins, and she was gone.

The silence that followed lasted much too long—and Luce found herself wondering if Catarina’s words had really been as spontaneous and emotional as they seemed. Maybe she’d been calculating the best way to make everyone suspicious of Nausicaa before they even got to know her.

Yuan was the one who rose to the occasion. Her jealous look was gone, and she grinned at Nausicaa with distinctly forced lightness. “Hey, sorry about that, Nausicaa. Cat’s just being like that. She’s not completely down with all the big changes around here, and she’s kind of been getting moody a lot.”

Nausicaa shook her head. “I should speak with her. I am not entirely sure if I deserve her anger. But thank you for your welcome. You are?”

“Yuan.” A quick shiver of hesitation followed, almost too brief to be noticeable. “And if you’re Luce’s friend, then we’re all really happy to have you.”

Luce looked at Yuan, unsure if she’d heard a tiny hint of emphasis on the word “if.” She decided to ignore it. “Yuan’s in charge of organizing the Twice Lost Army, Nausicaa. And she’s brilliant at it. And . . . she’s one of my best friends, too.” It was true, Luce realized, but that wasn’t why she’d chosen this particular moment to come out and say it.

Yuan flashed Luce a look, warm but also a little sardonic. Then she flurried into action, introducing everyone to Nausicaa, reminding some mermaids that they should return to the bridge for the rest of their shift and others that they should go and get some sleep.

When almost everyone had gone, Yuan clocked her head at Nausicaa. “So, Nausicaa? Did Luce already teach you how to sing to the water? ’Cause if you’re with us, that’s the first order of business.”

“Of course. But I have yet to learn this skill, Yuan.”

Yuan was nodding. “You’ll be studying with the best! Well, I’ll leave you guys to it. And Luce? You’re excused from your next shift. I won’t expect you at the bridge until six in the evening, okay?”

Luce gazed at Yuan for a moment then splashed over to hug her. She knew Yuan was still fighting a twinge of jealousy, and it was incredibly generous of her to offer Luce extra time with Nausicaa this way. “I’d be setting a really bad example if I did that, though, Yuan. I’ll be there at six in the morning.”

Yuan shrugged, but she looked pleased. “See you soon, then. God, I’m only going to get like three hours of sleep.”

Then Luce was alone with Nausicaa in a night filled with hovering lights, the breathing sounds of cars on distant highways, the dark scrolls of indigo clouds. A light rain was just starting to fall. They stared at each other: those were really the same blackish eyes with their look of ironic wisdom, really the same smile turned a bit grim with the weight of centuries, and the same wonderfully unpredictable intelligence sparking behind those features.

Luce realized she’d always assumed that Nausicaa had simply seen too much and grown too jaded to feel the same depth of love that Luce felt for her. She was thinking of that when Nausicaa let out a short astonished laugh and threw her arms around Luce’s shoulders, squeezing her tight. “My dearest, bravest Queen Luce. With all the languages I know added together, I don’t seem to find enough words!”

Luce buried her face against Nausicaa’s cool shoulder. “I wish you wouldn’t call me that, Nausicaa. You know I’m never going to be Queen anything.”

“But Luce,” Nausicaa murmured, “it has taken me these three thousand years to find the mermaid whom I wish to call my queen. How can you deny me that joy?”

No matter how many times she’d been lost, Luce thought, she was suddenly even more found.

As long as Nausicaa was with her, she was found.

* * *

They settled on the shore under the pier, rain seeping in slow trickles between the planks and pocking the drowsy water. Luce poured out the story of all the events that occurred after Nausicaa had left Alaska. Somehow Luce didn’t mind talking about Dorian with Nausicaa, and she told her everything: how she’d been driven away from him by the encroaching ice, how she’d been swept out to sea in a storm and then found her father miraculously alive but enthralled by spirits on a remote island. She told Nausicaa how the long effort to free her father from that enchantment had made her late in returning to Dorian, and how he’d betrayed her for a human girlfriend rather than wait. How very close she’d come to killing him in her heartbreak. How she’d tried to warn her old tribe away from the area, only to find that they’d returned to their cave after Anais murdered a mermaid from Sedna’s tribe.

Then how, as she was still stunned by Dorian’s betrayal, she’d found her former tribe slaughtered, their cave dripping with fresh blood.

Nausicaa had asked very few questions while Luce spoke, only held her and sometimes nodded. After all, nothing about the story surprised her; she’d even predicted Dorian’s treachery before it happened.

But at Luce’s account of finding the torn and partly dismembered bodies of the mermaids she’d once lived with, Nausicaa was suddenly sharply alert. “That sika,” Nausicaa growled. “Was she among the dead?”

“Anais? She must have been! Nausicaa, there were bodies all over the place. I saw faces split in half. I saw—”

“But did you see Anais? See her there, clearly dead, her body reverted to human form? If you did not notice her distinctly enough for her name to arise in your mind . . .”

Luce didn’t want to search her memories of what she’d found in that cave. “What does that matter? Nausicaa, they killed everyone. I couldn’t think about names!”

“A sika will always find a way to save herself, Luce. If you did not remark her face among the dead, we must believe she lives.”

Luce stared. It took her a moment to process Nausicaa’s words. “I guess . . . it could be possible. But even if she did escape, it’s hard to see why that matters now. With the tribe dead, she can’t really hurt them anymore.”

“It might matter very much, Luce. It depends on the price that Anais paid for her life. It was likely bought at a cost no decent mermaid would consider.”

“You mean . . .”

“Luce. What happened next?”

Luce was suddenly finding it hard to concentrate. It took a huge effort to focus her mind and keep up the story. How the silent black boat appeared and the divers fired on her before she knew what was happening. How in the impulse of her rage and terror she’d called the wave and flung the boat furiously against the cliff, then fled in a daze to warn as many mermaids as she could. Her hallucinations and the encounter with the school of huge squids, her collapse, those humans holding a camera.

J’aime’s cave. The massacre there. Then what Luce overheard about the divers’ search for one mermaid in particular—her—and how they seemed to know far too much about her.

How she’d concluded that Dorian must have informed on her—and thereby placed other mermaids in the line of fire.

Nausicaa was already shaking her head, her fins flicking with impatience. “It was Anais who told them of you! Luce, this only proves to me that she still lives—perhaps as a captive. How has your pride kept you from seeing something so obvious as this!”

“What makes you think it wasn’t Dorian? Nausicaa, I didn’t want to believe he could do something like that either, but . . .”