The bathwater had gone cold an hour ago, but here Coralie sat, trailing her fingers through it. Her eyes were closed. She was pretending.

The camisole flowing around her, soaked to the seams, was seaweed; and the cold salty bathwater poured in from the sea. She pretended the window was rattling until it rattled loose and the seawater surged in through the opening, sweeping away glass and hinge, through her beautiful quarters and devouring all in its path, washing her away into the silent deeps...

A frantic knock sounded on her chamber door.

Coralie did not answer.

"Miss Coralie! Are you out of the water yet? It's nearly time!"

The doorknob fumbled and shook for a moment, then Roone came bustling in, skirts sweeping against the floorboard.

"Oh, look at the sight of you...soaking in ice cold water with a storm outside? The guests will be here any minute!"

Coralie opened her eyes. Roone was trying her best to glare down at her, hands on her hips and white-blond curls spilling out from her cap.

"I'm sorry."

The words scraped up her throat and came out in a rasping whisper that Coralie herself could barely hear. She slid down into the cold water and sucked a mouthful of it in.

Roone snatched at a large towel draped over the sides of the tub and held it open with an encouraging smile. "Come along, Miss Cora. We don't have all night to get you prettied up, and didn't you hear? The prince is coming!"

Coralie slid all the way under. Roone flickered and wobbled across the glassy surface of the bathwater, and her voice was muted to nearly nothing. Silvery-blue glittered on the inside of Coralie's thighs. She reached out with a tentative finger, ran it along the smooth new scales with a shiver. They looked so out of place among all the scars.

Coralie closed her eyes and pretended she could sink past the bottom of the tub, down down down into the deeps, and that the scales were spreading from her legs up to her chest and over her mouth, over her eyes...

Roone was grabbing her arm, hauling her up out of the water. "I know you're a little nervous, Miss Cora, but that isn't an excuse to play around like this, when we've got less than an hour to dry you off and dazzle your prince. Lady Frost would be most displeased if she found you in this state."

Coralie swallowed her mouthful of salty bathwater and pressed her thighs together to hide the flash of silver. "I don't want to dazzle Johanne's prince."

Roone frowned and toweled her off with such haste it felt like she was losing a layer of her skin. "Get over to your wardrobe, little miss."

Coralie dutifully did so. She stood and let Roone dress her in a clean shift and petticoats, a dress, a pair of firm silk stockings and slippers. She sat at the vanity and watched her long wet hair transform into a tall, elegant sweep, her features vanish beneath paint and powder.

Her sister's name had burned on her tongue when she spoke it, like a magic word.

She did not speak again.

•

The ballroom was awash in soft golden light. Glass globes floated by thin fishing lines from the ceiling, and candles burned within them. Every mirror had been polished to a fearsome shine. But the finest facet of the room were all of the rich guests who danced within it.

Rich colors of every hue swirled past Coralie at her seat on the ballroom's edge– finely embroidered coats and scalloped skirts, shoes so black they looked like beetle wings, glitter on cheeks and eyelids, jewels glittering in everyone's hair.

There were doors at either end, but they were shut, and the crush of the party hemmed Coralie in on all sides. She looked to the window and watched in mute despair as a dutiful footman pulled the drapery closed. It felt as though he was pulling her throat shut. She opened her mouth to test this, to speak, and found she could not breathe.

"Coralie."

It was the prince. No one else dared address her so informally. Coralie pressed a hand to her chest and willed herself to take in air, to suck the burning down her throat, let it eat away at her bones.

Ashley was smiling at her with all of his teeth showing, a bare hand extended. His eyes were bright and empty, and his smile didn't reach them.

Coralie didn't want to turn and place her small, gloved hand in his. Nor did she want to rise and dance with him in the suffocating throng. But she did so anyway.

She could feel the gaze of Lady Frost on her bare shoulders even though she did not know where the woman was.

"You look stunning, my dear," said Ashley, with a stunning smile of his own. He held Coralie too close for her to evade his perfume- flowers and spices, stiflingly sweet. She gagged on it, but he didn't seem to care that she hadn't replied.

"I haven't seen you for these past few days. Have you been hiding from me?"

His voice was coddling and playful, as if she were a child. The ballroom floor tilted sickeningly beneath her and she nearly fell against his broad chest. He'd like that. Anger kept her on her feet.

"No."

"Buying more sweets? I will buy you all the sweets you want when we are married."

She hated him. She hated his indulgent grin. She hated every word that came crawling out of his smiling, perfect mouth. She hated his long, soft fingers, stained with Johanne's blood...Johanne, who'd been so trusting...

In the glistering mirrors the ocean was rising higher and higher, straining, seething. Dark blue and rich green, roaring at the silver glass, struggling against it. Foam ran along the edges of the frames. A rattling breath caught in her throat.

"Mafalda missed you at croquet this morning."

