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T he waters outside the dome sizzled and flashed with trident fire. The ocean floor shook from the shots aimed at their dome—their dome. Jade dug her fingers into the armrests of her chair, scarcely able to take a breath.

They’d said it was an unspoken rule of the mer. That no battle ever aimed at the domes.

Apparently Mariana had chucked that unspoken rule out the window the minute her forces drew close enough to target Usquerbis with her torpedoes.

Thus far the dome had held, and Electra and Librus had both promised it would continue to do so.

But how did they know, really? The domes had never been tested like this.

They were in a courtyard of the palace, and the view of the dome was probably lauded in days when they weren’t at war. When the turquoise light bathed them with peace and serenity, the waters above the barrier stretching like the sky did above.

Although, to be fair, the sky could be as threatening as the waters now looked.

No islander would ever make the mistake of thinking otherwise, even with the Sea King there to help mitigate the worst of the storms. They could still batter the coasts.

Lightning still flashed. Rain still pounded.

Winds still tore roofs from houses and sand from dunes and sent projectiles flying.

Even so. Give her a hurricane any day over this. This fear that the next flash could crack the dome, and the full weight of the ocean would crash down upon them.

Would it be quick, a death like that? Would the weight of it crush her before she had a chance to suffocate and drown? Or would the dome hold enough that death would come slowly, making her fight for every last breath before the city filled with water?

There were plenty of egresses from the city. The mer could get away, swim to the safety promised by the waystations—though they’d risk being slaughtered by both armies. But Jade?

She hadn’t seen any of those lovely air-filled glass helmets around. And she had her doubts that her “hosts” would think to grab one for her if the dome was breached.

Their hope in her would be irrelevant then. And they’d know it. She would become, in the moment that Mariana’s forces breached the dome, nothing but a liability, one they wouldn’t want to fall into their enemies’ hands.

Better the quick death they’d give her when they realized she was Unawakened. A quick stab through the heart with the Awakening Blade, perhaps, or a shock from their tridents. That would be far preferable to being crushed or drowned by the ocean.

She glanced beside her, where Finn sat. One of his enormous hands gripped the arm of his chair, a finger tapping impatiently against it. She’d managed to avoid being alone with him, but only because Librus and Electra assisted with that goal. She hated, hated being so powerless.

What would he do if he realized that every time he touched her, it made her sick? That she dreamed every night of Storm, of his lips on hers, how safe she’d felt in his arms?

She averted her gaze now, sending it up toward the dome, where it always wanted to return anyway. Was that a crack? Had Mariana…?

No, just a stray bit of something. It moved and then vanished, and her pinned-up breath eased out.

It had been nearly two months since they’d kidnapped her. How long before her family gave up searching for her? Before Storm stopped waiting for her to come home? If they hadn’t already. Obviously they couldn’t breach the wall, so their searching would have been frustrated and stymied.

How long before they wrote her off as dead?

Or, worse, what if Storm somehow heard of this supposed betrothal? What if he thought she’d fallen for all their lies, that she wanted to marry Finn?

No. No, that was ridiculous. He knew her. He knew she wouldn’t have agreed to marry a complete stranger who had kidnapped her. And yet…she’d not given him any promises either. She had, in fact, all but told him they’d never be together. That their individual goals were more important.

Funny. Now nothing seemed more important than being with the people she loved. Storm, Arden, Mama, Papa. She’d give anything to be back in their familiar home. Back in their arms.

When her gaze dropped from the dome, it brushed against Librus, where he sat across from her. He didn’t bother masking the intent way he studied her. Electra’s irritated smirk said, “See, I told you so.”

“What do you advise, then?”

They’d been talking all the while, Jade ignoring them, but something about Finn’s tone—exasperation mixed with impatience mixed with dread—drew her attention to the here and now, away from where she wished she was.

Librus’s gaze was still latched to her face. “I advise what I’ve been advising for the last week. You need to let me take Jade to the surface. Once she is Awakened—”

“Sky magic will do us little good in fighting Mariana!”

