“Sure,” I say, my stomach sinking a little. I’m not sure why I feel bad that he’s giving me an easy out for the night. I mean, I don’t want to hang out with him. Right? “It’s one floor down from my room in the southwest tower.”

We swim in silence to the palace main entrance. It’s slow going because he’s trying to swim on his own, but he’s getting better. He’s figured out how to combine the simple breaststroke pull with a dolphin kick. Still way slower than my normal speed, but pretty impressive for a human who couldn’t swim this morning.

I get the feeling he’s really trying to make the best of this. Which only makes me feel worse for ripping on him to Peri.

“You know, I didn’t mean what I said,” I explain, filling the silence as we move through the main hall and toward my tower. “I don’t really think you’re mean and rude. Well, not mean, anyway. You can be a little rude, but that’s no excuse for my—”

“Lily.”

I’m not sure what stops my babbling apology—it could be his commanding tone or the fact that he’s used my actual name for once. Either way, my mouth snaps shut.

“It’s okay.” He doesn’t look at me as he speaks, which makes me feel like even more of a sea slug. “Really. I know you didn’t ask for this situation any more than I did. I won’t hold your emotions against you.”

“I—” I can’t believe what he just said. It was just so…nice. “Thank you. I really am sorry, though. I just want to get through tomorrow, get the separation, and then get back to our regular lives.”

“Back to Brody.”

“Yes,” I say, ignoring the chill in his voice, the sudden tension in his body. “Back to Brody. Back to Seaview. Back to everything that was normal before last night’s dance. It’s not about you,” I explain. Not entirely about him, anyway. “It’s about me. That’s all.”

Quince stops swimming and looks directly into my eyes. “I get it, princess. Really I do.” One side of his mouth lifts in a mocking smile. “I want to get back to normal too.”

There are some serious undertones in his last statement; I’m just not sure what they are.

Several seconds tick by as we look at each other, like we’re both trying to figure out what’s really going on. For the first time, I actually try to tap into the bond, to reach out and read what he’s feeling. I focus in on Quince and open my mind to him.

I’m struck by a sudden sense of longing that is much stronger than anything I’m feeling. Is that how badly he wants to get home?

I feel even worse for being so angry at him. All he did was kiss the wrong girl, and in an instant his life on land was yanked away. The least I can do is help him have a good time while he’s here.

“So where’s this starfish room?” he asks, bursting our intensity bubble.

Without a word, I turn and swim for my tower, knowing Quince will follow.

“This is it,” I say. A quick twist of the handle, and I push inside what has always been one of my favorite rooms in the palace. I have kind of a thing for stars of any kind—probably because we can’t see the real stars from the ocean floor. You have to swim to the surface to see them twinkling above. Besides having the predictable starfish-shaped accessories, the starfish room has a bioluminescent-painted ceiling of stars. As I float into the room, I twist onto my back and gaze up at the starry surface. It makes me a little homesick for land.

But, now I know, not nearly as homesick as Quince.

“This is a bedroom?” Quince asks, floating in after me. “Where’s the bed?”

“There.” I point at the shell-shaped piece in the center of the room.

“O-kay….” He swims over and eyes the bed skeptically. Not your typical box-spring four-poster, sure, but if I could get used to sleeping on a flat mattress, he can spend one night in a curved shell. Then, as he awkwardly turns to inspect the room, his gaze lands on the sculpture in the corner. “Whoa.”

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” I ask. We both swim over to the three-dimensional, twisting column made of every variety of blue shell found in the sea. My favorites are the sand dollars, dotting the deep blue swirl with spots of brighter, almost sky-colored blue.

Quince runs a hand hesitantly over the curves, as if he might accidentally send all the shells scattering into the current. Then I hold my breath as his fingertips linger over one of the sand dollars.

“Such a bright blue,” he says. “I’ve never seen them this color.”

I try to ignore the fact that he’s fixating on my favorite part of the sculpture. Instead, I focus on being educational. “Sand dollars are naturally very colorful,” I explain. “But when they die, they gradually pale to the white shade we see on land.”

“Then are these”—he touches one gently—“alive?”

“No.” The thought of a living sculpture makes me smile. It’s a pretty cool idea, but keeping the shelled creatures alive and in place would be a major effort. “The artist treated recently deceased sand dollars to maintain the color. It’s a flash-freeze technique that can preserve anything from sand dollars to starfish to yards of rainbow-colored seaweed.”

“That’s amazing,” he says, turning his awe-filled gaze on me. “You are amazing.”

No, I think, I’m just an average mermaid. But when he looks at me like that, I almost feel amazing.