Soren released her with a growl about staying behind in the city where it was safe.

“Better raise the second stage quickly then,” she called after him.

He kept swimming. From behind, he was all power and muscle and black fins.

She would soon join him.

Aya paddled down, passing the broken petals that had once sheltered the young Life Tree. Blake had broken them, crumbling the marble-hardened petals with the submersible. With half its dome missing, it was wrecked but still beautiful, like the Acropolis.

Inside, she followed the remaining curves down to the tree.

From above, its bare, wintery-white branches radiated out. According to reports, a fully grown Life Tree would drip Sea Opals like white Christmas balls and put forth water lily-style blossoms full of nectar.

When she’d been a human, she hadn’t been able to see or hear anything. She had bumbled around in the cloistered, cave-like, frigid, blinding darkness. The Life Tree had looked like a weird stick. The petals enclosing it had looked like a fragile shell. She’d thought Elyssa had been lying. About everything.

Now, she heard the holy sacredness. The tinkling that shushed the background noise of the ocean, and laid a calming, holy peace over her heart.

As she descended to the white dais where the Life Tree anchored, she noticed all that and more.

Blake’s damage became starkly obvious.

The stump of the old tree had been hacked apart, sawed and splintered by Blake’s ugly submersible claw. The new tree grew from the stump. Although both were holy white, the old tree had a sheen of silver mixed in. The new tree had silver, but also cherry blossom pink undertones. They were mixed, and they were both growing. The stump put forth branches and new sapling stretched radiantly for the sky. It was as though their united energies made them stronger and more resilient. Two trees united and growing as one.

Aya wasn’t sorry to have stood up to Blake and lost her life defending it.

Her human life, anyway.

She bounced on the white dais floor. “It looks great.”

“Thanks.” Elyssa stuck a long pruning knife into the ground.

It was made of a metal they called adamantium and stopped the salt of a cut exposure from leaking into and poisoning the tree. When Blake had ripped the tree in half, Elyssa had cauterized the stump by cutting it off below the poison.

“Even I’m surprised at my green thumb.” Elyssa frowned up at the broken ceiling. “I’m thinking about whether we should try to enclose it again. I’m not sure how, but I want to keep it as safe as possible from what’s coming.”

Apparently when first planted, a Life Tree grew inside a protective petal layer. Then, when it was large enough, the petal layer peeled back and formed an outer base to the dais.

“According to your report before, intact petals aren’t necessary for All-Council city recognition,” Aya said. “If you’re worried about the megalodon, I wouldn’t waste your time.”

“It’s so unprotected.” Elyssa bit her thumb and cast her eyes in the direction of the distant ruin. “I don’t want to pull anyone off the ruin for my paranoia. I keep telling myself that if enemy warriors break in, they’ll chop it down regardless of whether it’s in a protective cave or not. Um, how large would you say the megalodon was?”

“It could easily swallow the largest cruise ship.”

Elyssa dropped her thumb. “Then it won’t matter, I guess.”

She stuck out her still-human feet. “Which muscle controls the fins?”

Elyssa laughed. “Well, for me, it’s not a muscle. I have to believe I’m transforming, and then the fins appear.”

There was that belief Soren was always telling Aya. “Can you break it down into math? And medical science?”

Elyssa smiled at her practically. “When you were in the trench, how did you activate the power of the Life Tree to save Soren?”

“I just wanted the monster to go away.”

“You wanted it. You wanted it really hard.”

Hmm. “As Lucy would say, that’s all a little ‘woo-woo.’”

“You sound exactly like Lucy! It is all a little woo-woo. Close your eyes and let your reason go. Just feel.”

Elyssa closed her eyes, lifted her shoulders, and pushed off the dais. As she was flying up, past the Life Tree branches, her body seemed to vibrate. The Life Tree vibrated in response, a lovely, wind-chime tinkling harmony. Elyssa’s feet unfurled into the cherry blossom pink, lacy fins. Elyssa swam serenely with her eyes closed.

Serenity, faith, happiness. That’s what Elyssa had.

Aya closed her eyes and pictured morning yoga. Yoga was supposed to be twice as effective as similar forms of exercise, and she needed to be efficient with her time. It was the most spiritual-esque activity she did. Aya bounced off the ground, believed, and pretended she was gliding. She opened her eyes and looked down.

Stubby, unpainted, human toes wiggled back at her.

She floated down to the white dais. “Are you sure you’re not flexing something?”

Elyssa joined her. “Don’t feel bad. This is the hardest. Lucy said sometimes she gets so flustered she still can’t do it on her first try.”

The first mermaid queen could be scattered and indecisive. “I can see that.”

Elyssa pinched her. “Okay, I’ll try to go scientific. You have to activate your inner power.”

“That’s a little vague.”

“Resonance, I mean. You have to create a biofeedback loop that strengthens your inner resonance. We can’t sense it vibrating in our chests as light or darkness the way the mermen can, so you have to try something else. My resonance increases when I believe in myself. I have a slight problem with self-doubt. Lucy focuses on Torun. She has trouble believing in true love.”

Well, since Lucy’s first husband had been Blake, Aya wasn’t exactly shocked. “What’s my problem?”

Elyssa broke into a wide grin. “Don’t you know?”

Aya shook her head.

“Then how should I?” She laughed, hard. “I think you’re great at everything! You’ve always been my idol. Ever since we were wearing our swim tails in elementary school. You were a better swimmer. I thought you’d be the better mermaid, too.”

