Talu's face fell. "I guess you saw him in the throne room, didn't you?"

I crossed my arms. "I did."

"Really, that should be his story to explain." His frown deepened and he squinted at something behind me. "Kei, you can come out now."

I turned to see Kei emerge from behind a curtain, his sheepish expression bringing color to his pale face. 

"How did you get here?" I demanded. "Is there a portal behind the curtain or something?"

Kei laughed. "Only a secret passage, I'm afraid." He sobered, straightening his posture. "I apologize, I meant to make a declaration of my presence—"

"You and I both know you like lurking," Talu folded his arms over his chest. There was a small glimmer in his eye like a laugh, but he did not smile. "How else would you have found nearly every secret passage in this castle?"

Part of me wanted to ask about that—but there were more pressing questions. "How long have you been standing there?"

"Technically, I was swimming, not standing," Kei pointed out. 

"You're dodging the question," I shot back.

"Very well." Kei glanced down at his hands folded delicately together in front of him. "Not very long. Just enough hear of your identity, You Grace."

I glanced to Talu in confusion—only for him to tilt his head meaningfully towards me.

"Me?" I pointed at myself.

"You are a Princess," Kei said. "It is only right to use the proper titles."

"Mika is fine." I narrowed my eyes. "I guess then you know what I'm wondering, if you heard that much."

Kei smiled. "I would be happy to enlighten you. I had a feeling you would be the Princess of the Twilight Tides. I'm happy to see that I was right."

It was like every time he spoke, flowers fell out instead of words.

Kei raised his chin. "I am known as Prince Elio-Kei, the Lord of the Moonborn Pod." 

Talu glanced at me sidelong. "We've been friends since we were guppies." 

"Does that mean I have to call you 'Your Grace?'"

"Oh, no." Kei blinked. "I'd really prefer just Kei. Elio-Kei is such a mouthful." He then turned contemplative. "But it does suit a prince, I suppose."

"I didn't know mermaids were in pods, or that they had princes." I considered what Talu had said to me earlier, about how the web of politics was so fragile. 

Talu and Kei exchanged a look.

"There are some mermaid pods and kingdoms, but that's not Kei's domain," Talu explained with an apologetic gleam in his eye. 

"My father was a selkie," Kei interjected. "I inherited his title as the Lord of the Moonborn after he died."

"Oh." I felt something crack within my chest. He was only seventeen, and already he'd lost his father. "I'm so sorry."

"It's alright." Still, something hardened around Kei's wide, dark eyes. "I can only hope to be the leader that he would have wanted."

"Your mother must have been a mermaid, then," I realized aloud as I glanced down at his tail.

He raised an eyebrow. "Must she have?"

"How else would you have a mermaid tail?" I remembered once or twice reading about selkies in books of folklore or the occasional fantasy title. "Selkies turn into seals, right?"

"How else indeed," Kei echoed with a mischievous grin.

Talu rolled his eyes. "Ignore him. You're right—selkies are the seal-folk, and Kei is half-mermaid."

"More or less," Kei shrugged. 

"There are a great many kingdoms and pods within the Undersea of many different sea-folk," Talu continued. He glanced towards a golden astrolabe propped up on one of the shelves. "The selkies and the mermaids are just some of them. And even then, we all came from different parts of the Undersea until we became unified under my ancestor, the first Queen Amphrite."

I nodded. "Is that why things are so tense?"

"It's part of it." Kei's words were slow, reluctant, like molasses. 

With the way he avoided looking at me, I just knew that he knew something deeper about what Talu was saying. And more than that, there was something that neither of them were telling me.

I decided to switch gears, and go back to indulging my own curiosity. "So do selkie pods just swim around in the ocean, or do you guys have houses like over in Silversurf Village?"

Kei grinned, relief flooding his features. "I can do you one better than that—we've got our own palaces, small cities that rise above the water on the full moon. You should come sometime for the next one—we know how to throw a party."

"I'll have to take you up on that sometime," I agreed.

"Not the next one though," Talu interrupted. "You didn't hear it from me, not yet, but my mother will want to invite you to our next symphony for the full moon."

Kei shrugged, unbothered by this. "The next one, then. And perhaps a trip between then."

"Absolutely." I glanced to Talu. "So the symphony, then?"

"We hold one every full moon," he explained, as he drifted towards the curtained window. "To celebrate its arrival and to cultivate its magic. It's part of a very old ritual, one that was performed by the dragons when they still lived at the bottom of the sea." He looked back to me, only to pull a face. "My uncle is the Conductor of the Royal Symphony."

"Which means he's the second-most important person in the entire Undersea after the High Queen," Kei added, only for something to shift in the dark depths of his eyes. "Well, maybe third. Princess of the Twilight Tides does bump him down."

"Does it?" Talu spoke the question on my mind before I could.

"You know your histories." Kei raised his chin, and his voice dropped low and even, like the way you would have thought an ethereal-looking white-haired mermaid prince like him would. "The Princess of the Twilight Tides first appeared in the Calamity, and it was only with her power and sacrifice that Amphrite the Unifier was able to earn her epithet and bring peace to the Undersea."

"Power and sacrifice?" I did not like the sound of those words.

Kei regarded me again, and something in him diminished. He looked haunted, almost. "It doesn't matter, not anymore."

"We can talk about ancient history another time." Talu drifted back over to me. "I'm sure you've got stuff to do in the World Above."

"Yeah." I actually did want to know, but since they were both being cagey and weird I decided that this wasn't the the time. 

Maybe I'll ask Jewel or Lumi instead.

"Very well, then." Kei bowed his head. "I hope to see you again soon, Mika."

I blinked in surprise. "I hope so too, Kei. It was nice seeing you again."

"Come on," Talu grumbled. "Before my mother needs to me to go oversee some dull function."