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Under Clara’s careful gaze, Maurits pierced the bubble and released his voice from its cage. He tipped his head back and let

the flickering light find its way to his mouth. His throat warmed, like the madeira that he had drunk once on land, a tonic

rich and smooth that blazed a comforting trail through him.

Once he felt his voice settle back in his throat, he measured is first words carefully; he did not want to squander the impact

of his long-awaited declaration. “I love you, Clara. I always felt that I was something in between, not quite a man, not quite

a creature of the water. But now I am simply a thing that lives to worship you. Will you let me worship you, Clara?”

A tear slipped from her eye as she cupped his jaw, but she nodded.

There was so much he wanted to say; he was desperate that she know the depths of his true feelings. How could she begin to

understand how perfect she was? The way that she was at once a completely unique creature, yet seemed to have been created

solely for him? “I live in anticipation of your next smile, the way a dove awaits the break of dawn. If you leave, my life

will be one long stretch of darkness. There is nothing on this earth or beneath these waves that could make me forget that

you are the reason my soul is alive.”

Clara stared at him for a moment that seemed to stretch all the way to the horizon and back. Above them, terns shrieked and bickered. Still she did not speak.

He had misjudged her feelings, terribly. She loved him, but not in the all-consuming, soul-afire way that he loved her.

Her tongue darted out over her lips and he told himself that he would not reduce himself to begging if she got up and walked

away from him.

But she did not get up or walk away. “How long have you had those beautiful words inside of you?” she asked him.

He blew out a long breath, desperately relieved. “Too long,” he told her, his grin spreading.

She returned the smile, leaned into him and imparted another kiss.

He was overtaken by a desperate need to be closer to her, to give her a piece of himself. So he murmured the only other thing

he had to give her against her neck.

She pulled back. “What?”

“You asked my true name before. That’s it.”

Her puzzled expression shifted into one of pure joy, so beautiful that he wished he could bottle it and keep it forever. She

tried the unfamiliar vowels on her tongue, failing to even closely replicate it. It was terribly endearing, and his heart

swelled at her effort. “It’s beautiful.”

“It will always be as much a part of me as my very bones, but I prefer to look forward. Besides, I want to hear you say my

name often, and with no offense intended...”

“Maurits, then,” she said with a laugh.

“Maurits,” he agreed.

Night had settled over the beach, the twinkling lights and chimney smoke of Amsterdam just far enough to make it feel as if they were in their own world on the beach.

But the scales on his tail were beginning to chafe, his body reminding him that he was not a man, and that he needed to return to the water soon.

Clara had a life up here now, one that he did not know how he fit into, despite her declaration.

“I must go, my love. But I will return in the morning by the canal.”

Now that there was no kingdom anymore, no duties to shirk, he had little idea what he would do with his time. If the curse

was broken, then he would have spent his days by Clara’s side, exploring the land and all the wonders it had to offer. Even

with his powers partially restored, he did not think he was capable of shifting his form for long periods of time. And there

was still his mother to contend with, and he could not put off their reunion forever. He did not look forward to explaining

what had happened to Thade. Perhaps she already knew; even imprisoned, he couldn’t imagine that there was much that transpired

in the water that did not make its way to her ears. This was all assuming that his mother was still alive.

Clara looked about, rubbing her eyes and fighting a yawn. He wondered if there ever would be a time when he could offer her

a warm bed, a proper place to be together. “I suppose you must,” she said, rising and stepping toward the encroaching waves.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m coming with you.”

“Clara, you cannot think to—”

She crouched, stopping him with a light touch to his chest and heat shot through him all over again. “I cannot think to live

with you beneath the water? Of course not, I would not dream of such an impossibility. But I must speak with your mother.”

“I do not know where my mother is. She may be dead for all I know. I—”

“You need not know. She will find me. I only need you to bring me down.”

He studied the woman he loved, the unmovable resolve in her clear eyes. “Why?”

She stood. “Do you trust me?”

“Of course,” he answered without hesitation.

The sea was racing up and around her ankles, her hem billowing out around her. She held out her hand, and this time, it was

he who followed her into the water.

