Chapter 1
One
Angie
Angie kicked her apartment door shut with her foot when her phone blasted her C-pop ringtone, and she dug around in her jacket pocket to retrieve it.
The last thing she felt like doing was having a phone conversation after a long day of classes, but she peeked at the caller anyway.
Stefan Bien’s name flashed, a friend of her and her family who co-owned Creston’s local diving shop with his husband, Ken. His profile picture, of him and Ken wearing silly grins on their faces while on their recent vacation in Iceland, nearly covered her phone screen.
She loved hearing from him and if there was anyone who could spike her energy levels with casual conversation, it was him. Lighting up, without missing a beat, she swiped to answer the call.
“Hi, Stefan!” She greeted him while kicking her sneakers off. “How’s everything up north?”
“Good, good. I’m at the docks with your dad.
Thought I’d catch up with you for a bit until he gets back from whatever boss business he has going on.
” Stefan’s smooth voice filtered through her phone speaker, as clear as if he were in front of her, and then it went distant as he called out a greeting to whoever was passing by.
“He asked me to come and restock a few oxygen, heliox, and nitrox tanks, but you know, he got called away.” His next breath hitched.
“Your name came up, and it reminded me I hadn’t heard from you much since you went back to school. ”
Angie gave Stefan her full attention while he gave her an update on the daily happenings at the docks. All had been quiet with the mer, he told her, and they hadn’t interacted much with the humans since she came back to school last fall.
She hung her jacket on the coat rack across from the door and slid her indoor slippers on.
They were violet and comfortable and made of memory foam, but she missed her fuzzy bunny slippers from home.
Angie made her way down the short hallway to her living room.
Compared to her Creston home, her studio apartment felt like a closet, but it was homey enough.
She had decorated with photos of her family, whom she had visited prior to the start of this semester, and with portraits of the sea and underwater shots.
Her cat, Lulu, awoke from the couch and opened her tiny jaws to unleash a meow belying her small stature. She jumped off, stretched, and bolted to Angie to curl herself around her ankles, rubbing her cheeks and forehead on her.
On the other end, Stefan mentioned a group of them at the docks, him and Ken included, were going out to dinner with Bàba, Mia, and her two kids when the day was over.
A pang twisted Angie’s heart. Undoubtedly, she was excited to be in Seattle, chasing her dreams, but she missed the closeness and camaraderie back in Creston.
Here in the city, it was much busier, and there was a deluge of events and opportunities to meet new people.
It was exciting and there were endless options for food and recreation, yet it lacked the cozy, familiar feel of her small hometown.
She updated him on school and her and Kaden when he was done, finishing with inquiring, “Business back to normal?”
“Oh yeah.” Stefan’s voice sounded far away, his words followed by loud clinking and clanging—likely from moving oxygen tanks around, she assumed. “People—”
Then Lulu bolted toward Angie’s bedroom and a clinking and rolling noise emerged.
“Gāisǐ, what is she doing in there?”
“You alright?”
She hadn’t meant to say that aloud. “Sorry, hold on a minute.”
Angie walked to her room, and her eyes widened. Her cat was sitting on the hardwood floor, pawing at a small glass flute, rolling it around, tail sweeping back and forth behind her.
“Oh no, don’t touch that, girl.” Lulu mewed and ran when Angie rushed to her and picked up the flute.
“What trouble did she get up to now?” Stefan chuckled.
“It’s a seaflute Kaden crafted for me last year, so we could talk when we’re apart.”
“A seaflute? What, he made a magic flute that can be used for communication across land and sea?” Stefan sucked in a breath.
“Yeah, he spent half a year studying under a master crafter to create and imbue it with mer magic, and another half a year gathering the materials.”
The cat must have knocked it off her nightstand.
Made of clear glass with her name etched in it, the overhead light winked off it, creating a prism flashing before her eyes.
She only had to use her finger to swipe his name in Renyuhua across it, he had told her, and when she spoke into it, the soundwaves would carry across land and sea to reach him.
So mer did use echolocation. She grinned, remembering when they first met and he took a jab at her, asking if she thought mer communicated with echolocation like whales.
“That sounds incredible. You’ll have to show me next time we see each other,” Stefan said.
