How to be a Mermaid: A Falling in Deep Collection Novella by Erin Hayes

had had a confrontation like this.
    “Let me guess,” the king said, rubbing his temples, “my dear sister was the one behind this abomination.”
    Finn nodded.
    Oceanus groaned. “And here she is, out trying to get the ingredients for some damned potion!” He pounded his fist on the arm of the throne and it echoed throughout the now-empty room. “Is there even a reason for that potion or is she hiding something from me?”
    “You know as well as I do that she needs it sooner rather than later,” Finn answered, bristling.
    Oceanus glared at him. “Do I?” he asked. “Do you? She could have motives get this—” he indicated me again “—permanent. It’s happened in the past.”
    “I don’t want to be a permanent mermaid either!” I blurted. “Until twenty-four hours ago I had no idea mermaids were even real. But what is this? What is a merwalker?”
    Finn shot me a look, his expression telling me to take it down a notch.
    Oceanus pushed himself off his throne and floated down to me, his hair swirling in the water like some sort of watery ghost. To my credit, I held my ground as he came towards me. In fact, he came right up to me and grasped my chin. I fought him at the gesture, taken aback by his hands on me. He held on, ignoring my struggle, and lifted my chin up to see my gills.
    “A merwalker,” he said slowly, “is a creature that can live in the sea with fins as a mermaid and on land with legs as a human. Merwalkers are dangerous. They aren’t to be trusted. You’re the first one in my kingdom in a long time. If my people knew that you were in their midst, there would be a panic.”
    He released my chin and I swam back a few feet, shaking my head while I rubbed where he gripped me. It hurt.
    “I don’t recall ever having fins,” I said defensively.
    “You were changed.”
    I thought back to waking up underwater both times. Both times I’d been breathing underwater. So it had to have happened while I was unconscious. Nereia did say that she had to do a few things to put me back together. Was turning me into a merwalker one of them?
    “I’m sure my sister did that,” Oceanus continued tiredly. “Although how you ended up in her care...?”
    “That was my doing,” Finn said, inserting himself back into the conversation.
    “ Your doing?” Oceanus asked, looking at him curiously.
    Finn held himself a bit straighter as he addressed his father. “Last night, I went to the human prison, the Aquarium, to release Prince Kai. Tara here was at the prince’s cell.”
    “What were you doing at his majesty’s cell?” Oceanus demanded, whirling on me.
    I was shocked, speechless that Finn had casually dropped the fact that Kai was a prince too. I’d had no idea until that moment that Kai was royalty.
    Was everyone here some sort of prince? I gulped, realizing how bad it looked that I was by Kai’s pool when Finn found me. No wonder he thought I was a kidnapper. I would have thought I was a kidnapper too.
    “She was trying to help him,” Finn interjected for me. “She was startled by my appearance and injured herself. I had to abandon the mission in order to save her.”
    “Heh,” Oceanus sneered. “Save a human instead of a prince?”
    I now knew where I stood in Oceanus’s eyes. Although I couldn’t blame him, knowing that Kai was a prince and important, I felt even worse that I had gotten in the way of his rescue.
    “I wasn’t about to let her die,” Finn said evenly. “Kai agreed with me that it was the right thing to do. She was trying to help him, after all.”
    “Then you are both fools,” King Oceanus sighed. “So that’s when you took her to Nereia. That was foolish on everyone’s part, I hope you see that, given the deadline.” The king stroked his beard in thought. “So why did you bring her here where other merfolk could see her?”
    “She doesn’t want to be a merwalker,” Finn replied. “I thought you could help.”
    Oceanus burst out laughing. “Son, the