Thunder rumbled outside the covered window, and a heartbeat later lightning screamed overhead, flashing across every mirror in the hall. Two golden eyes glowed in the lightning's flare, and a smile as sharp as a knife.

The floor vanished beneath Coralie's feet and she fell against the prince, heart galloping in her chest.

"There, there, now," said Ashley. "All is well, my pet. I'll protect you."

She looked past his shoulder, shaking, and could not make a reply. The mirrors only reflected the guests' finery and the warm glow of candlelight. Not a drop of seawater remained. Had she only imagined it?

Ashley tipped up her chin, smiling a little. "Are you afraid of storms, Cora?"

"No," she rasped, finding her voice at last. She dared to meet his eyes. "I am not afraid of anything."

•

Coralie awoke the next morning with a splitting headache and a mouth as dry as sand. She could taste blood and the dregs of a sleeping draught between her teeth, but the knowledge that she'd been drugged to sleep did not frighten or anger her, not anymore.

She was weary.

She knew she could not run. Her bones were too delicate for the heavy air of land, the rocks and roads and strain of human life.

She knew she could not hide. Her eyes were the color of a rainbow, or so she was told, and her shimmering blue hair stubbornly refused to hold a dye.

She was too weak to fight, and too cowardly to die, and so she was trapped here with one foot in her sister's grave.

Roone came knocking on the door with a tray of cold cuts and cheese, all of which Coralie knew she wouldn't eat. Her throat closed up around the taste of her own blood. Her lungs were burning. She let them burn.

"Did you sleep well, Miss Cora?"

"No," Coralie croaked, seeing no value in saying otherwise. "I saw my sister's face. Something old was eating at it, very slowly, and when her mouth opened seven black moths flew out."

Roone's smile turned strained. She fiddled with the cheese for a moment. "You're not going to eat."

"No."

"I'll dress you, then. 'Twill be nice to be ahead of schedule."

Coralie didn't know what she meant by that, but she never really did. Lady Frost liked her ignorant and confused. Perhaps she didn't want to make the same mistake she'd made with Johanne.

She limped over to the wardrobe, all but dragging her left leg. A new patch of scales had appeared at the juncture of her hip, and she hid them with her hand so Lady Frost wouldn't bring out the knives again.

It began innocuously at first- shift, stockings, petticoats, a hoop for a skirt. But then Roone went to the back of the wardrobe and produced a white silk dress.

The ocean roared in Coralie's ears and the whisper of a dead voice hissed down her brittle spine. She stared into Roone's watery blue eyes until she felt as though she would be violently sick.

"Don't move," Roone commanded her. Coralie closed her eyes against the room, which had begun to tilt. She felt the white silk tighten around her waist and lungs like a noose.

Roone's hands were gentle with her hair, twisting part of it back carefully, like it was a living thing. "All will be well."

All would not be well.

Coralie clenched her fists at her sides, feeling her delicate bones creak under her skin. She wished she had kept the knife Johanne had given to her, short and sharp and made of shell. But she'd foolishly trusted Roone with it.

"He does love you, Miss Cora."

Coralie wanted to chew Roone's apology up and spit it back at her face, even though she knew it wasn't Roone's fault she was laced into a wedding dress and scarred across the lengths of her legs. She rubbed her hip through her skirts and pretended the scales were inching their way across her stomach.

It was freezing cold when they left her room, soft silk slippers in Coralie's hands and her train in Roone's. Not a creature stirred, but rain battered against the house as if it were trying to break it down.

Roone led Coralie out by a side door. The butler bowed but said nothing. Dread prickled in her chest.

The sky was pitch black outside. A fine carriage waited in the rain, and Lady Frost stood beside it.

Coralie frowned up into the downpour. "How late is it?" she croaked.

"Seven o'clock," said Roone, a bit sheepishly. Lady Frost scowled, and the maid scampered back into the house, out of harm's way, letting Coralie's train fall into a filthy puddle.

Fear coursed through Coralie's veins, colder than anything on land or sea. She turned and ran, but her gait was so damned uneven, even worse than it had been but an hour before, and the footman caught her in a second.

"Not so fast," he grunted into her hair.

She struggled against his grasp, feeling her bones bend under the pressure, trying to slip out and away, away, towards the cliff's edge, towards the sea– but he was wrestling her back towards the carriage, dragging her bare feet along the sharp rocky ground, towards where Lady Frost stood frowning.

He shoved her through the carriage doorway, and she stumbled for the opposite door, fumbling for the handle. Her fingers refused to bend, and she slammed her palm against the handle, then her shoulder against the door. Shouts from the outside. Lady Frost's gleaming silver hair appeared in the open doorway.

It banged open, and Coralie fell out, tangled in her skirts, trying and failing to set her webbed feet on the ground– the edge of her damned train was stuck on a long nail. She pulled and tugged but the fabric refused to tear, and just when it began to give, Lady Frost clambered inside with claws outstretched, snatching at Coralie's bodice and yanking her back up into the carriage.

