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Time passed easily on land. Clara painted and studied with Alida during the days, read books, and visited the guild. But in

the evenings she found herself wandering by the canals that she had once so feared. Helma drifted in and out of her life,

sometimes staying for weeks at Alida’s studio only to disappear for days before returning. And though she was never certain

where her friend went, Clara knew that she saw only a sliver of the world around her, that there were some things she would

never understand.

Nights were filled with dreams, both good and bad, of the water. Sometimes she was being pulled by unseen hands to her death

beneath the waves. Other times, she was in an idyllic grotto, lit by blooming algae and softened with seaweed. Maurits was

beside her, and she was tucked perfectly up against his body. But whenever she tried to look to see if he had legs or a tail,

the dream would scatter like a school of startled fish, and she would awaken, warm, but alone.

Clara pulled her heavy shawl tighter against the bite of the November evening. Workers were hurrying home before the city

gates closed, and everywhere there was a sense of camaraderie as the people of Amsterdam congregated in the squares to gossip

and buy hot drinks while children ran and played in the evening’s dying light.

“Clara van Wieren.”

The voice hissed through the bare trees along the canals, seemed to reverberate from the cobbles beneath her feet. Clara froze, the sounds of the city fading around her.

A dark head broke the water’s surface, then another head and another. A whole school of nix, pale shoulders and dark hair

in the canal. The red eyes of the nix closest to the edge found Clara and bade her come closer. Ignoring the startled murmurs

of the passersby, Clara rushed to the edge of the canal and dropped to her knees. She had never seen a nix before other than

Neese, and certainly not a male. Helma had always told her that they were dangerous and would lure humans to their watery

grave, but she knew better now. If these creatures had sought her out, it was for a reason.

“Neese bids you to come with us. It is the prince.”

The nix, unlike the basilisks, at least did not mince words or speak in riddles. Without a blink of hesitation, Clara peeled

off her jacket and unfastened her shoes, then slipped down into the canal. She did not bother asking leave, instead just holding

out her arms so that a nixie could grasp her and swim fast and smooth with her. The bite of water was frigid and sharp, but

she hardly felt it.

It is the prince. She thought she would never hear those words again. He couldn’t possibly be alive, could he? She told herself to temper her

expectations, but as they left the city behind and emerged into the harbor, her heart was beating painfully fast, her blood

hot.

The nix took her past the docks, but instead of heading deeper into the sea, they hugged the coast until they came to a sandy

beach outside of the city, dark buildings dotted against the falling dusk in the distance.

Clara was only confused for a moment, for as soon as they found their footing and brought her onto the shore, she caught sight of Neese’s hunched back, a curtain of long black hair falling in front of her face.

The nixie was crouched over something, rocking slowly on her heels.

“Tend to our prince,” the nixie with whom Clara had been riding told her by way of a farewell.

“We need him well. Tend to him and your debt to the basilisks and all water creatures shall be erased.” The other nix disappeared back into the water, leaving Clara dripping and cold as she ran the rest of the distance to Neese.

At Clara’s approach, Neese slowly turned and stood. Clara’s hand flew to her mouth when she saw what Neese had been guarding.

Maurits lay on the sand, his tail a little tattered and scarred, but looking as peaceful as if he was simply sleeping. Her

greedy eyes quickly took stock of every feature she thought she would never see again, the planes of his gently sculpted cheekbones,

his muscled forearms, his long, elegant fingers.

“Is he...?” Clara forced herself ask.

She had known that he was dead, had bitterly come to terms with it. But the spark of hope she’d felt when the nix had appeared

had made her throw all that to the wind. Seeing him laid out like a corpse on a marble slab was too much, and she didn’t think

she could go on living if her hopes were dashed now.

But Neese shook her head. “No, not dead. Look.” She traced a long, webbed finger down the column of his throat. “He washed

ashore this morning. The basilisks saw and told me.” A bitter laugh escaped her. “They said that they had already dragged

his pitiful ass back once before without being granted their debt, and they would not do so again.”

Dropping to her knees in the soft sand beside him, Clara put a tentative hand flush on his chest. He was cold as always, but

she felt the flicker of life that Neese had showed her, a heart that was not ready to stop beating yet.

“The dire whale,” Neese continued. “It must have decided that their bargain—whatever it was exactly—had been fulfilled and

left him to the current.”

Clara could not drag her gaze away from him. She wondered how he had come by the scars on his tail, and if they had hurt terribly. “When will he awake?”

Neese gave a snort. “I have been asking myself that same question for the past hour. Apparently not until he is good and ready.”

Clara’s hand drifted higher, until she was cupping his jaw. Some invisible string seemed to pull her closer to him. His lips

were perfect, slightly parted and covered in the softest dusting of salt. It seemed the most natural thing when she lowered

her mouth to his and allowed her body to remember every time he had given her breath. He tasted of salt and sunlight and Maurits.

Behind her, Neese muttered something, and then Clara heard her wading off into the spray.

The shrieking gulls and gentle roll of the waves were far away as Clara lowered herself beside him, resting her head on his

chest. “You are my miracle,” she whispered. “I thought I wasted my chance to love you, but you have come back to me, and now

I may try again.”

The slow rise and fall of his chest beneath her head made her drowsy, threatening to lull her to sleep like the waves. “I

have you,” she murmured. “I have you, my resolute protector. My prince.”

The tide was coming in.

Maurits could feel the give and take of the sea foam on his tail, edging closer with each wave.

