Chapter 20
Iris
She’d gotten a little turned around in the crowd.
It seemed like everyone wanted a minute or two with her after the official questioning was over.
One or two of them genuinely wanted to discuss things like the ocean and pollution.
As a whole, though, she mostly felt like they just wanted proximity to her.
Was it because she was royalty?
Or simply because she was a mermaid?
She had no idea.
But after the fifteenth face got in hers, she was finding it hard to maintain that fake smile.
Suddenly, she had a lot of respect for Finn for being able to fake it so well. Even if she deeply disliked it about him at the same time.
It took a lot of self-control not to roll her eyes or sigh at some of the things people said, the wild accusations they threw, the borderline conspiracy theory ideas they’d cooked up in their heads.
Finn faked peace and understanding perfectly.
She, as much as she hated to admit it, was going to need more practice.
When she’d finally untangled herself from that werewolf she’d been momentarily fascinated by when she’d first seen him, but quickly found him a little pushy and inappropriate one-on-one, she’d gone in search of Finn.
She was ready to go home, get comfy, and get to sleep early for once.
She’d just been moving toward the staging area when Henry’s voice carried out to her.
“This town hall was not about her,” he said. Her stomach clenched at his words. Because she thought she’d done well. It wasn’t like she wanted to be there. She’d been forced. And she’d done her part. “None of this is about her.”
Iris froze.
Say something, she implored. Defend me.
But all she heard following Henry’s words was silence.
With a strange catch in her throat, she turned and ran back through the front of the building, then out onto the street.
She walked aimlessly for a few moments but felt a tug in her heart, a sensation that pulled her in, crashed, released, then pulled again.
The tide calling her home.
She nearly ran back to the penthouse, stripping out of her clothes, then throwing on a simple, lightweight cotton dress.
She only paused after changing when her ring caught her eye.
A cry caught in her throat at seeing it there—an anchor tying her to a man who couldn’t be bothered to defend her.
She ripped the ring off her finger, unable to see it sitting there for another second. No matter how much she loved the thing.
She placed it back in its box and set it in the bathroom, where she knew Finn would find it eventually.
And understand the message.
She was done.
She couldn’t be forced to marry someone like him.
Sure, her mother would be furious. She might even find some old, undesirable merman for her to marry as punishment.
But at least she could be at home.
At least she would be among people who understood who and what she was, who wouldn’t constantly be trying to shape and change her.
She grabbed her bag on the way out, before doubling back to find the one thing she wanted to bring with her. She went ahead and didn’t let herself wonder if there was any deeper meaning to that item being the book Finn had gifted to her. Then she slipped into a taxi and headed out of Manhattan.
She fought the burning of tears at the back of her eyes the whole way, not daring to name the feelings crowding her chest.
Sure, she would miss Selene, Arden, and Willow. But she could visit them. Now that she was comfortable on land.
It wasn’t them, though. She knew it in the weird tightness in her chest. The sadness had nothing to do with her friends.
Thankfully, the taxi pulled up to the beach before she had a chance to analyze that sensation any further.
Iris waited until the taxi was nothing but headlights in the distance before kicking off her flip-flops and making the long walk across the beach toward the sandbar. The sand crunched underfoot, warm and familiar, as the sound and scent of the water filled her with hope.
That she could shift and swim away the uncomfortable feelings she didn’t want to face.
Under the mostly full moon, she stripped out of her dress, tucking it carefully into her small purse and setting that on top of her shoes.
She didn’t know why she was leaving anything behind. She wasn’t planning on coming back to land anytime soon.
With a sigh, she lowered herself into the water, feeling her tail shift and flick in the current.
She dipped under the surface.
Then she swam.
Hard and far, setting a punishing pace until her body ached and exhaustion tugged at her eyes.
Only then did she finally swim back toward the palace.
She was met immediately with all the familiar sights: the whalebone gate, the lush kelp gardens teeming with fish, the coral columns of the palace itself.
She waited for the sensation of home to return. But even as she drifted down the hall to her old bedroom, it never came.
“I thought I heard your door,” Shelly said, appearing in her room just a few moments later.
It hadn’t been long, but she would swear her sister looked older, more mature, less like the angry girl she’d left behind to go to the surface.