“For sure.” Angie secured the seaflute in her nightstand drawer and made sure it was closed tight, and when she meandered to her living room, Lulu sat by her food and water bowl, butt plunked down on the ground.
Her unblinking eyes seared through Angie’s forehead.
“So, what were you saying about business?”
“Business is great. People love to dive and look for merfolk.”
Angie froze at the entryway to her small kitchen. “Wait, what? You’re making that into a business? The mer have been staying away from people for a reason! We still don’t have a great relationship with them.”
“I know, Ken and I, and the volunteers give them strict rules to follow. Like they’re not expected to see mer, and they are never to touch, try to feed them, or take photos.
We take tiny groups, and if anyone tries anything, they’re escorted back to the surface, and we ban them from coming back out with us.
” His explanation came out quickly and smooth like he was giving the spiel to his tour groups. A shudder rippled through his voice.
Angie grunted. She loved Stefan and Ken like her young-at-heart second fathers, but unease filled her. “Tough show, huh?” she finally said. “But I get it.” Her voice lowered a pitch as she swiped a can of wet food from her cabinet full of Lulu’s food and snacks.
Lulu was still staring at her when she left the kitchen. Another meow.
“Well, we want to stay on the mer’s good side.
They already believe humans don’t respect other species, and you know what, they’re not entirely wrong.
We’d like to maintain their trust.” A rustle from his end.
“I gotta go.” His tone grew lower, more hurried.
“There’s a group of divers going out nobody authorized. I’ll call you back.”
She had hardly finished saying ‘okay’ when her phone beeped, indicating he’d ended the call.
He never called her back and when Angie dialed him again several minutes later, he didn’t pick up.
Something was off and her body thrummed with dread as she dumped a chunky chicken and turkey meal for Lulu into her food bowl. The cat dug in and Angie took the opportunity to leave the apartment while her cat was distracted.
Her next two texts to Stefan went unanswered, and with her stomach tied into knots, Angie silenced her phone or else she would check it every few minutes to see if he responded.
She forced herself to go to bed early for classes the next day.
Sleep never came.
Her professor’s words couldn’t come at a better time the next day. “Class dismissed!”
Angie hoisted her backpack over her shoulders and left biogeochemistry. She groaned at the weight thanks to the brand-new, chunky, gaming laptop that Bàba and Mia, her older sister, bought for her before she left for school.
Thank the ancestors because the sooner she got out of here the sooner she could meet Kaden this evening.
Stefan still hadn’t gotten back to her, and she fidgeted with her phone, as if it would make him respond.
The entire class, her mind didn’t stop comparing what she was learning to what she’d seen last year exploring with Kaden underwater.
He had taken up residence in the Central Pacific Queendom, where Serapha’s sister, Cassia, ruled.
He was an advisor to them, while his mother, Mer-Queen Serapha, remained at their queendom in the Bering Sea.
Thankfully, since the truce the humans and mer made that day on the docks, they lived in relative peace. At least, last she heard from regular conversations with her friends and family back home.
Two years had passed since and Angie was in her second year of Pacific Grove University’s Marine Biology PhD program.
A dull shiver ran down her spine at the alternative—not surviving the war.
Finally, she was free for the weekend. That was, as free as she could be with two papers addressing plastic and trash pollution in the sea, brainstorming for her dissertation, and studying for the ichthyology midterm at the end of next week.
Ghostly hands squeezed her temples at the work lying ahead.
No, she banished the thought of researching from her mind. She vowed to enjoy the evening swimming with Kaden. Her heart raced. Or they would do more than simply swim. A flash of heat formed at her core, radiating to her thighs.
“Angie, wait up! God, what’s the rush?”
“Dying to get back.” She took a deep breath to calm her quickening heart. The voice came from her friend and classmate, Reesa Park, and with her was the other person in their tiny friend group, Leo Alvarez.
“Yeah, same. Hey, how’s it going with, what’s that company’s name you’re trying to collab with?” Leo asked Angie.
“Bio-nauti-klean. They want to interview me next week.” A tiny smile tugged at a corner of her lips as she thought of the Port Angeles based company, which was devising a machine to clean up tons of trash from the sea without harming sea life.
An absent peek at her phone showed there were two hours left before she’d see Kaden and a dreamy smile spread from cheek to cheek.