Maybe it’s his sharp blue eyes, maybe it’s that he dresses like
something out of a Jane Austen novel, or maybe it’s the slightest
trace of an accent. Whatever it is, the class is transfixed by his
words.
Kurt shakes his head at me. It’s not like I’m going to pull off
clothes to show my Spider Man costume and reveal my true identity or
anything.
Thankfully, Layla asks for me: “Did he just go up to an oracle and
ask?”
“If only it were as easy as that. It’s not the high-school
cafeteria where you ask Lourdes for extra fries and she gives them to
you. You present the oracle with a tribute, and if she’s in a good
mood, then she may give you an answer.”
“What kind of tribute?” I go. And they say you’ll never learn
anything useful in high school.
People start to whisper. He’s so weird. Good thing he’s cute. Can
you believe those are his cousins? I don’t care what anyone says,
green hair is so clichйd.
“Half your herd of cows. Your second wife. The blood of a virgin.
The usual.”
The sharp whistle of microphone feedback slices through the
loudspeaker. A small voice announces that all after-school activities
are canceled. I know we have a meet tomorrow and all, but my head’s
not in it right now.
Just then a sweet, soft hum fills the room. At first we look to
the speakers, because it’s not the first time the announcer has left
on the microphone while he’s jamming to his new-millennium pop
collection. This time it’s different. The temperature in the room
rises. The sound is like a lullaby, a pitch that wraps around you and
leads you wherever it wants.
Van Oppen smacks a book against the desk. “Whoever that is, please
turn it off. Now!”
But it isn’t coming from in here. It’s coming from the hallway.
There’s a hole in my stomach when I fear that somehow Nieve has found
a way to get me, that my dream after I fought Elias is coming true. I
grab my bag for my dagger at the same moment that the door flies open.
My breath is caught in my throat.
I hold on to my desk, because I feel as if I’m trying to wake up
from a nightmare.
She fluffs her messy white-blond hair, stepping into the room in a
slinky black dress under a bright pink motorcycle jacket and heels
that look like they’re made of sequins and glitter.
Elias’s fiancйe.
“Hi.” She leans against the doorframe. Her gray eyes find mine
without even searching the room. “I’m Gwen. Tristan’s cousin.”
They say the sea is cold, but the sea contains the hottest blood
of all, and the wildest, the most urgent. -D. H. Lawrence
Gwen.
So that’s her name. So sorry about your future husband, Gwen. It
wasn’t my fault. There’s this sea witch, you see?
“Don’t forget about us.” A sharp soprano voice echoes through the
hallway. Behind Gwen is a cluster of girls, girls I’ve only seen as
mermaids.
The court princesses are at my school. It’s one thing for me to
have this secret I can barely keep from my friends; now I have to deal
with the rest of the school. I’m halfway sitting, halfway standing.
“What are you guys doing here?”
“Come, now, Tristan.” Gwen steps forward. “That’s no way to treat
your family.” She hands Van Oppen a piece of paper, along with a smile
that would have most men on their knees pledging their love for her.
Not me, of course.
From where I stand, it’s just a blank piece of paper, but he nods
with a tense smile and tucks it in with his other papers mumbling
something that sounds like “more of them.”
As the princesses walk in, there isn’t a single person who isn’t
staring at them. The glamours may disguise their naturally raw colors
and their flawless faces. But nothing can disguise their hourglass
figures as they move through the desk aisles like snakes in the
desert.
There are four of them, from the princess with a lush head of
chestnut waves who wears a shirt so tiny she might as well be wearing
two clam shells on her breasts, to the one with ivory skin and
plum-purple hair gathered in a bun. Like Thalia, nothing disguises the
slight point to their ears or the gem-like eyes that glance giddily
around the classroom.
“Dude,” Angelo goes, “can I come to your next Christmas party?”
Sure, if Christmas is going to be ten thousand leagues under the
sea and Rudolph is going to be a sea horse named Atticus.
Gwen takes the empty seat behind me just as the bell rings. I get
up right away, because part of me is afraid she’s going to take out a
knife and stab me in the back. She thinks I killed her fiancйe, and
now she’s going to try to kill me on my own turf.
My classmates stand aside to let Gwen leave first. I lean against
the lockers just outside the door, and she stands in front of me. The
metal bits of her leather jacket clink, clink . The gray of her eyes
is harsh, and they’re set on my face. Still, when she smiles,
everything about her softens.
“I’m guessing this isn’t your first time on land,” I say.
She shakes her head slowly. “I’ve got a few years on you,
foot-fin.”
“You’re not allowed to call me that.”
“I can do whatever I want.” She crosses her arms over her chest,
which pushes her cleavage up and out. Not that I’m noticing or
anything.
“What do you think you’re doing here?”
She shrugs. “It’s tradition for eligible princesses to seek a
champion for courtship. Brendan and Dylan are being visited by dozens
of mermaids from every inch of the seas. Technically, I’m betrothed,
so I don’t have to be here. But my fiancй’s gone missing because of
some half-breed claiming the throne.”
Fine. If she wants to go that route. “I’m flattered you’ve chosen
me to rebound on, especially after what you did to your champion.”
If she weren’t already so white, I’d say she goes pale at that.
But the shock that registers on her face is all the proof I need that
she helped Layla win, that she did something to Elias, which makes her
guiltier than it makes me.
“That’s right, Princess. I know .”
She purses her full pink lips, seething. For a moment, I think
she’s going to hit me, but she just turns on her heel and struts down
the hall as if she’s done it a hundred times before.
When the other princesses come out, they walk past and touch my
face and poke my abs and my butt. The one with the plum-purple hair
tries to go right for the goods, and then the princesses disappear.
They mingle into the flow of students. Angelo pushes past me, hot on
the trail of a girl who could probably eat him alive in a second, not
that he’d complain.
At the first glimpse of Kurt’s face, I throw my hands in the air
and yell at him. “I have to court the princesses? Why didn’t you tell
me?”
He seems as surprised as I am. “I honestly didn’t remember that
part of the championship. I didn’t think they’d be interested in you.”
“ Thanks . I really feel the love, bro.”
“That’s not what I meant. I meant that you’re human. Part human. I
should’ve taken into account that you’re the grandson of the king. The
princesses are sort of-”
“Shallow?” Layla suggests, seemingly too happy at my misery.
“I’ve swum in deeper puddles than them,” Thalia snarls. “They
don’t want mates, they want meals.”
“Cool, so mergirls are easy,” Layla says. She shoots a finger
toward me. “Hey! That explains you.”
When I don’t laugh, she pats Thalia’s shoulder. “No offense.”
“None taken. I absolutely loathe those girls.” Her cheeks puff up.