A hurricane was building in my stomach as we followed Lumi to one of the magnificent cottages I’d seen before, right before the coral-like city. 

What would Madame Nerissa be like? And what would she do to me?

“You don’t think she’ll turn me into a flounder or something, do you?” I whispered to Talu.

“Madame Nerissa?” He raised his eyebrows and tilted his head in thought. “Maybe—“

I pulled my hand out of his. “I’m out of here, then—“

“I’m sorry, it’s possible, but not likely.” He looked truly apologetic. “Bad joke. Kind of.”

“You’re not helping.”

“Are you two coming?” 

We turned our heads to see Lumi peeking her head out of the doorway to Madame Nerissa’s cottage.

Talu looked to me. “It’s your call.”

I looked to the cottage, then back to the blue all around, from whence I’d came. It was tempting, to just turn tail and flee. I could pretend none of this ever happened, go back to my epic plans for a summer romance and forget all about the mermaids and the Undersea and any of the dangers that lurked below. 

But this was also the most interesting thing that had ever happened to me. I couldn’t let it slip out of my fingertips just because I was nervous.

“As long as she doesn’t turn me into a flounder,” I muttered, as I followed Talu inside. 

The inside of the sea witch’s cottage was dark, with the main sources of light coming from the large pearls presented on shelves like altars. A mermaid girl with purple hair in what looked like a jellyfish cut with multiple braids was cleaning the pearls, her presence unacknowledged by Lumi. The rest of the built-in shelves were stacked with either books that seemed undamaged by the water or more jewel-like bottles like the ones I saw outside. They lined wide corridors that twisted and turned, leading to a central area with a cobalt blue flame and a black cauldron. Behind the cauldron was the mermaid I supposed to be the fearsome Madame Nerissa. 

She was younger than I would have guessed. At least, she looked younger than my mother. I’d approximate a guess in her early thirties, but something about her golden eyes seemed older than that, more ancient.

How long do mermaids live?

I remembered reading the original Little Mermaid once in a book of fairytales with exquisite, intricate watercolor illustrations. Hans Christian Andersen’s mermaids lived to be three-hundred, before they turned to seafoam. I wondered if that was true, and if it were, how that translated to human aging. 

Madame Nerissa had deep aquamarine hair in waves that faded to the same turquoise blue as the ends of Lumi’s hair. Like Jewel’s, her hair was secured with lots of pearl beads. Her tail was the same dark blue as Lumi’s, and she wore a loose, gauzy top that was jet-black with long sleeves that billowed and swayed the way you might expect a witch’s to.

She narrowed her eyes as she regarded me. 

“You’ve brought quite the oddity home, Lumi.” Her voice was deep, with some gravitas to it. She tapped her chin with slender fingers laden with golden rings. “A mermaid who is not one by blood.” She emerged from behind her cauldron and began to circle me. “She bears the marks of the World Above, of their kind, but she is marked as one of us as well—but not in the way that halflings are.”

“My name is Mika,” I offered, mostly because it was really uncomfortable to be talked about in the third-person. 

“So it is,” she said coolly. She stopped in front of me, and was silent. “Where did you find her?”

“She just showed up around here outside the barrier two days ago.” Lumi shifted uncomfortably, her hands behind her back. “She says she fell in the water and saw a Fathom and—“

Madame Nerissa put up a hand, and Lumi stopped talking immediately—so quickly that I wondered if Madame Nerissa had cast a spell.

She narrowed her eyes again and stretched out her hand in front of me, the tip of her finger almost touching my collarbone. 

That’s when I felt it. 

The call of the power inside me, the pink light. Of course I’d felt it earlier, when I’d passed deep enough to transform, to breathe underwater. But it was stronger now, and surrounded me again. It shone, filling the sea witch’s cottage with light. 

At first it felt great, like the sun on my skin at the beach. But like the sun, the heat lingered too long and it grew more intense, more powerful. 

Inside, where the power harkened from began to burn, an internal fire that tore through my lungs. I struggled to breathe. It was too much, but I couldn’t speak, or I was sure I would begin to vomit the fire inside, that surely was there—

“Stop!” Talu cried. “You’re hurting her!”

At once, the light was gone, and Madame Nerissa withdrew her fingers. I struggled to take in air, as the feeling of fire ebbed away with the flow of the water. I looked to her in bewilderment and hurt, unsure of what had just happened, what exactly she had done. Her expression was indecipherable.

“Dominique! Fetch Madame Miranda.”

“Me?” The purple-haired mermaid blinked in surprise and pointed at herself. 

I hadn’t realized that she’d come into the cauldron chamber until she’d spoken. 

“I won’t repeat myself.” Madame Nerissa turned back to me. “Go, and quickly. She may be the only mermaid in all the seven seas who would know and recognize this power.”

Dominique bowed her head. “Yes, Madame Nerissa.”

She then swam off, leaving a trail of bubbles in her wake. 

Madame Nerissa turned to Lumi. “You did well for once in reporting her to me.”

