The Twice Lost

when they bust- ed me.”

Anais hesitated for a moment. But it was a relief to have someone speak to her so simply after all Moreland’s sadistic verbal contortions. “I knew her.” She pouted. “So? It’s not like Luce is going to get me out of here!”

She watched while the man in the chair nodded thoughtfully. “They’re holding you against your will? Yeah, well. Luce doesn’t even know we’re in here. Doesn’t look like there’s much she can do for either of us. But maybe we could help each other out.”

There was a shocked pause while Anais took this in. Her tightly coiled tail started to loosen and trail deeper in her tank. “Like how?”

“Well, maybe if I ever get out of here, I could let people know you’re trapped. Does anybody even know about this? How they’ve got you stuck in here?”

Anais gave a small yelp of surprise. This guy really was dumb enough to be Luce’s dad. “They’re never going to let you out! Are you stupid? They won’t let you out, unless . . .”

“What have they got in mind for me, Anais? They must have a pretty big reason for leaving me here with you like this.”

Anais looked at him, watching his wry cinnamon eyes and scruffy intensity. He should have seemed utterly contemptible, a bum and a lowlife, but Anais found that she didn’t quite see him that way. “You don’t actually look much like Luce.”

“Lucky for her, right?” the man asked. He grinned back at her. It was strange how relaxed he seemed in spite of his immobilized legs, his arms bound behind his back. “Yeah, Luce always looked like her mom, Alyssa. About as beautiful a girl as I ever saw. Before she went mermaid, Luce looked a little more—like, a quieter kind of pretty than her mom was. How about you?”

Anais jerked back a little. “What do you mean?”

“Who do you take after more? I mean, you had human parents and everything, right?”

He’d asked in the same casual, warm tone he’d used ever since they’d dragged him in here, but Anais couldn’t escape the feeling that the question was some kind of trick. “I don’t know!” Her voice came out in a thin squeal.

“You don’t know?” He considered that gravely. “You don’t know what your parents looked like, then?”

Anais didn’t answer. It wasn’t like she normally disliked thinking about her parents—they’d been rich and adoring, after all—but somehow now it bothered her to be reminded of them. Was her own father’s skeleton still clanking along the blue carpet of his office in their long-submerged yacht?

“How about Kathleen Lambert?” the man asked. His voice suddenly sounded flatter, as if he was suppressing his emotions. Anais felt an almost physical discomfort, as if the water of her tank was charged by a cold, jagged energy. “Did you come across her somehow? Like—” He stared at Anais then glanced searchingly around her tank. “Say, did you ever sing her any songs, maybe?”

Anais decided not to look at him anymore, and her mouth twitched up into an awkward smirk. Those two minutes were definitely up by now.

Even with her eyes averted, she could feel the man regarding her somberly. “That’s how it went down, then?” he asked. “They made you kill Kathleen, and now you’re supposed to do me, too? Not that I can get to an ocean too easy, tied up like this . . .”

“He doesn’t want you to drown.” Anais was surprised to hear herself mutter the words. “He wants you to go crazy.”

“Crazy, you say? So just don’t do it, Anais. You don’t really want to, do you? Look, I promise you I can fake crazy just fine. Then once I’m out I’ll tell everyone you’re in here. I’ll get you help. How ’bout that?”

“I have to do what he says,” Anais whispered. “If I don’t do it he’ll kill me, like he’ll drain my tank, or they’ll electrocute me, or . . .”

“You don’t have to. We can trick him.”

“I—” Anais was astounded by the words that had formed in her head. She didn’t want to say them, but they kept repeating in her thoughts, aching and clamorous. “I—but you won’t be able to tell Luce anything! You’ll just be a vegetable, like, too retarded to even talk!”

“I loved Kathleen. I want you to remember that forever, all right? I loved her.”

Anais couldn’t keep those insistent words quiet anymore—and they wouldn’t make any difference anyway. No one would ever know she’d said them. “Uh, tell Luce I’m sorry about this.”

Anais sang.

26 Lost Humans

Luce was secretly dismayed to see how quickly Nausicaa mastered singing to the water. Nausicaa was an amazing singer, but Luce had hoped that she might have trouble picking up this particular skill. Within three days Nausicaa was lifting waves big enough to curl over her head, and she’d already started training Opal, the blond metaskaza who’d traveled with her from Hawaii. Luce tried to focus on her work, on helping to train new arrivals and keeping up morale, but she couldn’t completely fight off a sneaking depression as she realized how soon Nausicaa would be leaving her.

On the fourth day after Nausicaa’s arrival, Luce woke in the late afternoon to find Imani next to her, looking concerned. “Hey, Luce? I’m afraid you’re going to be upset about this.”

Luce jerked upright and gazed helplessly through the azure-streaked shadows, searching for Nausicaa’s dark silhouette. “Is she gone?”

“She said to tell you goodbye. She said it would be easier for both of you if she left while you were asleep, but she’ll come back as soon as she can.”

“Why didn’t you wake me? What if something happens to her out there, and I never . . . Imani!”

Imani was stroking Luce’s arm, trying to calm her down, but it wasn’t working. “I . . . thought she might be right. And I thought it might be better for everybody else here too. I understand that Nausicaa’s incredibly important to you, more than any of us, but that hurts . . . some of the girls. And if they saw you get too upset about her leaving—I don’t know—it might be pretty bad.”

Luce groaned, thinking of Catarina. Cat had taken to sleeping in one of the other encampments ever since Nausicaa had showed up, singing on the shifts opposite Luce’s and conspicuously avoiding her. A few of the other lieutenants had been acting a bit edgy too. It was as if they thought Luce was committing a crime by loving Nausicaa as much as she did.

“I know it’s not fair,” Imani went on gently, almost as if she could hear Luce’s thoughts. “But it can’t just be about what you want, Luce. It has to be about what’s best for the Twice Lost Army, about keeping everyone together, okay? You have to at least act like you’re fine.”

Luce stared off, unable to reply. She knew Imani was right, but she still couldn’t help resenting what she was saying. Now that she was general she wasn’t allowed to cry or break down just because of how other mermaids might feel about that? Since when did she not have a right to her own emotions?

“It’s going to be time pretty soon for our shift,” Imani pursued, still stroking Luce’s arm. “You look tired. You need to eat, and you need to be strong for us. When the war is over you can scream at me for this or cry or do whatever you need to, and I promise I won’t complain.”

Luce turned to look at Imani, with her midnight face and searching eyes. Blue light curled like feathers on her dark cheeks. “I’m sorry, Imani.”

“Why?”

“If I’m acting so wrong that you think I’d ever want to scream at you, I must be . . .” Really selfish, Luce thought, but instead of saying the words aloud she shook herself. “We need to get to the bridge early, anyway. We should see if there’s any news . . . about the letter.” Ever