Librus glanced away from her, spearing his cousin with a gaze so very calm and unruffled that it made Finn look like a toddler having a tantrum in comparison.

“Her Awakening will strike fear into your sister’s heart, will strengthen the flagging morale of the Black Tails, and will convince the general populace to side with us instead of her. ”

“It’s too dangerous,” Finn said as he’d been saying every other time Librus proposed this.

He’d wanted her Awakened before the wall went up, or directly after, but once Mariana gathered her army, his tune had changed.

“There’s no way to sneak her past the armies, not with the fighting already here. ”

“It is only going to get worse. When your sister is crowned in three days, her power will grow stronger—including the coronation burst, which could well be our undoing. She will not settle, then, for sending one regiment after us. This is nothing but a few jellyfish stings compared to the monster to come. If we can’t do it now, we’ll lose our chance. ”

“And if we can’t sneak one little sander out, then we might as well give up any hope of defeating the Army of Sael,” Electra put in, folding her arms over her toned torso. “Not to mention that we’re in hurricane season, and there’s a system moving on our island.”

Finn’s eye twitched. “Surface problems.”

“They become our problems when we need that surface,” Librus said.

“Even if I grant that we won’t take the time I’d originally wanted for her to train her powers on land, the point remains that we need to be able to keep our feet long enough to perform the Ceremony without being bashed in the head by flying debris.

” He glanced toward his sister. “What is the latest forecast? I didn’t have time to check this morning. ”

Electra offered a sarcastic smile. “First babysitter and now weather girl? My, how the general has fallen.”

“Electra,” both men snapped.

Electra rolled her eyes. “The system is gaining strength far faster than the meteorologists predicted. It’s already a class two hurricane, and it will make landfall on the island where we’ve built Jade’s house in two days—and that’s if it doesn’t get faster.

It could. Or it could stall. These things don’t play by our rules, you know. ”

Finn’s displeasure rumbled in his throat.

Librus’s mouth opened, but before he could get out another word, he went still. Finn went still. Electra went still.

The hairs on Jade’s arms stood on end, though she wasn’t sure if she felt something herself, or if it was a reaction to the eeriness of her companions in that moment that lasted one…two…three…four seconds.

And then they all leapt to their feet.

“How?” Panic laced Electra’s tone as her fingers dug into her brother’s arm. “You said Seidon couldn’t bring it down!”

“That wall was the only chance we had!” Rage roared with Finn’s words. “He’s allied with my mother and hence my sister—if he joins this war, we are all dead!”

“Quiet.” Librus’s nostrils flared, but his eyes focused on neither his sister nor his cousin nor her. It seemed all his attention was inward…or perhaps outward, toward the thing that had affected them all.

The wall. Jade blinked, their words finally coalescing in her mind. The wall—it must have come down.

Which meant…which meant…?

Before she could decide if she should hope for a rescue or fear a quick death, Librus had surged forward, pulled her to her feet, and propelled her toward the nearest door.

“Librus!”

“Send your sister a message, claiming that we brought the wall down after completing our own alliance with the Sea King. Tell her you’re willing to have a meeting to negotiate the terms of her surrender.”

Finn kept pace beside them. “You think she’ll fall for that? He’ll prove us liars the moment—”

“There is no way on the One’s blue earth that Seidon is going to hold to an alliance with someone who has publicly threatened to kill so many of us,” Librus said.

“He is half mer—don’t forget that. He has relatives in our cities both Awakened and Unawakened, and he will want to see none of them killed by politics. ”

Finn leapt in front of them, blocking their path and forcing them to a halt.

His face was thunder to match the lightning of the tridents outside the dome.

“You said we had to fear him. You said he would be our undoing. You said that the only chance we had of winning against my sister was to make certain King Seidon couldn’t interfere. ”

Unease curled through Jade’s veins, and it had nothing to do with the pressure of Librus’s fingers around her arm.

“And I believed you,” the prince went on, leaning closer, “because you are the only one of us who had ever met him. Are you now saying you lied to me?”