Aether caught up with us in the town square, deserted under the cover of night.
He was alone.
"Aether!" Solara called. "Where's August?!"
Aether looked behind him like he wasn't sure how he got here. "What?" He sounded dazed.
I grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him. "Snap out of it!" I pleaded. "Where is August?"
His expression cleared and then hardened. He slapped my hands away and stepped back. "What is wrong with you? Didn't you see anything that happened? Didn't any of you?!"
I opened my mouth to answer, but he kept talking.
"And it all makes sense! I didn't know where he was from, he spoke a foreign language, he spoke the same language as..." Aether stopped. Drawing his sword, he was turned on Fire and Finn in an instant. "You two! You're both merfolk!"
I couldn't help it, neither could everyone else. We withdrew from them.
"Now, now," Fire said, putting her finger on the tip of the sword and moving it away. "Let's not jump to any conclusions..."
"Fire," Finn cut in warningly. "Don't be dumb."
"It's true, isn't it?" Aether pressed.
"Maybe a little bit." Fire shrugged, but took a step back.
"Yes," Aether growled. "Or no?"
Finn looked at Fire. They both put their hands up. "Yes."
Aether was about to do something drastic. He couldn't see sense through the fire in his eyes. He pulled back his sword.
"That's enough!"
Everyone froze. Melody was standing in front of both of them, her arms wide, feet planted. Her sword was drawn.
"Melody. Move." I felt that chill from over here.
Melody took a deep breath. "I promised that I would never defy you when I signed up for the army...but I have to now. I'm sorry, Aether, but I'm not going to move."
Aether's sword wobbled, and then it fell to the ground with a clang. He wasn't angry at all, I realized. He was grieving and trying to cover it up. He was betrayed and hurt. He didn't say anything.
Lightly, I touched his shoulder. "Hey. Let's go back to the cottage."
In the tiniest, most broken voice imaginable, he said, "Yeah."
We walked. Solara looked plain surprised, but not very partial to either side. When she saw my quizzical look, she just said, "Kavan is landlocked. We didn't really participate in the Merfolk Hunt."
What about me, I wondered? Was I angry? Sure, I was surprised. But it wasn't a secret I was the mom friend on this ragtag group of royal odds and ends. This was like a mother learning that her kid had been behaving very, very badly. Upsetting? You bet. Would the kid get a talking to? Fire and Finn certainly would. But I wasn't going to disown them for this.
I'd lived with these people for maybe a month at most, and yet...they had started feeling like family. They weren't evil. They were scared. Of course. August on the day we met- his trembling, his wide eyes, his sheer terror. Of course.
The woman, Coral, was leaning heavily on Finn. He seemed to have trouble carrying her.
Finn looked back at Alaric, and my gaze followed. Alaric was walking alone, arms crossed. He looked up at Finn. His expression was impossible to read. Finn, distracted, caught his foot on a rock and tripped, almost taking Coral down with him.
Quick as an arrow, Alaric darted forward and caught the woman's wrist as Finn managed to regain his balance. I wondered if Alaric had helped on purpose or by instinct and I watched, tense, for his reaction.
I watched Alaric slip under her other arm to offer more support.
"Here, ma'am," he said, polite as always. "Let me help you."
"O-oh?" Coral said. "And who might you be?"
"My name is Alaric Browne."
Coral's eyebrows went up. "So you're Alaric! August told me about you." She glanced at Finn with a sly smile. Finn rolled his eyes and looked away.
"He did?" Alaric sounded a bit cagey but lit up like a candle nonetheless. "What did he say?"
"Uh, nothing much. He said you managed to...befriend...my son. Which is pretty hard. He's kind of a handful."
"I have two hands!" Alaric replied.
Coral's eyes narrowed. "Impossible. No one this nice can like my son. Not in this world."
"Thank...you?" Alaric laughed.
"Mom!" Finn complained, and the tone of embarrassment was so familiar, so us, that I found myself wondering how different merfolk could possibly be.
"Much more than half of our population doesn't like you," Alaric pointed out. He wasn't looking at Finn and it was hard to tell if Alaric was actually talking to him. But he certainly didn't specify if he was in that more than half of the population.
I looked forward to Spring and ran to catch up.
"M-miss Spring?" I asked. She didn't look at me, just tipped her head to acknowledge my presence.
"Are you merfolk?" I asked.
She sighed. "No. I'm a Dominguist, you know, from up in the mountains of East Veile? We speak all languages." She paused, then continued. "One day walking by the beach on a visit to Verara, I heard an interesting language, and found a gathering of landfolk and merfolk on the beach."