His head was pounding, and his tail felt as if it had been sliced by a fishermen’s knife.

He groaned, trying to piece together the flickers of memories that flashed behind his eyes: leaving Clara alone in the grotto after giving her a silent kiss goodbye as she slept.

Finding the dire whale, offering himself in exchange for an end to the Water Kingdom’s reign.

Darkness. He had been in the belly of the whale.

He was going to die, had been prepared to die.

And then, with no warning and no explanation, the great creature had breached, expelling him on the surface before diving back into the deep.

Perhaps it had been a lesson, perhaps a mistake.

Though, something told him that dire whales did not make mistakes.

Movement stirred beside him and he was aware of a gentle pressure on his chest. Clara. Propping himself on elbows, he looked

down to see her curled beside him, her face resting on him like a pillow. Fair lashes feathered against her pallid skin. She

was shivering, but she was radiant, and she was real. Not a dream or a mirage shimmering before him as he languished in prison.

She was here, with the salt air tugging at her hair and the moonlight gracing her with a halo.

The weight of his weary head pulled him back down to the sand. He was tired, not just in his body, but in that deep well within

him from which his magic sprang. He had only just started reconnecting with his powers, and now he felt drained. But that

did not stop him from trying to conjure a blanket of warmth to cover her with. It must have had some small effect, for she

stirred beside him, then awoke, a drowsy smile touching her lips.

“You’re awake,” she said, her eyes brightening as she scrambled to sit up. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

He shook his head, his smile growing to match hers. He wanted to tell her that she could sleep as long as she liked, that

he would not move a muscle. He wanted to tell her a great many things, like how beautiful she looked with the salty breeze

in her hair, her amber eyes sparkling brighter than the sea. Even if he had his voice, he would still be speechless in the

face of her beauty.

A charming blush spread over her cheeks, as if she could discern his thoughts regardless.

“I have something of yours.”

From under her collar, she pulled out a chain with a large silver locket hanging on the end. She pried it with her fingernail and it sprang open, a soft blue light glowing from inside.

“I don’t know how...” Clara cradled the bubble in her hand. “I don’t know how it works.”

Maurits gently took it from her, his finger grazing hers. Inside, his voice glowed and flickered. He was moments away from

being able to confess his deepest feelings for her. All he needed to do was pierce the bubble and swallow the light within.

Instead, to Clara’s confusion, he lifted the chain from her neck and draped it around his own, closing his voice back within

the locket.

She had to tell him she loved her first, as he was now, voiceless, tail and all. Otherwise, he would always be left wondering.

His mother’s curse be damned; he needed to know that she could accept him as he was.

“Don’t you want your voice back?” she asked.

He shook his head, tucking a windblown lock of gold hair behind her ear. She had never looked more beautiful than she did

right now. He only wanted to hear her speak, to keep feeling her hands as she idly ran them down his chest over and over again

like a mother cat licking its kitten.

She seemed to understand, and settled back down onto the sand with him, her ear on his chest. “I thought I would never see

you again,” she whispered. “Everything that I thought mattered to me, I found inconsequential in light of your absence.”

She spoke like a woman now, her words confident and measured, not those of the headstrong girl he had met in Friesland. But

there was still a spark in her eyes, one that he had been afraid had been extinguished forever beneath the water.

“You betrayed me again,” she told him, her fingers never stopping in their long trails up and down his chest. “It was I who was supposed to offer myself to Thade. I was ready, and I wanted to do this one thing to atone for the sins of my people. But you did not give me the chance to prove myself before you took matters into your own hands.”

She drew in a ragged breath, let it out, a small white puff that evaporated into the air. “But I understand. And I understand

that to love means to allow the possibility of being hurt again, and I accept that.”

He could reach into the locket and retrieve his voice right now, explain that he adored her beyond all reason and that he

didn’t want to hurt her, would spend his entire life endeavoring to deserve her trust. He would tell her how he bargained

his seat on the throne, his very life, to the dire whales so that there would be no more power struggles within the Water

Kingdom. But he had sworn to let her speak, and so he let his hand fall away from the locket and instead cup her own cold

hand.

“There is something else... something that took me too long to understand. It was not until I saw the Water Kingdom, the

destruction that my kind wrought on it that I truly understood. You should have hated me, or at the very least, not tried

to help me. I represented everything terrible that happened to your world. Yet you have been generous in your love, never

judging me for my people’s sins. I owe you an apology, and am sorrier than you can know for the part I played, knowingly or

not.” Her fingers stopped their idle exploration, and she placed her hand over his heart. “I think that in your deceptions

there is a need to protect, a noble instinct. But if you are to be in my life and my heart, I need to know that there are

no secrets, no lies between us. Can you do that?”

His nod was quick. Her shoulders sagged a little, the cloud lifting from her brow. She gave a nod of her own.

“I believe you, and I trust you. But most of all, I love you, Maurits. I only wish I knew your true name.”

Her words carried to his ear on a blissful whisper. He closed his eyes, letting them wash through him. It was all he had longed to hear for so long. He could have his voice back, shift his form back, knowing that she loved him completely and unconditionally.

He braced himself for his mother’s curse to slide away and leave him the man he had always wished to be. But the moments passed

and there was no great change.

Clara was propped on her elbow, watching him. “Maurits?”

Of course his mother would not have made it so simple. Of course there was some unmet stipulation. He smiled, and found that

he did not care. His happiness was that she was here, that he had her love. Taking her face in his hands, he pressed a kiss

from lips that could speak no words, yet told her everything.