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“Come.” He pulled her to his side, twining their fingers together, turning her so that she faced the sea of strangers.

He positioned them so that the smaller throne beside his own, usually reserved for the heir, was behind her.

They edged back a step until the backs of her legs touched the metal through the light fabric of her gown.

She didn’t look, but she knew for a fact that Librus would have moved to stand behind this throne now.

He’d be visible to anyone who looked for him, but no one would, he’d said.

No one ever did. She could feel it the moment he curled his hands around the decorative metal spires of the throne, feel his magic course through the metal and into her.

They practiced this all day yesterday. He’d insisted it was necessary.

Necessary to show the people that there was hope they hadn’t dared to dream about.

Necessary to make them believe in a new kind of magic, one stronger than Mariana’s or even Seidon’s.

Necessary that they see her as their hope for salvation.

Stupid . That’s what it was. The magic display they were about to put on was no new magic, it was what this Awakened army had been using from the start. And it certainly wasn’t hers. If the people needed hope, why wouldn’t they have it thanks to him? To Electra? To Finn?

Arguments that had fallen on deaf ears.

“I want to thank you all for coming today,” Finn said, voice booming out over the cavernous courtroom, packed full of people.

He motioned toward the windows and the light display flashing horrifyingly beyond the dome.

“As some of us prepare to keep everyone safe, I want to take this opportunity to assure you all that our cause is not only just, it is ordained by the One. I want to promise you that this is the start of a new era—an era that will see the mer not only free to live in our homes beneath the waves, without fear of being eradicated because one is or is not Awakened…but free to live on the surface again if we choose. Free, even, to take to the skies.”

He lifted her hand in his, moving a step away as if showcasing her. “Allow me to officially introduce your next queen—Jade Bleu, the first person ever to be Awakened to sky magic!”

Lies . Such lies. She had overheard Finn and Librus arguing before they left for this far-flung dome, Librus insisting they needed to surface with her and perform another Awakening so that the magic that waited in her blood could unfurl in the lighter pressure of the surface, Finn insisting they had no time, that if they delayed or detoured, his sister would overtake them.

“We need her power,” Librus had argued. “Not just to win, but to inspire the people.”

“We will risk it the first moment we can—until then, inspire the people however you must. Fake it.”

That’s what this was. The “fake it” that Librus had come up with.

Jade swallowed back the bitter concoction of anger and fear and resentment that wanted to boil up yet again. She smiled, because Electra’s pointed glare reminded her that she was supposed to. And then, as they’d rehearsed, she raised her other arm, tilted her face up, and let her eyes slide closed.

For a moment, she saw home there behind her eyes. Storm’s slow smile. Arden’s far-seeing eyes. Papa’s matchless strength. Mama’s artistic touch. She saw everyone she loved, and it was an ache so piercing she felt as though Electra had thrust that nasty trident of hers straight into her heart.

Then she felt Librus’s magic curl through her veins, making its way from her legs to her heart and then back out to her fingers. She moved them as he’d told her to do, and the air around the room began to respond.

Only not the air, not really. It was the water in the air responding to Librus.

On a normal day, every Sunken City was humid—but they’d adjusted the controls so that Usquerbis and the palace were even damper than usual, giving Librus enough water to work with—unlike the usual mix, which he couldn’t manipulate, apparently.

Gasps filled the room as everyone not only felt the breeze where it shouldn’t be, but felt it shift and change in response to her fingers—fingers she moved in time to the choreography Librus had designed, his low hum keeping her on the beat.

The Awakened among them would be able to sense even more, would be able to tell that it came from her hands, her blood.

Hence why they needed the connection, why Librus couldn’t just do the manipulation while she mimed it.

Deception. That’s all this was. A show to convince these people she could do something she really couldn’t, when the power that was doing it amounted to nothing.

Librus could make this little breeze in this enclosed room, but that was as far as his own “sky magic” went.

And it would leave him exhausted. The particles were too small.

The medium not right. The force of the air no more than what a fan could achieve.

