Free Vicious Deep by Zoraida Cordova

anywhere.”
    â€œThis is my duty, not yours. Now go before I tell the king.”
    Her yellow-green eyes are wide with a new realization. “You can’t . We’ve no contact with Toliss until Arion’s ship gets here.” The silence that follows should be accompanied by a So there. Na-na, na-na-na.
    â€œHello? Remember me? One of you. Kurt, Kurt’s little sister, Mom. Tell me how to turn back!” I say loudly.
    Kurt pulls the vial out of his pocket. I don’t have a good feeling about it.
    â€œYou were never given the rites of the newborn. Only court merfolk can shift. You are not an average merman, as you are, quite literally, half human. When you were born—”
    â€œKurt, one thing at a time, please,” Mom says. And I thank her, because my headache is back and all I want is a warm, dry bed.
    I dip myself into the bathwater, this time preparing for the gills to open and shut again when I surface.
    â€œAs part of the Sea Court, we get our legs whenever we visit shore. There was a time when all creatures coexisted on this plane. Humans, fey, shifters, and what humans started calling monsters. Then suddenly it changed. Humans outnumbered all of us. They wanted us gone. Those who didn’t want to start wars chose to move their courts to hidden islands. Ours is the only isle that is still in this realm, with the exception of two fairy islands. We cover them with mists so humans cannot detect them, and from a distance it looks like a storm at sea.
    â€œCourts?” I find myself saying. “In the stories it’s always just one mermaid.”
    â€œThe Sea King took away our legs to keep us from straying. But that doesn’t stop some from showing themselves to humans. The easiest thing in the world is to fall in love with one of us. Shakespeare and Donne were particularly obsessed, as were all the poets who’d caught a glimpse. Or thought they did. Besides, it’s usually the mermaids who get caught on land.”
    â€œBecause mermen don’t like getting dry?”
    Kurt takes on a face that Ryan made when he tried to explain to Angelo the difference between a microcosm and a macrocosm. “Mermaids are more likely to seek a human’s affections than mermen. I suppose we lack the same amount of curiosity when it comes to human lovers. So there are fewer merman sightings recorded. Because of that, there’s the misconception that mermen are unattractive. As you can see in the case of you and me, that is not so.”
    I mean, not to sound like an ass, but I was thinking the same thing.
    My father snickers, and my mother purses her lips.
    â€œBut enough about us man-hungry mermaids ,” my mother says. “Are you quite sure you know how to do that, Kurt?”
    He holds up the vial to the light and shrugs. “I’ve read all the texts, and I’ve seen it executed on a few lucky merfolk who’ve pleased the king enough and were granted land legs. And the less lucky, who’ve been banished to land for having displeased him as well.”
    Read. Seen. There is no I’ve done anywhere in there.
    â€œWhat exactly are you going to do? What do you mean you’ve only seeing it done?” It’s all making me so warm that I let the cold water run, adding another inch to the pool on the floor.
    â€œMany pardons, Lord Sea—”
    â€œWhoa.” I hold up my hand. “Don’t you ever call me that again.”
    But he continues over me. “—I forget you’re half human and have a shorter attention span. It is incredibly rare that a human and our kind can actually conceive a fully human child that is also fully mer-kin. There have been creatures with the heads of fish and the bodies of humans. Sometimes they come out incredibly deformed and, usually, don’t live past a few months.
    â€œBut I digress. This”—he holds the vial close to my face so that I can see that the ink is swirling on