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“You really do have a beautiful tail,” he commented, and I could feel his intense gaze burning into my scales from hip to tip as I lowered it over the edge.

The cool lake water felt amazingly good on my tail, and I reveled in the feeling of my fins wafting in the mild current.

Responding to the partial-body submersion, the upper half of my body continued the transformation, and the searing pain in my neck meant that my gills had come out. I tried to take a breath, but my throat and lungs stung like they were on fire.

“Hurry. Get all the way in so you can breathe,” Kendall cautioned.

I let go of the edges of the portal and let myself fall in. When next I inhaled, water filled my open mouth, washing away the aching burn. I could breathe. Relief flooded through me.

Kendall was beside me soon after. The water was so clean that I could see his entire form with crystal clarity. His tail was now out, and I was both relieved and sad about that.

“How do you feel?” His words came out both muffled and amplified as we floated in the water, and I could clearly understand each syllable.

I swished myself around to let the sensations sink in. “I feel great!”

Shock reverberated through me at the sound and feeling of my own voice in the water. It was the strangest thing I’d experienced yet, and that was really saying something after all I’d been through at this school.

“Good, let’s go for a swim.” Kendall nodded toward the open, seemingly endless water.

Without another word between us, we swam side-by-side through the lake. This was completely different from swimming in the pool. Here, there were no boundaries, no limits. I could move around as I wished without the worry of bumping into the wall or a pissed-off mermaid. And Kendall didn’t seem to mind at all when I occasionally brushed by him.

We swam everywhere, and I was awestruck by the freedom of it. Schools of fish swarmed around us now and then, and it was amazing to see them come so close. I felt like I wasn’t a foreign intruder, like I belonged in these waters they called their home.

One fish swam right up to my face, and I cupped my hands under it, inviting it to come as close as it wished. The little fish accepted my invitation and gently nuzzled across my cheek before rejoining its school and disappearing into the depths.

“I want to show you something,” Kendall said.

I nodded, eager to follow.

I swam behind him, letting the currents from his fins guide me. It was strange how easy it was to be in sync with him.

We dove deeper. The water temperature began to drop, though not enough to bother me. I wondered how far down I could dive and what limitations my mermaid body had. At what depth would the pressure become too great? Or were our bodies just made to traverse the entirety of the ocean floor?

A large form loomed ahead, and my eyes widened. “Where are we?”

“It’s a shipwreck. There are tons of these things down here.”

The body of the boat was still intact, a large water wheel resting next to it as if it had been leaned up against the side. There was something quaint about the wood construction, the railed deck, the tall stacks protruding from the top, though all of it was covered in a thick layer of grime and algae.

“Tons of shipwrecks?”

“You’d be surprised just how much stuff is on the floor of the lake. Come on.” Kendall slid through a window on the side of the ship.

I followed him, peering around the dark interior. It was as breathtaking as it was eerie. An old piano sat in one corner, and what must have been crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling, cocked at an awkward angle as it gave into gravity and the pull of the water. Chairs lay haphazardly across the floor, all of it covered by a blanket of green.

“This is one of the better wrecks. Not too many lives lost. Others, you’re practically digging through bones.”

I suppressed a shudder. “There aren’t any dead bodies here, are there?”

“No. I think they all washed away. But they left behind some pretty cool stuff. It’s actually part of how we funded the school. The mer make great deep-sea treasure hunters.”

I wiped away the slime from one of the drops attached to the chandelier, releasing a cloud of goo. I coughed, the water rushing out of my gills. But a bit of the crystal shone through.

“Oh, watch yourself. We don’t want to murk up the waters with algae too much.”

I nodded in agreement.

“Here.” Kendall wrapped his hand around the crystal drop, carefully maneuvering it off the chandelier. “A memento of our little adventure.”