“Lily,” Daddy says as I enter, “I’ve been—”

He freezes midsentence when he sees the look on my face.

“Quince,” I blurt. “He’s supposed to be here. The first test. He’s been swimming for two days. We have to go find him!”

Daddy darts quickly from behind his desk and wraps me in a tight hug. “Mangrove,” he calls out to his secretary, “call the chief of the guard. We need to send out a search party.”

“He should be here by now,” I sob against Daddy’s chest. “What if he—what if—”

“Shh.” Daddy rubs a hand up and down my back. “I’m certain he is fine. He is a strong young man.”

“But he can’t swim.” I pull back and give Daddy a pleading look. “I mean, just barely. He’s been learning, but still, he only started a few—”

“We will find him,” Daddy says with such certainty that I want to believe him.

His assurance calms me enough to start thinking clearly. Daddy’s right, Quince is strong. Between my directions and his compass watch, he had to stay on the right path. Besides, he wasn’t alone.

“I sent two guards with him,” I say. “They would have protected him if anything came up.”

Daddy’s face turns stony. Blank. “You sent guards?”

“Yes,” I explain. “I had more than enough to spare, and I wanted them to watch him. Just in case. Why, is that a problem?”

He hesitates, thinking, before shaking his head. “It’s fine.” He turns, one arm still around my shoulders, and we start for the door. “Let’s go find Quince.”

Mangrove returns from alerting the chief of the guard just as we reach the hall. “The search party awaits you at the palace entrance, your highness.”

“Thank you,” Daddy says as we swim by. “Please find Calliope Ebbsworth as well. She will need to be present when we return.”

I take off out of the palace faster than I’ve ever swum before. My exhaustion from a weekend of traveling dis­appears, and all I can think about is getting to Quince. And trying not to think about all the millions of awful things that might have happened.

My path is clear in my mind. I know Quince will have followed my directions, so I start them in reverse. As I swim northwest out of the city, my guards can barely keep up with me.

I hear them calling out to me.

“Princess!”

“Wait for us!”

“Don’t swim out of sight.”

Daddy and his entourage are far behind.

I ignore them all.

Kicking harder, I sweep over the suburbs, leaving behind the outer edges of the city. The landscape fades into more natural shapes, those that haven’t been molded by mer hands to form houses and restaurants and grocery stores. Here there are only sea creatures, marine plants, and the rock and sand that they inhabit.

In my rush to crest the hill that overlooks Thalassinia, I crash into the trio of bodies on the other side.

“Ooof!”

“Ow,” I say, grabbing my head. Something hard—like an elbow, maybe—has connected with my skull, and for a few seconds my vision is blocked by bright spots.

Then I hear it.

“Lily?”

Quince’s voice is weak.

I squeeze my eyes shut a few times to clear the spots, and when I open them again I see Quince floating right in front of me.

“Quince!” I shout, diving against him and wrapping him in the tightest hug I think I’ve ever given. “Holy bananafish, I was so worried about you.”

His arms hug me back, but not as tight as usual. “I was a bit worried about me, too.”

He says it in his usual joking manner, but there is a tension in his tone that I’ve never heard before. I lean away, then—seeing the dark circles under his bloodshot eyes—I float back far enough to take all of him in.

Besides his tired-looking face, his whole body looks wrung out. His arms hang limp at his sides, his legs drooping below. His shoulders, usually broad and straight and strong enough to carry a blue whale on his back for a few miles, sag with a weariness I’ve never seen in Quince.

I swim forward and smack him in the shoulder. Hard.

“You promised!” I smack him again. “You said you would call for help if you were in trouble.”

When I go to smack him again, he grabs my wrist and pulls it to his chest. “Wasn’t in trouble. Just . . . slow.”

“It’s been two days,” I say, trying to keep the screeching panic out of my voice. “Two days.”

“Has it?” His dark-blond brows pinch into a scowl. “Kinda lost track.”

I shake my head at him. Then, turning to the two guards I sent to protect him—cowering a few feet away, next to a giant sea fan—I say, “I told you to protect him. To help him.”

Phyllos raises his hands in surrender. “We tried, Princess. When we realized he had only made it halfway in a day, we revealed ourselves and offered to help.”

“He refused,” Triakis adds. “Said he had to do this on his own or it didn’t count.”

“We’re going to have a conversation about you sending babysitters after me,” Quince says. “Later, when I can feel my legs again.”

I scowl at him and then the guards, but I can’t exactly blame them. Mostly because Quince is right. He has to do this test alone, without help, or he’ll fail. And then we’ll both suffer.