“What are you doing here?”
“I want to come home.”
“Oh,” she said, pressing her lips together. She thought about her next words. That was so mature, so careful, so very not like her little sister. What had been going on since she went to land? “I’m not sure our mother is going to go along with that plan.”
“Oh, I’m sure she’s going to be furious. But she’ll get over it. And marry me off to Osiren or someone, as punishment.”
“No. Not Osiren.”
“Why not?”
“Because Osiren is engaged—”
“Oh, good for him.”
“To Juna.”
“To Juna?” Iris yelped. “Rule-following, serious, duty-bound, future queen Juna? Our Juna?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“A few days after you went to live in the city.”
“Was it mother’s choice?”
“It was a joint decision. As much as anything can be a joint decision when you’re a princess.”
“But they’re just so … different.”
“I never bought into the whole opposites-attract thing until I saw them together,” Shelly said. “She brings out a less vain, more sincere side of Osiren. He brings out a playful side of her.”
“Playful? Juna? The same Juna who used to use her toys to hold court? That Juna?”
“He got her to jump on the backs of dolphins and race for bragging rights. And ‘borrow’ the royal chariot. Only to get caught making out in it. Oh, and he got her to play a game of Truth or Dare. And she had to sing opera in front of visiting dignitaries.”
“But Juna can’t sing.”
“No, no she can’t,” Shelly said, eyes and smile warm.
“I’m sorry I missed that.”
“What have you been up to?”
“Trying to ruin my engagement,” Iris found herself admitting.
“Is he that awful?”
“No. No, he’s not awful. He’s just …”
There was a loud giggle coming from Juna’s room, then a shushing sound.
“Oh,” Iris said, pressing a hand to her mouth, her cheeks feeling warm at the idea of her sister having a man in her room.
“You have no idea,” Shelly said, wincing. “I needed to make makeshift noise-canceling headphones out of giant clamshells. That whooshing sound almost drowns out the … other sounds. Almost.”
“I’m happy for her.” She was. Juna deserved to be loved for who she was, while also having someone at her side who could show her depths to herself that she might not know existed otherwise.
Iris couldn’t help but feel a little envious.
That lack of connection was why she was back home in the first place. She didn’t have that with Finn.
“Me too. But tell me why I can’t be happy for you too.”
“He’s just … he’s all surface, no depth. And you can never know if he’s being real or not. He’s been so coached all his life that I’m not sure there is anything about him that’s genuine anymore.”
“Hmm.”
“Hmm? That’s all you have for me?”
“Well, I have more. I just don’t know if you’re ready to listen to it or not.”
Iris sighed, making a trail of delicate bubbles spiral upward like tiny pearls, shimmering near the ceiling before they popped.
“I feel like it’s wrong to be getting advice from my baby sister. But, sure, I’ll listen.”
“The way I see it is … you’re happy for Juna because Osiren saw the parts of her that even she couldn’t see, and he put in the time and work to bring those parts out.”
“Yeah …”
“But you’re not willing to do that for Finn.”
Oof.
That was unexpectedly astute.
“It’s different.”
“How?”
“Because I don’t think there are those parts of Finn.” Even she didn’t fully believe the words as she said them, though.
“If I didn’t tell you today, would you have believed that Juna would be capable of singing opera in front of some very important people?”
“No.”
“Exactly. Look, I’m not saying you can change someone. I don’t think that’s possible. But maybe you aren’t seeing beneath the surface because you aren’t looking.”
“Maybe.” She had been focused on finding fault in him because she desperately didn’t want to be condemned to a life on land.
“So, now the question is: are you choosing not to delve deeper because you genuinely don’t care for him, or because you’re afraid you could want him and a future on the surface with him?”
Huh.
“When did you become so wise?”
“Mother has focused on me now that you’ve been gone, and Juna has been … indisposed.”
“I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about that.”
“Well, she’s training me to become a possible land liaison.”
A land liaison. Iris had never given the position a second thought before, let alone wondered what kind of mermaid would be right for that job.
But as soon as her sister told her, she knew that Shelly was the perfect woman for the job.
Even if her heart pinged a little at the idea of her baby sister being suddenly old enough to be considered for such an important role.