“Oh, well, thank you—“

Madame Nerissa raised her hand again. Lumi’s lips continued moving for a moment after, before she realized that no sound was coming out. 

“As for you—“ Madame Nerissa turned to Talu. “Don’t you have anything better to do with that menagerie of yours?”

Talu, to his credit, didn’t look scared of Madame Nerissa. “I’d rather stay with Mika, if you don’t mind.”

Her golden gaze intensified.“I do mind, and you should mind your elders, Talu Coraldrift.” 

She spoke his name with a strange intensity—one that made Talu flinch. Still, he looked to me. “She’s human and she’s scared—“

“And she’s the least of your problems if you do not leave my house now.” Madame Nerissa crossed her arms over her chest. “I’ve tolerated your infatuation with my apprentice long enough. Leave now, or I’ll be explaining why to your mother why I am returning you in a jar.”

Talu blanched, but held firm. 

My heart beat fast—I didn’t want anyone being turned into a frog or something for my sake!

“It’s okay,” I lied. “You can go, I’ll be alright.”

He locked eyes with me, silently calling my bluff. “Are you sure?”

“Positive.” I was surprised at how calm I sounded. “I don’t want you getting in trouble.”

“Fine.” He glared at Madame Nerissa. “I’ll leave.”

Which left me alone with her and Lumi. 

A long, tense silence ensued, only to be broken when Dominique finally returned with the mysterious Madame Miranda. 

Madame Miranda as I’d heard her called by Madame Nerissa, was a graceful mermaid who was also surprisingly young for the reputation she seemed to command, with shrewd blue eyes. Deep blue hair in various hues flowed in waves out of a white hood of gauze or silk, connected to the almost Greek-looking dress she wore. She swam more slowly than Dominique, but her mere aura commanded the room.

Madame Nerissa bowed her head to Madame Miranda when she answered. “I apologize for summoning you here like this, but you were the only one I could turn to.”

“No need to apologize.” Madame Miranda’s voice was clear and strong, and she looked to me. A mere flick of her eyes up and down over me, and I felt as if something had pierced through to my very core, or like I was made of glass and she could see something inside of me obscured to all others, including myself.

“I can see that my apprentice was not exaggerating your findings.” Madame Miranda smiled at me, a very kind one that made me forget that I was dealing with a witch. “You are a very rare jewel indeed, my dear. What is your name?”

“Mika. Mika Audrey.”

She nodded. “Mika Audrey, I do believe I must ask for you to accompany me to the palace, to meet the Queen of the Undersea herself.”

I wondered how much time had passed underwater. “When do you want to do it? I don’t want to be gone too long. My parents don’t know about what I am.”

“Is that so?” Madame Nerissa’s eyes twinkled. “I suspect that there may be more to all of this than meets the eye, Mika Audrey.”

She turned to Madame Nerissa. “It will take some time for me to organize an audience with Queen Amphrite anyhow. Even one as renown as I cannot have royalty at her beck and call.”

Madame Nerissa looked displeased with this outcome, but said nothing. 

Madame Miranda looked back to me. “I’ll send for that darling apprentice of Rissa’s to fetch you when I am ready.”

Madame Nerissa looked displeased, whether that was with the nickname or about Madame Miranda’s command, I wasn’t sure. 

Just who was this lady, that she was able to command the likes of anybody sans royalty?

“Keep an eye out and an ear to the water, my jewel,” Madame Miranda continued. “I should hope to have answers for you rather soon.”

“I will, Madame Miranda.”

Madame Miranda laughed and patted my cheek. “It’s just Miranda to you.”
She looked over her shoulder to Dominique. “In the meantime, escort her back to the surface.”

Dominique looked positively murderous, her hands clenched into fists at her side. “Yes, Madame Miranda.

Once we were beyond the Undersea, but before the shallows, Dominique spoke to me. “If you were smart, you wouldn’t come back.” Dominique’s tone was contemplative as she stared straight ahead. Something about talking that way must make it easier to share secrets. “Whatever is going on with you, it’s just the latest in the strange things happening. They’re all bad omens, the Fathoms returning and what’s happening in the Alabaster Palace.”

I couldn’t help but perk up my ears. “What do you mean, what’s happening in the Alabaster Palace?”

“Nothing you should care about.” She looked ahead again, her voice took on that harsh, closed-off tone again. “You should just worry about your short human life in the sun and leave us to the deep.”

“That’s not a very heroic thing to do.”

She looked back to me and raised an eyebrow, as if I had broccoli in my teeth or something. “You’re not the hero, Mika Audrey. You’re just a glitch, an error in magic who isn’t supposed to be here.”

She stopped. “You can find your way back from here.”

“I can.” I knew that my legs had shifted back into existence. Already the transformation was becoming quicker, subtler, and less startling to me. As easy as raising my hand or the blink of an eye, almost instinctual. 

“If you were smart, you’d heed my words.”

With that, Dominique returned into the deep with a somersault underwater that would have made competitive swimmers jealous. Which just let me treading open water there for a moment. And then, as she suggested, at least for the short-term, I returned to the land.