How quickly the landscape beneath the waves had changed. Already schools of fish had replenished, their quicksilver bodies

moving like winking diamonds in the dark. Forests of kelp grew, straining for the moon. And as they descended, the shimmering

glow guided them, a thousand twinkling orbs gently pulsating in the current.

The ruins of the palace greeted them. Here and there an odd pillar jutted defiantly out of the rubble, but otherwise there

was little left of the once-great building that had glistened with pearls. “The Water Kingdom was never the palace or Thade

or even the queen,” Maurits told her as they passed merfolk. Some were scavenging in the rubble, others were busy surveying

the damage. All stopped to look at Maurits as they passed. He didn’t seem to notice. “The traditions grounded our world in

history, but it has always been the water itself that made us what we are. The dire whales understand that. I suppose the

way that we saw the land and humans, the dire whales saw us, imposing an unnatural order on the water. I cannot blame them

for wishing to see the kingdom brought down.”

Clara wondered that he could speak so calmly of the creatures that destroyed his kingdom and nearly took his life. Despite

his calm, Clara knew how the grief would eventually find its way to him, how the loss of all the familiar places of his childhood

would haunt him. Just as the places of Franeker and Wierenslot haunted her, wherever she went.

Maurits held her tightly, and this time, she gripped him back, glad not just for the safety of his body, but the sensation of his skin beneath her fingers.

When they reached the seafloor, he did not let go, only drew her close to him with his arms draped around her waist. He was beautiful on land, but stunning in his element, his russet hair a gentle halo in the current, his lithe body weightless, yet solid and real.

Her resolve on the beach wavered when it came time to draw away from him.

She had always been so cold in the water, and his presence ignited a warmth deep inside of her.

She knew as soon as she left him that the coldness would return, along with an empty ache that would be worse now for the knowing of what it was to be filled.

When they came to the old castle where the queen had been imprisoned, they found the valley covered in a new blanket of seaweed.

But as for the building itself, all that remained was a pile of toppled stones covered in swaying algae. The thought of the

indomitable water queen somewhere beneath the rubble made Clara unspeakably sad. She reached for Maurits’s hand, and he drew

her closer to his side.

“I have always been able to feel her in the water,” he murmured into her hair. “I don’t think she is gone, but I do not know

where she is.”

As if spoken into existence, there was an unmistakable tug in the current, soon joined by the faraway voice that Clara had

heard in her dreams since she was a child.

Maurits stiffened, then pulled Clara closer as if he would shield her.

But Clara would not be deterred. “You said you trusted me,” she said, putting just the smallest space between them.

He raked a hand through his auburn hair, muttered something under his breath. “I do. But I don’t trust my mother, not in the

least.”

“Then trust me to take care of myself and to know what I’m doing.”

He looked like he would rather do anything else than let her go off, and a small part of her wanted him to refuse, to sweep her back into the safety of his arms. But he was true to his word and only planted a soft kiss on her temples. “Very well, my love.”

She held out her hand, and this time, it was he who followed her into the water, gifting her with breath as they submerged.

Clara only had to follow the siren song through the valley. Maurits insisted on waiting for her, and she could feel his gaze

on her as she allowed the unrelenting current to pull her toward the queen. When she had crested the hill, she at last looked

back to find that the dark valley had swallowed Maurits up.

The current brought her to the jagged mouth of a cave. Clara hauled herself up on the wet ledge, the distant crash of waves

echoing through the dismal space. Maurits’s grotto might have been damp and cold, but there had at least been a feeling of

habitation to it, the comfortable feel of a space that was loved and used. There was no such comfort here, only a whispering

sense of sadness and loss.

“Clara.”

Her name rang through the cave, the water droplets that clung to the slick walls reverberating with it. Clara was a little

girl again, lingering near the canal, fear making her skin prickle. She could turn back now, swim to Maurits and take refuge

in his arms. There was nothing compelling her to have this audience. But she pushed past the memories, and forced herself

to clamber up deeper into the dark cave.