Chapter 5
Iris
“What is that?” Iris asked as she surfaced at the sandbar, eyeing the absurdly large suitcase Monty was perched on.
“My belongings.”
“But why?” Iris asked, hefting her own luggage onto the sand.
“Because I’m coming with you, of course.”
“So, you heard.”
“Shelly was sitting on a rock this morning, ranting and raving about your move and how ungrateful you are.”
“Ungrateful,” Iris scoffed. She pulled herself up onto the sandbar.
She’d been up all night reading, getting swept away by a grand romance between a princess and the knight from an enemy kingdom.
Then she’d spent the morning swimming, trying to soak up as much of the ocean and the things she loved in it while she still could.
When she couldn’t stall any longer, she grabbed her luggage and left her home. She hadn’t said a single goodbye, since her mother was in a meeting, Shelly was off sulking, and Juna was MIA—likely too angry with her sister to offer a proper goodbye.
Perhaps that was for the best. If she had to look in their eyes, knowing she might never live under the same roof as them again, would not be able to sneak into their rooms at night to gossip, to share in their inside jokes anymore …
Yes, better not to have to face her sisters. She wasn’t sure she would be able to leave if they were there. And she was in enough trouble already.
“Stop gloating,” Iris grumbled, brushing wet hair from her face.
“I prefer to look on the bright side of life. And on the bright side, I am going to be living in the lap of luxury. Do you think your betrothed has the silver spoons I’m always hearing about?”
“I’m not going to be a fun companion today,” Iris warned him.
“You’ll come around. There are so many things to love about city life.”
He launched into a list of those things, but Iris was distracted, watching her tail and scales shimmer once—twice—before they vanished completely.
Before she was bare, she slipped into the same shorts and shirt from the day before.
“Hmm,” Monty said, giving her a disapproving look.
“What? I’m … covered.”
“Did your mother happen to send you with a clothing budget?”
“Oh,” Iris said, brows furrowing.
She’d never had to consider clothing before. But even in her books, the characters spent a lot of time thinking about and discussing clothing. Iris couldn’t figure out what was wrong with the bodies everyone was born with, though. Why they felt the need to cover up so fully at all.
“I know what you’re thinking, but you have to wear clothes.
Land folk get real weird if they see a nipple in the daylight.
Instant pearl-clutching scandal. I mean, flash a fin, fine.
Flash a boob? The mayor resigns, the stock market crashes, and someone’s grandma writes a furious letter to Congress.
“Besides, if that naked body is yours, they’ll arrest you, worship you, or propose. Possibly all three.”
At Iris’s eye roll, he flapped his wings.
“You don’t get it. You’re a mermaid. You’re not just pretty; you’re ethereal.
You’ve got the flowing hair, the mythical glow, the skin shimmer.
Beauty influencers would pay a fortune for that shimmer, by the way.
But what do you think the land folk would do when a living fantasy saunters around the city with no pants on?
They’ll crash their cars. They’ll start new religions.
And don’t get me started on the poetry—it’ll be terrible.
Odes. Limericks. Maybe a few tragic musicals.
” Monty cringed. “You have to put on clothing. For the good of all mankind.”
“Okay, okay,” Iris said with a small smile. “I will wear clothing. But why can’t I just wear this?”
“It hasn’t been washed.”
“Washed?”
“Laundered. In a machine that swooshes the clothes around with soap. Also, if you wear the same thing every day, they’ll start whispering.
They’ll assume you’re unwell, that you’ve given up; they’ll crowdfund money to buy you a new wardrobe.
And it’ll be full of beige. Beige!” Monty shuddered at the thought.
“Well, Triton forbid that,” she teased.
“That’s what I’m saying. Besides, darling, you are not just normal land folk now. You are going to be political royalty. There will be entire gossip columns and ‘hot or not’ social media posts about what you wear.”
Iris let out a sigh, already exhausted just at the thought.
“Let’s get going before I change my mind and run away to live as a rogue mermaid off the coast of Antarctica with the penguins.”
“I don’t know why you’re so grumpy,” Monty declared after they caught their ride into the city. “I mean, doesn’t this just give you many more opportunities to sabotage your engagement with Mr. Tall Dark and Press-Conference-Ready?”
She hadn’t considered that.
She thought that if Finn wasn’t completely turned off by being splashed with a huge cup of salt water, nothing she could do would get him to change his mind. But actually living with him would give her many unique opportunities to make him regret the day he agreed to the arrangement.
