Chapter 3
Iris
“You are so lucky.” Shelly punctuated the statement with a disarmingly effective pout. Iris had stopped falling for the look ever since the whole octopus incident that had left her punished for a month and Shelly walking free, despite being just as guilty as her big sister.
“Yes. So lucky. Who wouldn’t want to be bartered off to a stranger? A human, nonetheless.”
“You can’t say things like that,” Juna, Iris and Shelly’s older sister—the heir to the throne—scolded. “Not on land, anyway. It sounds speciesist.”
Juna held out Iris’s bag.
“If Iris screws this up, can I marry the human?” Shelly asked.
“She’s not going to screw anything up. And that is not appropriate language for a princess. You know you are too young to marry.”
“Can I at least go with Iris? She knows nothing about the land or people.”
“And you do?”
“I’ve been studying them my whole life.”
Shelly might have been one for dramatics, but on this, at least, she was telling the truth. Shelly was constantly missing dinners, parties, and important council meetings because she got so engrossed with watching the humans at the beach.
Iris suspected that Shelly might have even done more than merely watching from the water. Sisterly affection kept her from tattling to their mother. Even if she did worry that Shelly idolized people that she couldn’t pos-sibly relate to, the way she did to the other merfolk.
“Mother wants you nowhere near the land,” Juna said. Her chin lifted in that regal way that reminded Iris so much of their mother.
“It’s like she wants us to suffer,” Shelly grumbled. She threw herself backward, arms folded over her chest.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Juna said.
“She does! All I have ever wanted is to go on land, but she’s keeping me here. All Iris wants is to be in the sea, and she’s forcing her to go on land. It makes no sense, unless she just wants to hurt us.”
“Or,” Juna said, her tone taking on a frustrated edge, “she is an incredible ruler who knows what is best for her people. And sometimes what is best requires a sacrifice.”
Iris was starting to feel just like that: a sacrifice. Someone handed over to a man she’d never met, knew nothing about, on a silver platter.
Here. Isn’t she pretty? She’d look lovely standing silently at your side.
Iris shook off those thoughts, knowing she wouldn’t be able to play her part even halfway convincingly if she let herself get too bitter about the whole situation.
“Anyway,” Juna said, looking at Iris. “You remember where you are going?”
“You’ve told me four times already.”
“Mother has it all arranged. There will be a change of clothes for you. And you will need to bathe.”
Juna tripped on the word. It wasn’t one most merfolk were familiar with. They didn’t, after all, need to bathe.
“Which, again, is a process—” Juna started.
“Where one submerges in water then rubs a slippery substance known as ‘soap’ all over their bodies.” Then, as she understood it, the water went down the drain. It sounded like a monumental waste of water to her.
“Precisely. If you struggle with dressing, the woman, Maria, who is taking you to the hotel can assist you.”
How hard could dressing be? Sure, she still had no idea how she was going to handle the whole legs situation, but she didn’t imagine it would be hard to slide fabric up over them.
It was actually the only part Iris was a little bit excited about.
She’d never worn clothes; she couldn’t even im--agine what they would feel like.
Though she was reasonably sure that if the standard attire for humans involved that lower-body garment that slipped between women’s butt cheeks, she wasn’t going to enjoy that.
“I’m sure I can handle getting dressed.” She had to not only accomplish that but also tamp down all of her anger and resentment about the situation so she could come off as overly excited about it.
“Remember that while you are on land, you are representing not only our family but also all our kind. Conduct yourself appropriately,” Juna said, reaching out to tuck some of Iris’s hair behind her ear in an uncharacteristic-ally gentle gesture.
“I know what I’m doing,” Iris assured her sisters.
She just went ahead and didn’t tell them that what she was doing was making her potential fiancé run screaming.
She said her goodbyes and started her swim toward the surface.
“What do we have here?” Monty called from the sky as she broke the surface on a sandbar. He landed with the grace of a swan and the drama of a disgraced duchess.
“You didn’t hear the news?”
“News? What news? I do hate to miss some juicy gossip.”
Iris plopped herself on the sand, knowing it would be a few minutes before the water would dry and her tail would slowly disappear. She couldn’t pinpoint why the potential of seeing her land legs filled her with so much dread.
“I am being sacrificed to the gods of politics,” Iris told the bird. “I’m getting married. To a human.”
“Betrothed? You’re betrothed? To a man with knees?”
“So it seems. I have to go meet with him today.”
