“We’re almost there,” Nalia giggles, keeping her hands pressed tight on his eyes as he swims clumsily forward. He warbles a little, for effect. She giggles again.

Grom smiles. “Did you pick the furthest island from our parents, then?” Syrena custom normally calls for the males to pick the mating island, to find a private, uninhabited place for the newly mated couple to consummate their vows—which they can only do in human form. But Nalia had asked—no, begged—for him to let her pick the island and set it up for their stay there.            “Sort of. But the surprise part isn’t who we’re furthest from—it’s who we’re closest to.”        Finally, after what seems like an entire season, his fin skims sand. “Are we there yet?”

She uncovers his eyes, and he’s shown the underwater landscape of a slowly ascending ocean floor littered with coral reefs and rocks and colorful fish. They couldn’t be more than thirty fins deep, which means the shoreline is close.

Nalia pops to the surface and motions for him to do the same. She points to their destination, and Grom drinks in the small island, the breeze dancing through the luxuriant green canopy, the lazy waves of ocean licking the shore. He holds up his hand to shield himself from the sunlight mirrored off of the bright sand, almost blinding him as his eyes adjust to dry air. Then he sees it. “Nalia,” he says, his mouth gone suddenly dry. “You can see the big land from here.”

She claps like a seal. “You noticed! Aren’t you excited? But that’s not the whole surprise. Let’s go on shore.” She pulls his hand, but he holds back.

“You’d better just tell me the rest of it. Because we’re not going on shore so close to the human land.”

Her face falls. “But that’s the surprise.”

Grom pinches the bridge of his nose. One thing he adores about Nalia is that she’s adventurous, fearless. She could never be boring. But this is a bit much. This is not a small law to break. This is the biggest. Through gritted teeth he says, “Why would we want to go to the big land?”

She won’t meet his gaze now, finding something terribly interesting to look at beneath them in the water. “Well, for one thing, it’s fun.”

“Please don’t say that means you’ve done it.”

She bites her lip.

“How?”

“I have what the humans call a row boat. I do feel bad about stealing it, but I need it to take me to shore after I change into dry human clothes on the island. I feel bad about stealing those too—”

“How long have you been doing this?” His voice sounds gruffer than he intended.

She crosses her arms now, apparently in short supply of shame. “Why don’t you ask your mother?”

“My mother?”

“Ask her where she gets her human treasures. You can’t really believe that she scavenges for them herself.”

Actually, he did. The idea that his mother has known about—no, encouraged—Nalia’s escapades makes his insides catch fire. “This has got to stop,” he says before he can hold it back. Before he can twist the words into something more diplomatic.

The way her eyes pool into huge drops of water on her face. The way her mouth curves into a soft frown. The way her crossed arms seem to relax into a gentle self hug, as if she’s trying to hold something in and comfort herself all at the same time. She’s disappointed in him.

Without another word, she slinks below the surface.

And he learns something new about Nalia. She is very fast. He cannot keep pace with her, but finds that the best he can do is not get left behind altogether. She moves further and further ahead, deflecting the attempts of others who try to greet her. They toss confused looks in his direction as they realize he’s actually chasing her, calling out to her. And she’s ignoring him.

He can’t imagine the size of the spectacle they’re making, but right now he doesn’t care. He knew they would eventually have their first fight. Triton’s trident, they started out fighting, didn’t they? He knew they couldn’t live in euphoria for their next two hundred years together. But he’d been expecting to argue about silly things first, like who is the better kisser, or what to name their first fingerling. Things that he’d be more than willing to surrender on.

But this fight is big. It’s not just about her interest in humans and he knows it. It’s about her freedom. And about how much control he’ll have over it once they’re mated. This is not a fight he’d anticipated. He’s always known she was fiercely independent, but he thought he could reason with her, coax her into seeing that there was always more than one point of view to any situation. And maybe he could have, if the first words out of his mouth hadn’t sounded like some unbending command.

He curses under his breath. “Nalia, please stop,” he calls out. “Please.”

She doesn’t. Already they’ve passed the central hub of Syrena society, and they’re well on their way past the Human Pass, where they were nearly killed. Just one more sand bar and they’ll be close to another human shore altogether.

He reaches the hump of the last sand bar. And freezes.

She tries to stop too, but her momentum catches up with her and she slides into the human mine. Hundreds of round metal balls floating above long chains, waiting to be touched, to be set off, to explode. It’s a trap meant to kill humans, but now Nalia, his Nalia, is inside the mess of it, the slightest move of her fin setting the chains to swaying haphazardly. There’s barely enough room for her to fit between them, let alone maneuver with any kind of speed. It’s a miracle she’s still alive, that the wake of her entrance didn’t knock two of the balls together. It will be an even greater miracle to get her out.

“Don’t move,” he says, terror clutching at his throat like an actual hand. This can’t be happening.

She nods, eyes wide. “I’m sorry,” she whispers. “This is my fault.”

“I’m going to get you out,” he tells her, but he has no idea how.

“Grom. Don’t come any closer. Get away.”

He eases forward. “Be still.”

“If you come any closer I’ll set them off on purpose.”

“Nalia. Don’t be stupid. I can help.”

“This is how it’s going to work. You’re going to swim in that direction until I can’t see you anymore. Then I’m going to get myself out of here.”

He crosses his arms. “You’ve lost your mind if you think I’m leaving.”

“There’s no point in both of us…Just go. I can get out. But I can’t concentrate with you so close to—just go. Please.”

They both hear it at the same time. Two distinct plunks from the surface. Grom looks past Nalia. Two metal ovals, distinctly human-made, with a red angular symbol painted near the tail.  Two miniature death ships falling sinking falling.

No no no no.

There is no time.

A flash of light. Once. Twice. Uncountable times.

Deafening thunder.

Devouring heat.

Blackness.

Quiet.