“You know what, you’re right,” Iris agreed. “It’s not over.”
It wouldn’t be over until she was free to choose her own future once again. Or, at the very least, to choose a compatible merman who would allow her to continue to live in her beloved ocean.
“This is it,” Maria, who seemed to be some sort of employee of her mother’s, declared as she parked outside of a towering white and gleaming glass building. “Your mother wanted me to give you this.” Maria passed a small bag between the seats. “And to advise you to use it wisely.”
Before Iris could even think to do so herself, Monty was unzipping the bag and letting out a whistle.
“What is it?” she asked, looking at all the green and white sheets of paper.
“Luxury, darling, that is pure luxury.”
He didn’t elaborate, just slung the bag across his chest, then opened his door to exit.
“Thanks, Maria,” Iris said before exiting.
Monty stood on the sidewalk, gaze angled up at the building.
“I suppose it will do,” he said. “I do hope he has the penthouse, though. I had my heart set on a penthouse.”
If the people passing on the street thought a talking peli-can was an odd occurrence, they made no show of it, just brushing past them as if they weren’t even there. Except, of course, for a few men who stopped and stared.
“It’s positively nauseating, isn’t it?” another voice asked.
Turning, Iris saw a woman standing to her side. She was tall, almost statuesque, with rich, warm brown skin, and long deep green hair.
There was something … not quite human about her—an otherness in her posture, in the steady, grounded way she blinked.
“What?”
“All that glass and stone,” the woman declared, shivering. “Though, it doesn’t make me quite as woozy as all this concrete,” she said, rubbing the soles of her shoes against the sidewalk. “You’re a mermaid, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Iris said. She was pleased that even out of the water, surface people could still see her for what she was. It made her feel a little more herself in this big, strange new world. “Iris,” she introduced herself.
“Willow,” the woman introduced herself, then added, “dryad.”
“A dryad? In the city?”
Dryads were tree fae. They typically lived in dense forests where they were free to live both inside and outside of their trees.
Iris had only ever seen a handful of trees in her life, usually off in the distance when she surfaced near a seaside town. She had a hard time imagining an entire forest of them.
“I’ve always lived here,” Willow told her. “I was rooted right there.” She gestured to the space where Finn’s building now stood.
“Wait … did they … did they cut down your tree? To build … that?”
“They did.”
Iris’s stomach twisted. She could only imagine what it would feel like to have a bit of your soul bulldozed for someone else’s skyline.
“How are you still alive?” Monty piped up.
“Monty!” Iris scolded.
“It’s a valid question,” Willow said. “Just as they were cutting it down, a seed capsule flew loose. I found it, saved it, and planted it in the small courtyard in the back of the building. Do you need to get in the building?” she asked, shifting a netted bag full of fruits onto her shoulder.
“We’re moving in,” Monty declared, puffing out his chest. “With Finn Westrock.”
“Oh, Finn! He’s a nice guy,” Willow said.
A nice guy? Iris just barely resisted the urge to snort at that declaration. Maybe surface people and merfolk had different definitions of ‘nice.’
Willow produced a small oblong piece of plastic as she walked toward the door, then held it up toward a screen near the door.
“Keyless entry,” Monty said, nodding. “Fancy. We’re moving up in the world!”
While Iris didn’t agree with his sentiment, she had to admit that there was something beautiful about the interi-or of the building.
In its strange, straight lines, and in all of its stone, tile, and glass.
Nothing in the ocean was so uniform. Things grew wild and often shapeless there.
And even she could appreciate the beauty of something the complete opposite.
“Are you … related to Finn?” Willow asked as they moved inside a small square box. As the doors slid closed, Iris felt like a hand had closed around her throat, squeezing tighter with each heartbeat.
“She’s his fiancée. Ah, which floor are we going to?” Monty asked as he studied the panel of numbers.
Willow offered him a knowing look as she pressed her finger into the one at the very top, set apart from the others by location, but also because it was a letter, not a number.
P.
“Penthouse! I knew it! I just knew I was meant for the high life.”
Willow shot Iris a smile as she shook her head at the pelican’s materialistic glee.
“I didn’t realize Finn was engaged.”
“Oh, it’s all new. Very hush-hush,” Monty explained. “There will be a whole press conference and such about it. Montague Featherington,” Monty said, offering his wing. “Head of Surface Affairs.”