The Twice Lost (29 page)

“Will they take us seriously,” Eileen asked, “if we tell them that?”

Yuan grinned. “How are we giving them the option of
not
taking us seriously? Like, ‘Guys? Hey, you’ve noticed there’s this little issue with your ships getting out to sea these days, right? ’”

Luce shook herself a little. “Does everybody agree? We should sign this?”

Another brief silence followed. “Go ahead,” Eileen said at last. “We’re in it; we might as well be
really
in.”

Luce lifted the pen again, ready to sign
General Luce.
But—shouldn’t she remind everyone, her father especially, who she
really
was? The pen whipped into motion, and Luce’s heart surged with some strange mixture of pride and bitterness. “‘Sincerely, General Lucette Gray Korchak, The Twice Lost Army.’”

That brought on a wave of agitated murmurs. “Your
human
name, Luce?” Imani whispered.

“It’s
not
my human name,” Luce said, a little stiffly. “It’s just my name.”

Catarina’s tail swung up above the surface and slapped back down hard, spattering salt water across everyone and leaving tiny rounds of blurred ink on the letter. “Luce! You must remember. When you first changed, you must remember how I
told
you—”

“I remember that you told me I didn’t need my whole name anymore, Cat,” Luce announced. “I also remember that you never asked me how I
felt
about that.”

Catarina’s mouth went round with a mixture of surprise and anger; she seemed to be on the verge of some outburst. Then after a moment she closed it again.

“Luce?” Imani said gently. “Can I see that pen?”

Luce gave it to her. Imani slid over in front of the letter and stared for just an instant. Then she wrote,
Lieutenant Imani Michaela Portman.

“Oh my God.” Yuan exhaled the words. “I can’t do that, Luce! I mean, my old last name—that was my
father’s
name. I was so, so glad to ditch that and—”

“It’s okay,” Luce said. “Everybody should sign with whatever name they feel is right.”

Soon the bottom of the paper was covered in a dark lace of signatures. Most of the mermaids stuck to their first names, but there were a few who followed Luce’s and Imani’s example. “It’s so weird to even think of my old name again,” a slender blonde murmured as she inscribed the name
Lieutenant Natasha Elizabeth Lindberger.
“Like one of those dogs you read about that finds their owner three thousand miles away.”

Natasha was the last mermaid to sign. Seb sighed. “Should I scribble that up too?”

Luce looked at him. “Will you?”

Seb knelt on the planks. His coarse hand lifted the pen from Natasha’s dimly luminous fingers.
Twice Lost Ambassador Sebastian Grassley.

“Okay,” Luce said. Even more than meeting Dorian, than becoming general, than raising a standing tsunami under the Golden Gate Bridge—this moment felt new, volatile, radiating unpredictable consequences. A thousand possible hideous endings, and as many astonishing beginnings, might unravel from this moment at this broken-down pier under the dark-eyed night. “Seb, you have a new job to do.”

He nodded, then folded the letter and tucked it carefully in a pocket inside his jacket. “Get this out there, right? Copies got to go to TV networks, newspapers, the White House . . .”

“Send it out,” Luce agreed. She felt breathless. “Send it everywhere you can. Soon
everyone
is going to know what we’re fight- ing for.”

Seb nodded and walked off abruptly. Luce watched him go, his hunched figure illuminated at intervals by the pooled glow of the streetlamps, sorry at the thought that she hadn’t really thanked him. Cala was farther out at the end of the pier, watching something that Luce couldn’t see because of the pilings in the way. “Hey,” Cala called, a bit suspiciously. “I don’t know you. Are you with the Twice Lost?”

“Not yet,” a voice replied. Luce felt something opening deep inside her, a longing so profound that it felt like an incurable wound. “I would ask to join with you. I have heard reports of your great general, the one whose voice the water answers and who shares her skill with all unstintingly, the one who will not be called
queen,
who leads us in defiance of humans and gods alike, and who will change from the quick the very meaning of being a mermaid . . .”

Luce let out a half-sung shriek. The water followed her voice in an explosive fountain, and foam spattered down like heavy snow.

She tried to speak, and failed. Instead she screamed again, her voice carrying all the love and joy and frantic gratitude that she could not yet make herself shape into a name.

