Anarosa

The cowards outside thought I couldn't see them. Thought I didn't know that they were out there... watching me...

My head was down in my tube, shielded from the little crud muffins' drooling lips by my waves of dark, curly locks. I practically jammed my finger over and over against the tube's glass surface, tapping for Pa. I didn't have to wait long.

The boys turned for a split second to say something to one another, but when they looked back, jumped. Pa was standing there, all six foot five of him, and I could see his muscles tensing under his shirt.

Great Infinity, he's mad.

"Y'all leave, now!" His voice shook the store, and Patch rolled up beside him, beeping what I assumed were expletives.

The boys tripped over themselves to run away.

Pa sighed, shaking his head. "Those boys could drive a preacher to drink." He walked over and gave me a kiss. "Now, why did you have to be so pretty?"

"I dunno." I shrugged. "I blame Mama."

He nodded. "Me too. Is there anythang else ya need?"

"Naw, but I have this hunk of junk to protect me if anythin' goes wrong." I patted Patch right in his metal skull.

The giant tin can rocked back and forth on his little wheels. "What did you just call me? What did you just call me?!" he beeped in complaint.

"Oh, hush." I shoved him. He rolled away through the adjoining door, probably to sulk in one of the charging stations in the café.

"I'll see ya later, honey." Pa started following him. "I'll be right next store if you need me, and Issy's right upstairs."

I nodded. "Thank ya, Pa. I love you."

"I love you, too."

I opened my book again, already reading before he had fully disappeared. I chuckled to myself as both the main characters screamed in terror. Poor protagonists.

The bell rang.

When I looked up, I froze. A guard was standing in the doorway.

He wasn't one of the King or Queen's men—they wore different helmets—which meant he was stationed in Governess Adriana's estate. Though she was technically in charge of everyone on the island, no one liked her very much. A lot of them thought she was responsible for the high fines and overly harsh punishments that made Red's Island the "safest state in Fossit," but I just thought she kind of looked like a vampire.

Smiling as wide as I could, I prayed he couldn't see through it to my fear. "Howdy, and welcome to the Hermit Crab Bookstore. How m'I help you?"

The guard didn't answer immediately. The top half of his face was covered by a dark, reflective visor, but he appeared to be looking over the walls of digitexts covered in tacky Faelic New Year decorations, finally landing on Issy's carved watermelon sitting on the counter next to me. Traditionally, you carved squash or potatoes, but she was very insistent. And the carved watermelon looked pretty darn good.

Finally, he walked up to the counter. "I'm here for the first book in the King of Shadow series by Daisy Ziegler."

I just stared at him for a moment, my own green eyes staring back, wondering why he had to order a book in such a menacing tone. What little I could see of his expression seemed to say, "Give me the book and nobody gets hurt."

"Uh, of course, sir." I cleared my throat. "Sure thang. I'll be right back."

I walked into the back, where all the real books were. Each shelf was stocked full of genuine paper books, like the kind you'd see in old movies. My mama used to collect them and fix them up, preserving the pages with the same formula they used to protect all their fancy tombs and scrolls in Nighul. These were the only books we didn't sell, only lent, despite them worth a small fortune each. They each had a tracker so no one could steal them. When Ma was alive, she could never stand the thought of letting them go, but it hurt her even more to think the books would just sit back here unread.

When I came back out, I had Jackson Spring and the Opal Witch in tow. The King of Shadows was the forth book in Daisy Ziegler's Jackson Spring series.

Crouching down, I grabbed a biodegradabag from under the counter and placed the book inside with one of our complimentary bookmarks. "I can give this to you on loan fer three days fer five units or one week fer ten units." I started pulling up the logs on the computer. "And how will you be payin' today, sir?"

He cocked his head at me. "The book is for Lady Ravyn." He said the words as if they answered my question. As far as I knew, Governess Adriana's daughter never left the estate. She would have to fill her time somehow.

"Um, alright, but that don't answer my question."

"I'll take it on loan for three days and return when she finishes. If she doesn't like the book, I'll bring it back tomorrow."

"Alright." I started typing up the log, vaguely aware as he grabbed the bag. "But I still need—"

He was already out the door, slamming it shut behind him. The bell rang wildly on its hook. I kept staring at the door for a few seconds after, the bubbling pot in my head boiling over.

"Flipping son of a bee sting!"

...