“I have just the outfit for an Upper East Side brunch.” At Iris’s raised brow, Monty fluffed his feathers. “I’m obviously coming with you. I’ve always felt I was meant for city life. Do you think a cravat is too much?”
Iris had no idea what a cravat was but was almost certain it would be too much. Like most things Monty.
“Is there some sort of clause in this marriage contract for your emotional support pelican? Because there should be. Anyway, tell me everything. Does he have a penthouse? Does he have … breadcrumbs?”
Leave it to Monty to somehow lighten her mood, despite everything.
“I don’t know where he lives. I don’t know much about him. Apparently, his name is Finn Westrock—”
“The mayoral candidate?” Monty gasped. “We’re going to be political royalty.
I want a sash! No, a tiara. With diamonds.
We might be invited to galas! And be in the tabloids!
I do hope they will catch my good side. I mean, they’re all good sides, but still.
This is fantastic. We might be one step closer to my real dream: Broadway!
Which, of course, I could segue into a long-running reality show.
I could interview people every week. And give my opinion—”
“How do you know he’s a mayoral candidate?”
Looking down, Iris watched as the glitter of her scales dimmed, shimmer by shimmer, leaving unfamiliar skin in their wake.
“By his flyers, of course.”
“Wait, you can read?”
“Of course I can read. How else do you think I keep up with gossip? And seafood recalls.”
Monty, it seemed, had a whole life outside of listening to her complaints and humoring her with tales of the things he witnessed at the beaches.
“Don’t get too excited, Monty,” she said. Her tail was almost completely gone, replaced with two long legs and feet. She spread her toes, seeing the slightest bit of webbing between them—seeing a flash of the green there, the only remaining trace of her tail left.
“Why ever not?”
“Because I don’t plan on actually marrying the man. I am going to get him to break off the engagement.”
“But why? You finally get your fin in the door of high society, and you want to slam it shut? Are you having a quarter-life molt?”
“I don’t molt. And he’s a human, Monty.”
“A human. With a job. And health insurance, most likely. That’s more than we can say about half the bachelors in the reef. Neptune’s beard, do you have any idea how many kelp cakes I’ve stress-eaten at the idea of you winding up with Osiren?” Monty did a whole-body shiver at the very idea.
“My home and life is in the ocean,” Iris told him. Looking down, she saw more flesh-toned skin creeping up her belly, her chest. And her shell bra—once fused seamlessly to her skin—had fallen off. Thank goodness for her long hair that provided a bit of modesty.
“And now you can have a new life on land! With all-you-can-eat sushi bars! And reality television! What’s not to love?”
“Well, these for starters,” she said, waving down at her legs.
“I’ve seen a lot of legs. Those are some nice ones. Though, we might need to go with closed-toe shoes,” he clucked. “Just a friendly reminder—the humans and other creatures on land aren’t quite as free about nudity as the ocean folk are.” His gaze moved down her bare body.
“I think there are clothes in here.” Iris produced a bag and pulled the zipper down to reveal several articles of clothing in plastic bags. Juna, true to her obsessive nature, had labeled everything inside.
‘Outfit A’ was meant for wearing to the hotel.
‘Outfit B’ was for the brunch.
There were also bars of soap, a toothbrush, and … “What kind of torture device is this?” she asked.
“That, my dear, is an eyelash curler. A medieval torture device repurposed to assist with flirtation.”
“Why would I need to curl my eyelashes?”
“Oh, my dear, I keep forgetting you have lived in a world devoid of fashion shows. Or, you know, the internet. We have so much to go over. Why don’t you slip into something less comfortable while I get started?”
He draped his downy white wing over his eyes as Iris held up Outfit A like it might bite her. What even was this fabric? And how was she supposed to know which part of her body it belonged on?
She struggled into her clothes as Monty launched into a rambling monologue about makeup and beauty standards that made Iris’s head spin.
“Hmm,” Monty said as she struggled to her feet after dressing. “We’re going to need to work on that.”
“Work on what?”
“I hate to be the one to tell you this, but you walk like a newborn giraffe. I don’t know if I should chuckle or call animal control.”
“What does that mean?” she asked, feeling wobbly on her land legs.
“Well, it means you’re walking like the ground personally offended you, and your legs are trying to file a complaint.”
“Gee, thanks,” Iris grumbled.
She took a few more steps, her body rocking side to side.
“Stop looking at your feet,” Monty demanded. “You’re giving … sea spaghetti.”