Quince spits a feather out of his mouth as he unrolls the scroll.
“What does it say?” I ask.
He looks at me. “Am I allowed to tell you?”
I nod. “You can tell me. I just can’t help you.”
He clears his throat. “‘Make your way to Thalassinia.’”
I wait for him to continue, expecting it to say that he’ll receive the rest of his challenge when he gets there. But he stops.
“What else?” I say, leaning over him to read the instructions.
But there aren’t any more. It only tells him to go to Thalassinia.
“Quince,” I begin, but he’s already shrugging out of his leather jacket and walking back to his bike.
I hurry after him.
“What are you doing?”
“Well, princess,” he says as he unlocks the storage compartment on his bike, “it looks like I’m swimming to Thalassinia.”
I stand there and stare for a full five seconds, watching as he stuffs first his jacket and then his T-shirt into the bike. When he starts stepping out of his boots, I jolt back into action.
“You can’t,” I insist, rushing forward and trying to stop him from bending down to pick up his boots. “Do you know how far away Thalassinia is?”
“A ways.” He winks at me.
“Is this a joke?” I shriek, partly at him and partly at whoever dreamed up this stupid test. “You can’t seriously think you can swim all the way to my kingdom. It’s forty-five miles.”
Quince jams his boots into the storage compartment, then turns to face me, hands out. “Give me your stuff. Looks like I won’t be taking it home after all.”
He’s losing his mind. “Quince,” I say, keeping my words slow and steady, “you can’t swim to Thalassinia. You barely learned how to swim a few weeks ago. It’s too far, it’s too dangerous.”
He places his hands on my shoulders, and I can see that he is serious and steady. “I don’t have a choice.”
You do! I want to scream. But I know that neither of us wants the alternative. He wants me to be able to walk on land just as much as I want him to be able to swim under the sea. So, as much as it terrifies me to think about it, he’s right. He doesn’t have a choice.
“What about your mom?” I ask. Beneath my shorts, I manifest a finkini bottom. “Do you need to let her know?”
As I step out of my shorts and hand them to him, along with my flip-flops, he laughs. “Seriously? By now she’s pretty much given up on the idea that my life is on a regular schedule,” he says, adding my clothes to the bike before locking the compartment. “She won’t start worrying until I’m gone a week at least.”
I have to admire how well he’s taking this. For a guy who couldn’t swim two months ago, he’s pretty confident. Even swim star Brody would balk at the idea of swimming that far in open water.
I take his hand in mine as we walk toward the surf. The feel of the sand squishing beneath my feet usually makes me happy, but today it only makes me nervous.
“Do you even know how to get there?” I ask.
“It’s east,” he says. “I think I can manage east.”
He holds up his wrist, showing off his fancy sports watch—a Christmas present from his deadbeat dad. As if a watch makes up for a decade of being gone.
At least it has a compass. That’ll be some help.
“It’s east until you get to that rock formation that looks like a stack of Oreo cookies.” I may not be allowed to help him with the physical swim, but I’m not going to let him head out into the middle of the Atlantic with no directions. “Then turn southeast. Follow the ridge line of those mountains—”
“You mean those hills?”
I growl at him. As if now is the time for a geographical debate. “That’ll lead you straight to the plateau overlooking the core settlement of the kingdom. The palace is in the center.”
“I’ve got it, princess.” He winks at me again, and I want to shove him back onto the sand for not taking this seriously enough.
Instead, I finish my instructions. “If you get lost or tired or in any kind of trouble, you call a messenger gull like I showed you. Send a message to Daddy or to Peri, and they’ll help you.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Promise me,” I insist. “Promise me you’ll call for help if you get into trouble.”
He leans down and presses a soft, warm kiss on my mouth. I don’t realize I’m trembling until he wraps his arms around me.
“I promise,” he says. “Now you make me a promise.”
“What’s that?”
“You get your business done,” he says. “Focus on your task at hand, and don’t worry about me.”
“But—”
“Promise.” He rubs his hands up my back one more time before stepping away. “Meet me in the palace kitchen for sushi when you’re done.”
“You hate sushi.”
He shrugs. “It’s growing on me.”
We both turn at the sound of splashing at the surf’s edge. A single royal guard is stepping out of the water onto the beach. After the last time, I made them promise to only send one guard above the surface to fetch me. The whole squadron is too conspicuous. And embarrassing.
“Looks like your ride’s here,” Quince teases.
“You be careful,” I tell him. “And remember—”