Meredith

I escorted Marzham back through the palace. Servants peeked out of hallways just to get a glimpse of her as she passed.

We didn't find ourselves alone until we entered her private wing of the castle.

She turned then, swimming backwards. "So?" she signed. "Are you going to say something?"

"It is not my place to speak, Your Highness."

"When has that ever stopped you before?"

"It is my job to protect your life, Marzham, not to comment on it."

"Could have fooled me."

We reached the end of the hall and a pair of large double doors to her suite, carved with the myth of Aphrodite as she was born from the sea in one panel and as she created a necklace of pearls that would allow her to return to the sea in another. I pulled open the door for her and she swam inside. Closing it after, I sighed. "I told you not to tell them, to stick to your planned speech, and you did. There's nothing more to say."

Huffing, she turned away, surveying her star charts. Grabbing a pencil off the ground, she made a mark on one of the papers. They didn't call her Princess Mars, Queen of the stars for nothing.

"Don't give me that," I signed. She didn't see.

I grabbed her shoulder and she glared at me. "What?"

"Telling them what you found not only would have been irresponsible without the proper evidence, it only would have sent the citizens into a panic, that is, if they believed you."

"Well, maybe we need a little panic. If I'm right and the Dark Sorcerer's coming, we need to be prepared."

"And if you're wrong?"

"Look at this." She pointed to one of her star charts.

"What?" I signed. "All I see are dots."

"They're stars, and they're in the wrong places. Look. You can already see the Sleeping Giant and that's a winter constellation. But it's already aligned with the Spectral Dream galaxy! That happens only once every three decades and it's not supposed to happen for another ten years!"

I had to fight my eyes from rolling to the ceiling. "No one's going to believe you based on some messed up stars."

She dug through piles of clothes in her already messed up room before pulling out a journal falling apart at the seams. "The last two times this has happened in recorded history collide with the last two times the Dark Sorcerer rose to power. One is on Earth and the other is on Bairn."

I drew in a breath. "Bairn?" I signed, just to be sure I saw correctly.

She nodded.

I shook my head. "Regardless, he's never attacked the merfolk before. There's no reason to send people into a panic because of it."

"He's a murderer—a villain! And he was the one who gave power to the Demon Queen! We can't rely on the hope that he'll only attack the humans to get us through the night! You would rather me not tell anyone and die knowing I could have saved our people if there was an attack?"

"No, I'm just saying that you should talk to your father first. Scaring everyone will get us nowhere. You could even take it up with the people's council."

"Father would never let me. He won't even acknowledge the problems the kingdom has had almost since he took the throne! Our people fight, our people starve, our people grow weaker every day... and he's too scared to admit it."

"When has that ever stopped you before?" I signed, mimicking her body language.

She smiled. "But, you'll be sure to warn your little human friend, won't you?"

My hands curled into fists. It was several seconds before I could unfurl them again. "She is none of your concern."

"If the Dark Sorcerer attacks, he'll target civilians too."

"I concern myself more with her safety than I do yours. I told you that secret so you could understand why I do what I do, not so you could bring it up every time you need to prove a point. Maybe you're right and magic like the Dark Sorcerer's is returning, or maybe there's been another breach between our world and Bairn, but the Dark Sorcerer is dead. Period."

She glared at me. "You're right. You shouldn't give me your opinion."

"You only say that now because I'm disagreeing with you."

"Just leave."

"Fine." I threw my hands up in frustration, swimming back to the door.

"Meredith?" she signed as I was closing it. I looked up. Her anger had melted to an expression of pure concern. "Just... please tell your human friend. Even if she doesn't believe me either. You know what he can do to humans. It could save her life, ."

Knowing my human friend, I doubted she'd take Marzham's warning seriously until the last possible second even if she did believe it, whether it was out of fear or immaturity. "I'll consider it. But Marzham, hypothetically, if the Dark Sorcerer were returning, is there anything we could do to stop him?"

She sighed. "With magic practically outlawed in Atlantis, even if it had fully reentered the world again, I doubt it. If he survived a deathblow from Diana the Lightbringer, he'd have to be unimaginably strong, though, making no move to regain power for four centuries could suggest that he's weakened." She shook her head. "Can't track him, can't kill him, and there's no magic castles or black holes just lying around, so we can't trap him. We can prepare against him and fortify the city so it is better hidden, but otherwise, we simply have to hope the right heroes rise in time to stop him."