The Twice Lost

The papers fluttered in front of Luce. She read them through, still feeling weary and doubtful. Her lieutenants began whispering. Of course, Luce thought, they were impatient to get this all over with. The black letters winked like fish in a moon-colored sea. There was President Leopold’s jagged signature, and there was the line for hers. Seb smiled wryly—or was that a grimace?—as he handed her a pen.

She signed.

Around Luce mermaids started cheering and clapping. Even most of the Secret Service men applauded. “Time to lower the wave, Luce?” Yuan asked giddily. “I’ve got it all figured out. I’ll pull one singer out every few minutes so the water level has plenty of time to adjust without causing any problems. We’ll do this nice and slow and safe. It will probably take all night, but then damn will it be time for a party! Sound good?”

Luce couldn’t even answer. She just nodded.

The cries of celebration were spreading from hill to hill. Mermaids spun high in the air, shrieking and laughing. People had started dancing on the bridge, and Luce saw a few mermaids who had swum to the top of the wave trying to leap far enough into the air to exchange high-fives with the humans leaning against the railings. Cars honked, and soon the uproar spread from the bridge and across the city until the entire bay seemed to reverberate like an immense liquid drum. Everyone was delirious with joy.

Everyone except her. Luce made herself go through the motions, first shaking hands with dozens of excited humans and wishing them all a good evening, then trying to look happy when her friends launched themselves at her in wild hugs that sometimes turned into playful wrestling or sent her tumbling through lilac-gray water.

The Twice Lost had won, more or less. They’d won against incredible odds, and for the first time in history mermaids and humans were reconciled. They were right to be ecstatic.

The problem for Luce was that she couldn’t forget the price they’d paid for their victory. As soon as she thought no one was looking, she slipped away, skimming recklessly out toward the open sea. She hadn’t swum out into the savage waters far beyond the shelter of the bay since the night when the submarines had attacked the Twice Lost—not since she’d seen Bex cut in half by a spurt of machine gun fire. Even now Luce didn’t really know how many mermaids had died that night: dozens of girls were still missing, but there was no way to determine who was dead and who was simply hiding.

At first the song of the Twice Lost still purled around her. It curled and ebbed like a second ocean made of music, a timbre that infused the waves and answered their secret songs. Then she went on, and the music slowly faded out behind her.

And as she swam she kept noticing something that looked like a golden lantern trailing ribbons of light. It kept pace with her the way the moon does, only it followed her through deep sea rather than clear sky. It would vanish for long stretches as if disappearing behind rooftops or trees, then Luce would catch sight of it sailing along beneath her again.

The fifth time she saw it, she understood what it was: the face of a sleeping girl, her long golden hair rippling in her wake like tentacles. The face wasn’t attached to a body, but its expression offered a sense of enveloping peace.

Anais, Luce realized. She didn’t know if the fact that she was seeing Anais meant her mind was going. And it was astounding to see Anais looking so utterly serene, so sweetly transfigured . . .

The face blinked away again. There was only a hint of golden rivulets, a subtle fluctuation as if the darkness was straining to remember the glow it had held moments before. Maybe the face was behind something, a stingray or a tangle of kelp? Luce didn’t know how far she’d gone beyond the bridge, but her body was rocked by deep swells again, disorienting after the calm enclosed waters of the bay. The pressure thickened as she swam deeper, layers of sea heaping above her back.

The golden girl reappeared, lambent and drowsy and still somehow precisely the same distance away from Luce, although she had to be much farther from the surface now. Anais’s face guttered, its deep internal light disturbed by a play of darkness. For an instant Luce thought that Anais’s lips were moving, as if she was murmuring something in her sleep.

Rationally, of course, Luce knew that Anais was dead. Her lifeless body was thousands of miles away from the surging Pacific. Even now scientists might be stroking her flesh with shining blades, opening her cold chest to search for any sign that she’d been anything but human. Whatever she was seeing, Luce reminded herself, it wasn’t actually Anais.

She could tell herself that, but she couldn’t persuade her heart that it was true. She couldn’t stifle her longing to know what Anais was saying and to talk with her one last time. Maybe, now that they’d both lost so much, they would finally make sense to each other.

“Anais?” Luce called. Even the dusk light was gone now, crushed by the enormity of the water above. Night saturated the deepening brine, and an immense weight began to squeeze Luce’s ribs from all sides at once. “Anais? Can you wake up? There’s something I need to tell you.”

But what? Luce thought. Anais had saved her own life, though only for a time, by betraying her fellow mermaids. She’d murdered larvae, she’d tried to kill Dorian, and she’d deliberately shattered Luce’s father’s mind. But somehow, unfathomably, Luce couldn’t make herself feel any anger toward her old enemy. All she wanted was to heal the hatred between them, soothe the malice Anais had felt toward Luce ever since—

Ever since Luce had helped transform Anais into a mermaid. It had been the only way to stop Catarina from drowning her, but still . . . All at once Luce understood what was troubling her, what made her blood fight inside her as she stared at those always- retreating, gold-lashed eyelids: whatever Anais had done, Luce’s own choice was at the root of it.

“Is that why you hated me?” Luce asked softly. “Because I changed you, and maybe you would have rather died the way you were?”

Anais’s lids fluttered at bit as if she were gliding through the fringed edge of a dream. Her long hair waved as if it was trying to communicate with an unknown but graceful sign language. Luce had completely forgotten how far she was from the surface now, or at least she didn’t care. Anais had something to say to her, something important, and this was their final chance to forgive each other.

“Anais?” Luce called again. The sullen weight of the water gripped her body. It kneaded the air from her lungs and mashed own her scales against her flesh until they felt like biting coins. “If that’s the reason . . . everything went so wrong, then I’m really sorry. I’m sorry for everything that happened to you because of me. Please . . .”

Anais blinked dark and gold, dark and gold. Her eyes finally opened, but they were the whitish blue of nimbus clouds and seemed perfectly blind. The last time Luce saw her she was smiling.

Smiling like an evil dream. Luce’s lungs were burning.

Well, she told herself, you said you didn’t care what happened to you, Lucette. Not as long as you could end the war.

40 The Forever World

“So she went off to get some sleep, Cala,” Yuan said a little brusquely. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Luce has been seriously burned out ever since those mermaids got pulled out of the water. Whatever. I wish she’d stayed up to celebrate with us tonight too, but it’s more important for her to rest.” Yuan and Cala were hovering ten feet below the surface. Through the thick rippling ceiling above them the wave-wall appeared like a long rag of glowing lace. It was already significantly lower. Yuan had been gradually removing singers from the line for hours, and Cala thought Yuan’s nerves must be fraying from overwork and exhaustion.

“She isn’t in her hammock,” Cala said. “I checked there first. Yuan, I know you’re busy! I wouldn’t bother you if this wasn’t serious.”

“Then she’s with Dorian. Good, I like him. I think he’ll really help her recover from all this craziness.” Yuan’s lips pinched as she surveyed the line of mermaids. “Awright, that’s been long enough since the last one. Hey, Eileen? Lower your voice nice and slowly, okay? You’re done here.”