Elyssa’s laughter subsided, and she cleared her eyes. “It’s kind of a shock to see you struggling like this. It’s like, oh yeah, you’re human, too.”

Of course Aya was human. And she had plenty of troubles. Aya wasn’t sure whether to be touched by Elyssa’s hero-worship or irritated that her cousin hadn’t ever seen her clearly.

Elyssa noted her reaction and twirled. “Think about it. What are you bad at?”

“Making my fins.”

“Maybe you struggle with giving up too soon.”

There was no way that was true. If she gave up too soon, she wouldn’t have wasted all those hours in college on Phoenician. “I’m bad at relationships.”

Elyssa nodded encouragingly. “Okay, now make yourself good at them, and jump.”

Make herself good at them? Aya imitated Elyssa, bouncing lightly. Her toes felt every ridge of the pebbled dais. Make herself good at relationships…or feel like she was good at them.

Like, her friendship with Elyssa. They were adults now. Elyssa asked her to stay and help. They shared a meal and planned city-saving security. Aya focused on that friendship, bobbed her feet, and zoomed up.

Nope. Ordinary, stubby human toes. She floated back down.

She tried family. She imagined forgiving her dad. Because she did well at the meet, she lost her one chance at having a relationship. Like she should have toned it down. He wanted a daughter who failed.

It still pissed her off.

Her toes tingled.

Her first boyfriend had wanted her to forget Harvard, stay home, and interior decorate. Was that where she’d gone wrong? Ambition often killed her relationships.

This wasn’t working.

Imagine running into that asshole professor right now. The one who told her point-blank to drop his class because she was a distraction to the serious dead language majors (somehow) and that he was tenured so it was fine for him to base a grade on whether or not he liked her.

“There’s no poetry in your soul,” he’d said to her, when she went to speak with him about her B. “And as the daughter of a lipstick corporation, you can’t possibly do anything useful to mankind with it.”

The perp had destroyed her GPA. Wouldn’t do anything useful with Phoenician? Ooh, if only he were here. She would just love for him to see her save an entire city with it.

A fluttering sensation like butterflies brushed over her toes.

“That’s it!” Elyssa cried. “You’re doing it! Whatever you’re thinking, keep thinking it.”

Keep thinking about that unjust dead languages professor? She opened her eyes. The fluttering sensation was the water caressing her thin skin between her big toe and her second toe, enlarged in a comical way, as though she were a cartoon character who had suffered a sudden drop of a large safe.

She rested on the floor. Although she could keep thinking about the professor, it worried her. “I’m not sure this is the right path. I’m focusing on showing up the people who wronged me. It seems kind of … dark.”

Elyssa shrugged. “Whatever increases your resonance. You’re learning to get in tune with yourself.”

“I’m not exactly turning the other cheek, here.”

“The Life Tree isn’t Buddha. It’s a plant. It reacts to resonance, and that’s triggered by whatever makes you most centered, and powerful, and capable in your heart.”

“So, essentially, you’re saying what makes me powerful is dwelling on narcissistic fantasies of crushing my rivals?”

“It doesn’t have to be right,” Elyssa said. “It just has to be powerful.”

Hmm.

“Well, maybe it is right. Women spend a lot of time being told how wrong we are. How we need to sit quietly, keep our heads down, do our work. Resonance is about standing up and making noise. This is the one time you can let go of what you’re supposed to be and exist as you are.”

Weird.

But Aya went for it. She had fins to grow and a large mer-male to shock.

Focusing on the unfair professor only got her so far. There were a number of other people who had wronged her, and she enjoyed fantasizing about how she would prove each one of them fantastically wrong.

Elyssa encouraged her, and the tingling flutter told her when she was being successful.

When her mind took over and told her not to take everything so personally, to stop outperforming, and to remember what an unlikeable loser she was, the fins went away.

Ah.

No wonder she was so bad at relationships. Her need to be right conflicted with her desire to be liked. Being liked required she be humble and wrong. But she could never give less than her best. So, she gave up on relationships instead.

She didn’t have to force herself to be quiet. She could try. She could excel. She could succeed.

She could just see the shocked, furious expression on Soren’s face at the ruin. She’d kick past him on her fins after he’d told her to stay in her castle…

Her feet unfurled into beautiful, lacy, scarlet-red fins.

Elyssa squealed below. “You did it!”

Aya envisioned it and she did it. Like a professional athlete. Like a top-level performer. Like herself.

It was okay to be right. It was okay to be liked. It was okay to prove Soren wrong.

Aya set her sights on the distant ruin. “I’ve got rivals to crush in my narcissistic fantasies.”

“Sounds fun.” Elyssa flew up beside her. Far across their territory, two stragglers made their way home from the trench direction.

Elyssa waved. “Gailen! Ciran! We’re going to harass Soren and Kadir. Want to come?”

Gailen and Ciran both looked heartened to see Elyssa and Aya with their fins. Like, two queens with fins made them feel better about whatever had happened to them near the megalodon.

Aya would quiz them on the journey.

“Oh, yeah.” Gailen swooped along beneath them, rolling to face up. “Soren has had it easy for too long.”

Aya kicked. She zoomed through the water. Take that, state champion swim team! She could beat all of them! Hah.

She stopped the chuckle from snorting out her mouth. Under water, it wasn’t as cool, and she was living in her own resonant fantasies. “To old Atlantis!"