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“That you can find,” Avalon said softly. “Not all poisons are detectable.” She pursed her lips. “The plague doesn’t present like any poison I know.”

“For that I’m glad,” Alanis said to the younger healer. “When you’ve lived as long as I have, you come across things you wishyou could wipe from your mind. Poisons aren’t straightforward. They present in different ways.”

Mer caught movement to her left and she spotted Coven—the skittery young woman who always seemed to be helping with odd jobs around the village. The girl’s hat was just barely visible above the frame of the open window.

Odd. What was she doing out there? Was there word from Isla?

Perhaps she didn’t want to disturb them.

Maybe the young woman was curious about what they spoke about, but why hide? It wasn’t as if what they were speaking about was a secret.

She’s shy. Stop being so suspicious.

“Okay.” Reef held his hands up. “Let’s say for argument’s sake that it is a poison. If it isn’t in the water source, then what do the people have in common across the kingdom?”

“A food source? Maybe a household item?” Mer offered, dismissing the girl.

Joiakim sighed. “I’ll play your game.” He laced his fingers and rested them on his chest. “Surely if it was poison the Methians would have discovered it.”

“Not if it came from the ocean,” Mer said, the damning words falling from her lips.

The room fell silent and tension filled the air.

“Are you suggesting that our king has been poisoning the Methians for over the last thirty years?” Joiakim hissed. “It’s treason to even think such things, let alone speak them aloud.”

“No, my grandfather does not care for the lives of land dwellers. He never has and he never will. Methi has basically been cut off from the five kingdoms for the last thirty years. Aermia struggles with disease and civil war. Nagali is a wasteland full of minstrels and pirates. Scythia has beenconsumed with lust for power. But none of the other kingdoms have been able to penetrate the security of Methi’s borders.”

“What of ships?” Joiakim asked.

“They would have been noticed.”

“Scythia could have done this,” Alanis darkly muttered. “Their depravity knows no bounds.”

“But as you said, this is a new strain,” Mer pointed out. “Blaise is now queen. From what I’ve heard, she has an iron control over her court.”

“And yet…” Joiakim sighed. “It’s easy to plot behind a ruler’s back. Haven’t you successfully done so yourself?”

Mer swallowed down her retort. The healer had been close to Pearl and was taking out his grief on everyone around him. She could extend some grace to him. “True, but it wouldn’t be an easy thing. A year hasn’t even passed since the Warlord’s War. Everyone is still walking on pins and needles. I don’t think someone would do this now.”

“We’ve cleared everyone,” Avalon said. “That leaves no one and we’re back to a disease.”

“But what if it did come from the sea?” Mer said softly, as she moved to the table and pushed around the books until she found the one she was looking for. She stabbed a finger at the myth about sea demons she’d found. “I heard a bard sing stories about these creatures. He’d even studied about them in his travels. I’ve spoken with Isla. The whole village believes them to exist. They believe them to be Sirenidae.”

Reef burst out laughing and then choked it back when he realized everyone else was quiet. He threw his hands up in the air. “That’s preposterous.” He waved a hand toward the ocean. “That water kills Sirenidae. We cannot survive in the cold. It’s just old ghost stories.”

“While you’re not wrong,” she admitted, “all myth is rooted in truth.” She licked her lips and continued, despite the way her heart raced in her chest. “What if there was another possibility?”

“Like what?” Avalon asked.

“What if we’re not the only ones in the ocean?” Once the idea had taken root, she couldn’t let it go. “Think about it.” Mer began to pace back and forth. “We can’t survive the cold so when have we ever explored the North Sea? What if there are sea people of the north?”

“Then why would they not have made themselves known to us?” Alanis asked.

“Because of their physical limitations. We cannot handle the depths and the cold. They cannot handle the reefs and the warmth.”

Joiakim scoffed. “What proof do you have? Just the words of a bard and the pretty words of a fairytale?”

Her experience with the kraken rose to the forefront of her mind. She had sworn that day she had heard someone else calling—a haunting tune in the water but she’d brushed it off. And then again in the Bay of Laos had she not also heard another song? She’d dismissed it as her mind longing for home.