She pulled away with all her strength but she was nothing against the older woman or her cage of a wedding dress- she may as well have been made of feathers. Lightning tore jagged through the roiling sea. Coralie balled her fist into her train, punched through the carriage window, and screamed her sister's name.

•

The chapel was a wretched creature, twisted by age, with a dozen stained glass windows of dying saints and apostles. Coralie dragged her feet every step from the carriage to the chapel doors, screaming and weeping into the fury of the storm. Lady Frost's grip on her arm was as cold and unyielding as iron.

The footman pushed the chapel doors open, and Lady Frost seized Coralie's jaw in her other hand, squeezing hard enough to make Coralie cry out. Lightning cast her sharp features in horrifying relief, turned her pale eyes white.

"Ruin this wedding," she snarled, "and I will cut your throat. You will not doom us."

Coralie snarled back and bit out with her useless human teeth, but Lady Frost struck her across the mouth and dragged her into the chapel.

The inside was quiet from the storm, but a decent crowd was there, looking cowed. Ashley stood at the altar beside a gaunt priest, smiling and smiling and smiling.

Coralie shivered, suddenly feeling the cold. Rainwater dripped from her filthy skirts onto the rich red carpet, and her left hand was going mottled purple. She cried out when Lady Frost snatched her by the arm and pulled her down the aisle.

Ashley's smile broadened when Coralie stood trembling across from him at last. "Here you are. We were all wondering when you'd arrive."

Coralie opened her mouth despite the stinging, and found she could not breathe. The priest began reading, and at Lady Frost's clearing of her throat, began reading more quickly.

She stared at the smiling prince with all the hatred she could dig up from her wispy-thin bones and her weak human blood. She stared around the chapel and saw fear on everyone's faces. She stared at the glass above the altar, a king with a trident in his hand, and a dark circle at his feet.

Lightning struck behind the king, and the trident flickered blood red. Coralie stumbled back into the footman, who shoved her back to her unsteady feet. The priest's voice settled into a drone.

A knock sounded on the chapel doors. Just one, heavy as the ringing of a bell. The priest paused.

"Keep reading," Lady Frost hissed. Her eyes flickered to Coralie. The priest continued reading, a little faster. His droning voice stumbled over a word here and there.

The knock sounded again, loud as the rolling thunder. The priest continued reading, but his eyes went to the door, and there was a quiet murmur in the dazed crowd. He gestured at Lady Frost, who produced a small shell knife.

Coralie swayed on her feet. She stared at the doors and watched, dazed, as seawater began seeping silently beneath them, flowing down the carpet. Foam bubbled along the sides of the pews. The water lapped at the edges of Coralie's dress. The downpour grew louder, so loud that the priest had to nearly shout the words he was reading.

"Hurry!" Lady Frost shrieked, and the knock sounded one more time, loudest of all, rattling the knife on the altar. The priest babbled his way through the rest of the words. Coralie slipped one toe into the water and heard it hiss.

Lady Frost snatched up her hand and Ashley's, and all but shoved them in the hands of the bewildered priest. She raised the glittering knife.

The doors opened with a clap of thunder, and the angry ocean poured in. Lady Frost screamed and struck out blindly with the knife, tearing Coralie's arm open. Coralie stumbled against Ashley, smearing it all over his white wedding clothes, and slipped through his limp grasp into the seawater. The priest had fallen silent.

A figure stood in the doorway, up to its waist in seawater. Long red hair, stringy and knotted, fell in a curtain about its face, and a tattered white dress hung from its bony shoulders. It took one shambling step forward. Coralie reached out with her bleeding arm, dazed. Black spots danced at the corners of her vision.

The knife fell from Lady Frost's fingers into the sea and she shook the priest by his shoulders. "Finish it! Finish it!"

He opened his mouth but no sound came out. A splash, and another one. The waters were rising. The figure was coming closer. Worms curled through its cheekbones, and a black moth fluttered out through an empty eye socket.

"Say the damned words!" Lady Frost screamed. Ashley managed to mumble out "With this ring I do thee..." She struck his face, but he did not seem to feel it.

Coralie rose in the ocean water and took the figure's skeletal hand in her own webbed one, glittering with silver scales. The figure bent down and a black, moldy tongue lapped up all the blood from Coralie's arm.

"Coralie," Lady Frost cried out, in a plea that was nearly a sob. The water was up to her chest, pulling hungrily at her. "It's all we have left. You must listen. Please."

Coralie looked at her and said nothing. She reached up to her cheeks. Smooth scales brushed beneath her fingers, webbed and strong. She smiled, and knew Lady Frost saw the hungry gleam in her sharpened teeth.

"Come," said the thing that was once her sister. Coralie spared a glance for the silent crowd, drowning in their pews, and for Ashley's blond locks vanishing beneath the dark water.

She took her sister's hand and slithered away from the flooding wreck of stone, down into the dark.

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