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Like the tongue of a great beast, the stone table stretched from one side of the rock-hewn dining room to the other. If Clara

closed her eyes, she could almost pretend that she was home, a goblet of wine at her right hand, a plate of steaming fish

in cream sauce in front of her as Atty scurried about with serving platters. But even with her eyes closed, there was no mistaking

the cold bite of the damp air, the lack of any sort of smell other than wet rock and salt.

Thade was seated across the chasm of a table from her, his face a mask of benign disinterest, a little silver spear in his

hand which he used to occasionally skewer small fish. There had been two merfolk who set down some platters and then were

dismissed by Thade, leaving him and Clara alone.

“Eat,” Thade said, more of a command than an invitation. “I am not an ungracious host, and I do not like to see my guests

go hungry.”

Clara had no appetite for the cold fish or the pile of seaweed that lay before her. She had been escorted from her dreary

chamber to the dining room after a guard had delivered a gown to replace her soaking skirts and jacket. Even in the chambers

filled with air, it was damp and the rough wool and linen clung to her skin. Putting cold food in her stomach was the last

thing she wanted to do.

Sighing, Thade placed the little spear down and laced his long fingers together, leveling her with a hard look. At his shoulder, the bubble with her voice floated, taunting her.

“Don’t eat, then,” he said. “It is all the same to me. Do you know why I invited you to sup with me?”

He didn’t seem to expect a response as he toyed with the stem of a pearl goblet, bored. Even if she wanted to tell him that

she did not care for his reasons, her voice was not at her disposal. Instead, she bore her gaze into the stone table until

her eyes swam.

Thade scraped seaweed onto his spear, ate his meal in silence until he gave a heavy sigh. “Look at that herring on your plate,”

he said at last. “To you it is a little fish, one of thousands, perhaps millions. You probably ate fish like that every day

when you lived your soft and pampered life on land. Did you never wonder how it came to be on your plate? What had to come

to pass so that you might have a moment of pleasure upon your tongue?” He gave another weary sigh and pushed his own plate

away from him.

“I believe in justice,” he continued, “but not in the way my mother does. To her, justice is when the scales are balanced,

when the battlefields are level. But there can be no justice without understanding. The guilty party must be made to grasp

their crimes. Otherwise, how do we go forward? By all means, let the scales tip, but let both sides understand why they are tipped.”

He was quiet again, and she chanced a look at him. His attention was faraway, somewhere in the depths of his goblet as he

slowly swirled it. “So, Clara van Wieren, I would ask you if you understand why you are here? Truly?”

There was no malice in the question, but Clara had no interest in giving Thade an excuse to lecture her further.

She was here because she was part of a deal made before she was born, and her life was the final payment.

She was here, she assumed, because justice was easier served against a single girl than against an entire empire.

“Let us return to the herring on your plate. Before we made the bargain with the humans, herring were so plentiful that you

could dip your spear into the water and skewer three at once. They were the axis upon which our world turned. On the occasion

of a marriage, the bridegroom was responsible for bringing no less than seven braces to the family of his bride. It was largely

symbolic, of course, but important nonetheless. When a child was born, the family celebrated by stringing the polished bones

of herring with shells and hanging them on their threshold so that all who passed could hear the joyous tinkling sound.

“Even with these practices, there was no shortage of herring. But in a matter of only a generation, they were fished to the

point of extinction. Now they are so precious that they are reserved only for high feasts. Losing our land and resources is

not just a wound to our pride and dignity, but to our very way of life.”

Clara began to warm; not because of the dry clothes, or from becoming acclimated to the room, but because the blood in her

cheeks was growing hot as Thade’s words found their mark. “Young merfolk need not just their mother’s milk to thrive, but

also kelp. And for the kelp to grow, it needs sunlight and space. But as the docks expanded and the port continued to be built

up, the kelp forests died back.” He gave a hard swallow, the closest thing to emotion Clara had seen from him thus far. “I

doubt I need to spell out the result of this, even to you.”

Thade slipped into a contemplative silence.

His words had teeth, and they sank into her conscience, filling her with guilt.

If there had been any chance of Clara taking a bite from the fish, it now dwindled to nothing as she stared at it, her stomach knotting itself tighter and tighter until she felt light-headed.

It was not just fear from being seated across from this mercurial creature who might decide to pierce her through with a spear at any moment, but the growing realization that she was not as innocent and blameless as she had been led to believe.

Pushing back from his seat, Thade suddenly rose. “I will leave you to your thoughts and your supper. A guard will escort you

back to your chamber when you are ready.”

Clara felt hollow, but managed a short nod, her gaze still pinned to the plate heaped with fish and seaweed before her. A

moment went by, and Clara thought that Thade had gone, when his voice came from behind her. “I cannot fault you for your ignorance,”

he said quietly. “It is not a lesson I relish teaching, but it is a lesson that must be taught regardless. For in ignorance,

the same sins will forever be repeated. Good night.”

And with that, he left.