"I didn't know they used to do that!" I exclaimed. The idea of a gathering where we (landfolk?) mingled with merfolk without killing them was incredibly bizarre.
"Nowadays it seems unlikely we'll ever go back to that kind of acceptance," Spring murmured. "Like I was saying, I joined in on the festivities, and that's where I met Bay. He was my husband and August's father."
Was?
"A merfolk- sweet and funny and kind. I miss him so much. He died when the Merfolk Massacre started. Then I had to stay away because people realized I had a close connection with merfolk. They hoped to find some by following me, which is why I left August in the care of my best friend." She angled her head to Coral, who was now stubbornly trying to walk without aid. She certainly reminded me of Finn.
I remembered Finn screaming for her back in the palace.
Maybe merfolk were more human than I'd thought?
There was a long silence. The moon hung frozen in the sky.
"I'm tired," Spring said.
I nodded quickly. "Of course. I'm sorry."
I ran over to Melody. "Mel!" I said, prompting her to look at me. "Can I please ask you something?"
"Oh..." Melody swallowed and moved to stand a little more in front of Fire. "Yeah. Sure."
"You knew, didn't you?"
"Pardon?"
"You knew," I repeated. "You already knew about August and Finn and Fire. Right?"
Melody sighed and dipped her head. "How do you always know?"
"I know you. You are, after maybe Aether, the slowest to trust people out of everyone I know. This," I waved my hand to Melody standing guard in front of Fire. "Wouldn't happen unless you knew something important."
Melody shrugged. "You've got me. Are you mad?"
"Maybe... actually, no," I answered. "I can't say that I am."
***
Half an hour after we were back at the cottage, Finn and Fire came out of their rooms with a small number of things. Finn was leading Coral by the arm. Wordlessly they walked to the door and opened it. Spring and Darius, the man who hadn't said much since we'd met him, were trailing behind.
"Hey, wait!" I called.
They looked back at me.
Alaric dropped his book, the one he had been pretending to read, and jumped over the sofa. "Where are you all going?"
"Home," Fire answered softly.
Even Aether was watching from the shadows of the room.
"Why?" Solara asked. "Don't you...but..."
Finn grumbled. "Listen, there's nothing here for us anymore, okay? You might as well get the whole story, all right? Merfolk out of water can adopt a landfolk form. If our legs get hurt, we're unable to transform back. August got hurt, and he got stuck here. We're not stranded- Fire and I came to save August. Apparently, my mom came after us and got captured. So there. There's nothing for us, so we're leaving."
"Huh," Aether gave a bitter laugh and leaned into the candlelight. "That's funny because his leg healed weeks ago."
"It was for you, okay?!" Fire burst out. She looked close to crying. "You're right! He didn't have any business to stay! It was your country that was at stake, not his! He was helping you even though you're the people who killed his father!"
Spring turned away sharply.
"That's not my problem!" Aether argued, throwing up his hands. "Why would he stay? As you said, it's not his country!"
"You blind idiot!" Fire cried, voice cracking. "Why can't you tell?"
"Tell what?"
"He loved you! That's why he stayed! For you! He loved you and this is what you did to him!"
Aether stepped back.
"I didn't...stop it!" he shouted. "You're a Siren. You specialize in messing with my head! You're just... you're just messing with my head!" Stepping back again, he turned and ran down the hall, slamming the door.
I took one deep breath to regain control of myself and another to regain control of the situation. I could handle this. First I had to bring everyone to their senses so we could talk this out in a civilized way. Surely civilization extended past us? Merfolks must have had it- Fire and Finn were certainly not savages. Finn was a little whack, sure, but still not a savage.
"Guys," I said, stepping between everyone. "Can you please come back inside, if only for a few minutes? I'll put on some tea and we can all talk a little more...shall I say, calmly."
A long pause.
"That's a good idea," Spring conceded finally, walking to the kitchen. Coral and Darius followed her without hesitation. Melody looked at me kind of gratefully and took Fire's hand to pull her along. Solara offered to start on the tea and left with Cas.
"I'll pass on the tea," Finn snapped. "I'm going to wait out on the porch." He stepped out into the night chill and closed the door behind him.
I walked to the kitchen but stopped for a moment to put my hand on Alaric's shoulder and angle my head to the door. He paused for a second and then nodded.
I heard the faint sound of the door opening and close and walked into the kitchen and put on my best peaceable smile. "Now, can we hear your story from the top?"