“No!” I clapped my hands over my ears, not wanting to hear the rest. Mermaids had not killed my brother. Mermaids did not eat him. It wasn’t possible.

The whole world seemed to stop. Why had Mama and Papa let me believe he could still be alive? Did they think I was too fragile to know?

My arms and legs and lips felt numb, like the blood rushed away from them. He wasn’t lost. He was dead. But somehow I knew that. Deep down, I always knew my brother was dead. The mermaids really had killed him.

I just never wanted to believe Lysi’s kind was responsible for my family’s pain.

Mama’s arms wrapped around me, pulling me into the house.

Lysi would never kill and eat a human. She was good. Mermaids had to be good.

But I remembered what she’d shown me this afternoon, the way her eyes became so inhuman.

Something must have changed on my face, because Mama said softly, “It’s only a matter of time until her instincts take over, honey. We’re looking out for you.”

My eyes burned. I couldn’t stop the tears from escaping. My voice came out high-pitched and unconvincing. “Our friendship is stronger than her instincts.”

Mama opened her mouth, but Papa spoke first. “A demon’s allure only mimics true feelings. Your friendship was a fake attraction, the same one that ends in the death of sailors everywhere.”

“It isn’t fake,” I yelled, but my heart thudded against my ribcage, hammering doubt into my bones. “She wanted to be my friend. If it was all phony we wouldn’t have been so . . . so . . .”

So what? Strongly connected? Loyal to each other? What could I possibly try to explain that couldn’t be faked?

“They sent her to trick you into false companionship. It was a test of her abilities.”

Mama put a hand out to Papa, but he continued.

“You were a game to her. It’s happened before, to—”

“Please, Kasai!” said Mama, and Papa stopped.

“Calm down,” she said to me. My breath escaped in quick sobs, and I sounded like Mama did when she was having an asthma attack.

She reached for my cheek with a soothing look on her face, but I turned and ran down the hallway, a lump in my throat so thick I thought I might choke on it.

I dove onto my bed and buried my face in the quilt, trying to calm my panicked breathing.

“It wasn’t fake,” I screamed into the blankets, but I didn’t know anymore if I was defending Lysi or trying to reassure myself that Mama and Papa were wrong.

Even if she was growing up and had instincts that made her eyes go red . . . even if she did have the urge to murder . . . she would never hurt me.

But even as I thought that, betrayal pulsed through my veins like ice, and I wondered what it meant to have a real friend. How did I know any of my friendships were real, if not Lysi’s?

I knew mermaids lured men, of course. Lysi and I had talked about it. But even if I was lured—whatever that really meant—who was to say our friendship wasn’t real?

I spent the afternoon curled under my blankets, watching the broken spider web in my window. I wished Charlotte would come back so I could look at something more interesting than the fluttering strings of silk.

Sometime after I’d listened to the low murmurings of conversation and clanking of dishes as Mama and Papa ate dinner, Mama knocked on my door and let herself in.

“Can we talk, honey?”

I said nothing, considering whether or not I should pretend to be asleep. But my eyes betrayed me and opened to look at her.

“Was that mermaid being nice to you?” said Mama. She tucked a lock of my frizzy, salt-crusted hair behind my ear. Her hand was warm and smelled like dish soap.

I hesitated, then nodded once.

“You know she was pretending to be nice so she could lure you into the water.”

“That’s not true.”

“How do you know?”

“She’s my friend. Her name is Lysithea. And if she was going to lure me into the water, she would have done it already.”

“How long has she been your friend?”

I lied a little. “A few weeks.”

Mama sighed. A familiar crease appeared on her forehead and her mouth tightened around the edges.

“Mermaids are not people, honey. You must understand that.”

“I do, but—”

“They’re closer to monsters than to humans.”

“You haven’t met one, so you don’t know.”

“I don’t have to meet one to know. How can a creature that feeds on human flesh be good?”

I didn’t answer, unable to believe Lysi could feed on humans.

“When the mermaid grows up, she’ll have an instinct to kill you.” She shook her head gravely. “I only hope your papa was able to get her before she swam away.”

“But Mama, she’s my best friend!”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You can’t be friends with something you can’t communicate with.”

“She speaks our language! I taught her.”

Mama froze, staring down at me, her eyes huge. I pulled my blanket up past my nose.

“You taught her to speak Eriana?”

I gave a nearly indistinguishable nod.

She put her head in her hands. “Oh, Meela. Do you know how dangerous this is? The mermaid could use our language to lure someone into the water by pretending she’s a human.”

“Lysi would never hurt—”

“Please understand me. That mermaid was never your friend. She was using you. Probably to learn to speak Eriana.”

I sat up. “You’re wrong.”

“If she taught it to other sea demons, they’ll all have a severely dangerous method of luring our sailors.”

 “But other mermaids already know bits of our language. They pick up words from the ships.”

“Ships they’re invading and killing!”

I crossed my arms and looked out the window.

Some moments passed, during which I hoped Mama would just leave, before she said, “Did she pick up our language easily?”

I kept my eyes on the tree outside the window. “Yes.”

“What kinds of words did you teach her?”

I might have been mistaken, but I thought Mama sounded interested.

“Lots of words,” I said, my nose in the air. “We had lovely conversations.”

“What about her language? Did she teach you to speak it?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“People can’t make the sounds. It’s like those clicking noises dolphins make.”

She was quiet again, and then said, “She gave you the shell necklace, didn’t she?”

This time, the silence stretched for so long that Mama stood to leave.

“You’re to stay in your room, Meela. I’ll bring you dinner, and once you’ve eaten I want you to brush your teeth and go straight to sleep.”

Her footsteps crossed my room. The door opened and closed. She left me to sit by myself in a hollow, pressing silence.