A dark bronze figure with massy coils of black hair swam into view and smiled at her.

Nausicaa.

24

Nausicaa had never been particularly inclined to show affection through hugging or touch, but that didn’t stop Luce. She leaped from the water, her tail breaching and thrashing in midair, and knocked Nausicaa several feet backwards as she crashed down and embraced her. They spoke fast but softly, their voices rushing over and through each other. “Nausicaa! Nausicaa, I didn’t know if you would ever . . .”

“Dearest Luce, I
promised
I would find you again . . .”

“I wanted to keep looking for you, so much, but then . . . I needed to try to change things here, and . . .”

“You have done exactly as you ought to, Luce. Exactly as I always dreamed you would. I knew what I saw in you, and I was not mistaken . . .”

“But if it hadn’t been for you, I never could have done any of it. There were so many times . . . while you were away from me, Nausicaa, you . . .”

“Yes, Luce?”

“While you were away, you
saved
me so many times!” Luce was suddenly, giddily aware that that might sound like another contradiction. How could she explain that Nausicaa’s remembered voice had come for her again and again, always just when she needed it most?

Nausicaa was beaming, her green-black eyes starry with tears. “You should allow yourself more credit, Luce. But I’m thankful if I’ve helped you.”

“No, you don’t know how
much,
Nausicaa! There was this ice floe and I would have let go and drowned if . . . if I hadn’t been thinking of you. And I would have killed Dorian, except I remembered what you said to me. And—”

Luce broke off, appalled by the bitter tang of Dorian’s name on her lips—and just as abruptly realized that all her lieutenants were listening. Catarina’s face looked greenish, her eyes narrowed and her mouth misshapen. Even Yuan was scowling. Luce realized with a jolt that not everyone there would be delighted by the arrival of this darkly powerful newcomer. “Everybody—this is Nausicaa. She came to Alaska after you left, Cat. We—got to be friends. She’s a really great singer, and she’ll be a big help.”

Nausicaa tilted her head and smiled politely at Catarina’s glowering face. “Hello, Catarina. Luce spoke of you often.”

“We’ve already met,
Nausicaa,
” Catarina snarled.

Nausicaa started. For a moment her face went completely blank and confused, then she looked up at the buildings, almost as if her lost memory might reappear in one of those broken windows. She shook her head. “I apologize. Where have we met? I can’t recall.”

“You can’t recall?” Catarina simpered the words mockingly. “I suppose you can’t
recall
Queen Marina, either?”

“Marina, yes, of course. I have not traveled through her territory for some time, however. Do you have news of her?” Nausicaa looked at Catarina again. “You were in Marina’s tribe, once? Oh . . . perhaps I do remember something of you . . .”

“Marina’s been dead for twenty-five years.”

“I am sorry ..”

“And she
never
should have trusted you!”

There was a swing and a clap of Catarina’s bronze-gold fins, and she was gone.

The silence that followed lasted much too long—and Luce found herself wondering if Catarina’s words had really been as spontaneous and emotional as they seemed. Maybe she’d been calculating the best way to make everyone suspicious of Nausicaa before they even got to know her.

Yuan was the one who rose to the occasion. Her jealous look was gone, and she grinned at Nausicaa with distinctly forced lightness. “Hey, sorry about that, Nausicaa. Cat’s just
being
like that. She’s not completely down with all the big changes around here, and she’s kind of been getting moody a lot.”

Nausicaa shook her head. “I should speak with her. I am not entirely sure if I deserve her anger. But thank you for your welcome. You are?”

“Yuan.” A quick shiver of hesitation followed, almost too brief to be noticeable. “And if you’re Luce’s friend, then we’re all really happy to have you.”

Luce looked at Yuan, unsure if she’d heard a tiny hint of emphasis on the word “if.” She decided to ignore it. “Yuan’s in charge of organizing the Twice Lost Army, Nausicaa. And she’s
brilliant
at it. And . . . she’s one of my best friends, too.” It was true, Luce realized, but that wasn’t why she’d chosen this particular moment to come out and say it.

Yuan flashed Luce a look, warm but also a little sardonic. Then she flurried into action, introducing everyone to Nausicaa, reminding some mermaids that they should return to the bridge for the rest of their shift and others that they should go and get some sleep.