But the people shouted and clapped and whistled.

Jade opened her eyes again, careful to keep the smile on her face.

“She is still learning,” Finn told the people, an indulgent smile on his face.

“We all remember the early days of our Awakening, how we struggled to make even a ripple. But we all know, too, how those ripples grow and spread and turn into waves. Tsunamis. Hurricanes.” This last word he delivered with a wicked smirk.

The people cheered so loudly that Jade’s heart thudded. Hurricanes? What…?

Finn raised her hand still higher, then lowered it down after another moment of thunderous applause, pausing at his lips to kiss her knuckles. “The Black Tails will retake the seas for us all, my friends. But Queen Jade—Queen Jade will retake the surface!”

More applause, cheering so enthusiastic that Jade feared she’d be sick here and now.

Rushing filled her ears. This wasn’t just about saving their people from annihilation—a cause she could respect.

This was about taking over the Tidal Kingdom.

This was about fighting King Seidon. This was about sending storm after raging storm upon the very place she called home, until they were too battered and destroyed to fight back.

She felt every muscle in her body go taut, felt her face go hard, but the crowd only increased their volume. Did they think her anger was for them? Did they think that she, like their newly chosen prince here, meant to channel her fury into ambition and greed?

Finn turned to her again, drew her in for another kiss that felt like treachery on her lips.

Storm . She wanted Storm, the man who would stand silent and steady beside her and offer to give up all he’d ever wanted to be for a chance to be with her.

That was love—not this. This man, with his threat of destructive tempests, wasn’t fighting for the people his sister had threatened.

He was fighting for his own chance to seize power.

He must have seen the dark thoughts glinting in her eyes, because when he drew away, his narrowed a fraction. She was supposed to sit beside him in that smaller throne and be there, a silent partner, while he finished the hearing of appeals.

Instead, he flashed a gaze back to Librus and muttered, too low for anyone beyond the three of them to hear, “Get her out of here. And calm her down.”

The words made her seethe anew. Calm her down? He declared his intentions to use her as a weapon against her own people, and he wanted Librus to calm her down?

She wished for the first time that she had access to the magic they’d not yet Awakened, that she was able to manifest it here and now, to wield it, to whip the air around this arrogant, ambitious man and blow him out to sea with the force of a hurricane.

To prove to him that even if she had such power, she would never, never use it for him.

In the next moment, Librus’s fingers had curled around her upper arm, and he was guiding her quickly behind the thrones, out a back door, and into the service corridor reserved for the monarch and their staff.

The moment they turned a corner and she could no longer hear the thundering approval of the people, she pulled her arm free. “Has this always been the plan? Is that what you’re trying to train me for?”

Librus paused when she did, turning to face her. She could see the lines of exhaustion on his face from that little display, but she knew he’d recover as soon as he could get to the saltwater pool in his suite.

She wasn’t ready to let him recover. Not yet.

Librus frowned down at her. “Saving our people? Of course it is. You’ve always known that.”

“Saving them from a murderous queen is one thing.” She lashed a hand out, back toward the court. “Turning on my own people is something altogether different, and if you think for even a moment that I would help him take over Daryatla, assuming I even could—”

“Jade. Calm down.” His hand moved up and settled in the exact place Finn’s had been, curling around her neck and into her hair. He rested his forehead on hers in a move so unexpected, she jolted in surprise.

But not from the move. Not from the instant calm that flooded her veins—a manipulation more subtle than Finn’s had been, but just as obvious to her now. From…images. Like what he pushed into her through his mark, only more shadowy. Random.

Less intentional.

Perhaps…perhaps unintentional.

His thumb drew a circle beneath her ear, no doubt meant to soothe. “Finn is clever—he knows that the best way to rally the people behind this fight is to promise them a victory far greater. But his concern is only his own kingdom.”

She pulled away, trying to make sense of the jumble of fractured thoughts. He didn’t release her, even when she glared at him. “And what exactly does he consider to be the bounds of his own kingdom?”