How to be a Mermaid (The Cotton Candy Quintet #1)(31)

Finn stood in the doorway, silhouetted by the light behind him. Stunned, I looked up at him as he paused, taking in the scene.

“Wow,” he murmured.

While I was too shocked to actually move, Ponce squirmed in my hands.

“Lemme go!”

I released him like I’d been holding onto a live wire. “Sorry.”

Finn recovered enough to speak. “Hey Ponce, can you step outside for a bit?” he asked.

“With the sharks? No way.”

Finn frowned. “They won’t eat you. Right now, I want to talk to Tara in private. That’s an order,” he added.

Sulking, Ponce swam through the doorway. When he was clear of the door, Finn pulled it shut behind him, throwing us back into darkness. My eyes would have to readjust to the light in here, so I could no longer read his expression.

“You’re fully a mermaid now,” Finn said, his voice neutral.

I swallowed reflexively. “Yeah. This was hiding underneath my fake tail. It just happened.” I gestured at the single tail. “Can you tell that I was—am—human?”

“No. You look like you’ve always been a mermaid.”

“Certainly doesn’t feel that way.”

“No,” Finn agreed. “I imagine it doesn’t.”

Anxiety was taking hold now at why he was here. “What did you want to talk to talk about?”

Silence filled the space between us. Finally he said, “I have something to return to you.”

My eyes were still adjusting, but I could see for the first time that he had something small in his hands. I squinted at it, trying to discern what it was.

“My necklace,” I said, recognizing the stone carving. My hands flew to my neck in a reflex that I’d had for as long as I’ve had the necklace. In the midst of everything, I’d almost forgotten about it.

“I didn’t have a chance to return it to you,” he said sorrowfully. “I didn’t want to keep it any longer. Not when I wasn’t its rightful owner.”

I tried thinking back to the first time I had woken up and he had shoved it in my face, like it was evidence of foul play against Kai. He had seemed so intense in that moment. I realized that it would have been because Kai had commanded him to save me when he should have been trying to find a way to save the dolphin.

“I’m sorry for getting in the way of your rescue mission,” I said, closing my eyes.

“I’ll help you put it on,” he said.

Wordlessly, I swept my hair aside so that the back of my neck was exposed. I felt the weight of the necklace hit my collarbone as he swam to my backside to do the clasps.

I’m not going to cry. Or swoon.

An awkward pause passed between us, as if we both realized the intimacy of this gesture at the same time.

“I’m sorry too,” Finn murmured.

“For what?”

“I...I treated you like a criminal when we first met.”

“I can understand that,” I said honestly. “I mean, I was right by Kai’s pool when you saw me. I know how that looked.”

“Yeah, still doesn’t mean it was right.” He came around to face me, his expression taut and grim. “We’re not savages. I should have looked at all of the evidence.”

“No, I...” I searched his face. “I understand. I think.” My eyes fell on the scars marring his body. “You were right to be suspicious. My kind has really hurt you in the past.”

I reached out and touched one of the scars, entranced by them.

“It was a fishing net,” he said. “I got caught up in it trying to save a mermaid who’d been swimming with a school of fish.”

“Does that happen often?”

He gave a bitter laugh. “I’ve learned to avoid traps like that. Although it makes it hard to save the creatures that get caught up in it.”

“Thankfully, you escaped.”

His eyes softened momentarily. “Luckily she did too. It would have been bad for everyone if humans found a mermaid in their nets.”

I opened my mouth to ask who it was because I somehow knew that this was important, yet the words didn’t come out. My first reaction was that it was his girlfriend, so I didn’t want to linger on that image.

He picked up on my question for me. “It was my mother,” he said softly. “She was out swimming with her subjects, being the gracious queen she was.”

I could see why Oceanus treated me with such hatred. “Where is she now?”

“She passed on a long time ago,” he said without emotion, although I knew that feeling. It was how I told people where my dad was. It was how I could avoid reopening those wounds.

“I’m sorry,” I said softly.

He glanced at me. “Don’t be. She lived a long and good life. She was a kind ruler.”

“I’m mean, I’m sorry for everything.” Sorry for being human. Sorry for keeping him from saving Kai. Sorry for feelings I probably shouldn’t have.

While I was out parading around like how I thought mermaids were, Finn was constantly putting his own life at risk for other sea creatures. I thought that princes in the fairytales had an easy life. It seemed like the work would always be there for Finn, because there would always be sea creatures that needed a savior. I tried to imagine what would have happened had someone else walked in on him trying to save Kai.