“Thank you.” I swim forward and wrap him in a big hug. “I wish you hadn’t done that, but I get why you did.”
My stomach flip-flops at the thought of how close I came to giving up my ability to help the mer world in an official capacity.
What if I hadn’t decided at the last minute—the last possible moment—to bond with Tellin and save my title? What if I’d decided to stay on land and then found out later how bad things are in the ocean? I would have been devastated.
I shake my head. That doesn’t matter now. I made the right decision, that’s what’s important, and I’m going to make a difference.
“What are we going to do?” I ask both Daddy and Tellin.
“What can we do?” Tellin replies. There is a sadness in his eyes, a resignation that stabs me in the gut.
I look at Daddy, but he just shakes his head. He doesn’t know either.
“Well, I don’t know,” I say. “Yet. But I’m going to figure something out.” I give Tellin a confident look. “To help the mer world and Acropora. To get them to realize we have to work together or we will all suffer.”
“In the meantime,” Daddy says, “we can send some emergency supplies and aid to Acropora. I will instruct the guard to send a contingent carrying food and medical supplies with you, Tellin, when you return home.”
Tellin straightens his spine and smiles. “I appreciate the offer, King Whelk.”
Daddy nods and says, “I will go see to the preparations.”
Then he gives me a look—I’m not sure if it’s pride or concern, maybe both—before swimming out of the room. He won’t say so, because he doesn’t like to influence my decisions, but I can tell he’s glad I made the choices I did. Not that he would have ever made me feel bad for walking away. Still, he’s proud of me, I can tell. I just need to figure out how to live up to that pride.
When Daddy’s gone, I turn back to the map. “The problem is so much bigger than I thought.” So big it seems almost insurmountable. And this is just within our local waters. “I wonder if the other regions around the globe are suffering the way ours is.”
“I have not heard anything,” Tellin replies.
“That doesn’t mean there aren’t problems.” I glance over the map, skimming over all the mer kingdoms in the far corners of the world. “They might be trying to solve them on their own, just like your father was. Just like the other kingdoms are right now.”
“Here they are!”
I turn at the sound of my best friend’s voice. “Peri!”
She swims into the map room with Tellin’s girlfriend at her side and a school of Acroporan guards floating close behind.
“The king wishes to depart, Prince,” the head guard says.
Lucina swims up to Tellin’s side. “He seemed in a foul mood,” she says, taking his hands in hers. “Did the council meeting go poorly?”
“You could say that,” he replies.
He lowers his head until their foreheads touch, and I can’t help but sigh at the gesture.
Peri leans close to my ear and whispers, “So, wanna tell me why your hair is blue?”
I wince. “No,” I reply. “Actually, I don’t.”
She gives me a look that says I’ll have to fess up eventually.
I ignore that look.
“See your father safely home,” I urge Tellin. “Get the supplies Daddy is sending to your people. Hopefully that will help.”
“It will,” Tellin replies. “But not enough.”
I give him a solemn look. “I know that. We’re going to figure out what to do. We just need to regroup, to look at the problem again with what we learned today.”
“I will gather my father’s advisers,” Tellin says. “I will tell them what happened and we will discuss our options.”
“And I’ll do the same,” I promise. “I’ll send you a gull if I figure something out.”
Tellin nods. “As will I.”
I watch him swim away with his girlfriend and his royal guard, and I am more determined than ever to find a solution to our problems. All of our problems.
Because if there’s anything that the disastrous council meeting taught me—and the great mosaic in the map room reminded me—it’s that all the world’s oceans are really one. And a problem that faces one mer kingdom affects us all.
“So the meeting didn’t go as planned, huh?” Peri asks.
I sigh out all my frustrations. “A complete conch shell from start to finish.”
“Come on,” she says, twining an arm around mine and guiding me from the room. “I hear Laver has some fresh kelpcakes. You can tell me all about it over some sugar and frosting.”
“Sounds perfect.”
I trust Peri more than just about anyone, and she’s one of the smartest mergirls I know. Maybe she can help me find a solution. Even if she can’t, she’ll listen as I talk it through.
Laver can be very protective of his treats, so Peri and I run the play we’ve been practicing since we were guppies. She distracts Laver by asking him some very involved question about cooking while I sneak into the room and grab a pair of contraband goodies.
We meet up in the hallway, giggling like little mergirls as we swim away with the tasty prize.
Only this time, as we rush down the hall with key lime kelpcakes in hand, we don’t make a clean getaway.