When almost everyone had gone, Yuan clocked her head at Nausicaa. “So, Nausicaa? Did Luce already teach you how to sing to the water? ’Cause if you’re with us, that’s the first order of business.”

“Of course. But I have yet to learn this skill, Yuan.”

Yuan was nodding. “You’ll be studying with the best! Well, I’ll leave you guys to it. And Luce? You’re excused from your next shift. I won’t expect you at the bridge until six in the evening, okay?”

Luce gazed at Yuan for a moment then splashed over to hug her. She knew Yuan was still fighting a twinge of jealousy, and it was incredibly generous of her to offer Luce extra time with Nausicaa this way. “I’d be setting a really bad example if I did that, though, Yuan. I’ll be there at six in the morning.”

Yuan shrugged, but she looked pleased. “See you soon, then. God, I’m only going to get like three hours of sleep.”

Then Luce was alone with Nausicaa in a night filled with hovering lights, the breathing sounds of cars on distant highways, the dark scrolls of indigo clouds. A light rain was just starting to fall. They stared at each other: those were really the same blackish eyes with their look of ironic wisdom, really the same smile turned a bit grim with the weight of centuries, and the same wonderfully unpredictable intelligence sparking behind those features.

Luce realized she’d always assumed that Nausicaa had simply seen too much and grown too jaded to feel the same depth of love that Luce felt for her. She was thinking of that when Nausicaa let out a short astonished laugh and threw her arms around Luce’s shoulders, squeezing her tight. “My
dearest,
bravest Queen Luce. With all the languages I know added together, I don’t seem to find enough words!”

Luce buried her face against Nausicaa’s cool shoulder. “I wish you wouldn’t
call
me that, Nausicaa. You know I’m never going to be Queen anything.”

“But Luce,” Nausicaa murmured, “it has taken me these three thousand years to find the mermaid whom I
wish
to call my queen. How can you deny me that joy?”

No matter how many times she’d been lost, Luce thought, she was suddenly even more found.

As long as Nausicaa was with her, she was
found.

***

They settled on the shore under the pier, rain seeping in slow trickles between the planks and pocking the drowsy water. Luce poured out the story of all the events that occurred after Nausicaa had left Alaska. Somehow Luce didn’t mind talking about Dorian with Nausicaa, and she told her everything: how she’d been driven away from him by the encroaching ice, how she’d been swept out to sea in a storm and then found her father miraculously alive but enthralled by spirits on a remote island. She told Nausicaa how the long effort to free her father from that enchantment had made her late in returning to Dorian, and how he’d betrayed her for a human girlfriend rather than wait. How very close she’d come to killing him in her heartbreak. How she’d tried to warn her old tribe away from the area, only to find that they’d returned to their cave after Anais murdered a mermaid from Sedna’s tribe.

Then how, as she was still stunned by Dorian’s betrayal, she’d found her former tribe slaughtered, their cave dripping with fresh blood.

Nausicaa had asked very few questions while Luce spoke, only held her and sometimes nodded. After all, nothing about the story surprised her; she’d even predicted Dorian’s treachery before it happened.

But at Luce’s account of finding the torn and partly dismembered bodies of the mermaids she’d once lived with, Nausicaa was suddenly sharply alert. “That
sika,
” Nausicaa growled. “Was she among the dead?”

“Anais? She must have been! Nausicaa, there were bodies all over the place. I saw
faces
split in half. I saw—”

“But did you
see
Anais? See her there, clearly dead, her body reverted to human form? If you did not notice her distinctly enough for her name to arise in your mind . . .”

Luce didn’t want to search her memories of what she’d found in that cave. “What does that matter? Nausicaa, they killed
everyone.
I couldn’t think about names!”

“A
sika
will always find a way to save herself, Luce. If you did not remark her face among the dead, we must believe she lives.”

Luce stared. It took her a moment to process Nausicaa’s words. “I guess . . . it could be possible. But even if she did escape, it’s hard to see why that matters now. With the tribe dead, she can’t really hurt them anymore.”

“It might matter very much, Luce. It depends on the price that Anais paid for her life. It was likely bought at a cost no decent mermaid would consider.”

“You mean . . .”