“But?” He drops his bag on a bench behind him and comes behind me. “Do you want me to braid your hair?”

  I shake my head. “It’s fine. I’ll do it when we get back there.” I yank my hair around and wind it into a bun, using the hair elastic I found at Castor’s apartment. A hair elastic. I’m trying not to think about where it came from, who left it at Castor’s place.

  “You’re sure that’s how you want to wear your hair when you get in the solo?” Eros raises his eyebrows at me. A set of quizzical creases in his forehead appear.

  “Yeah, it will be fine.” So odd. Why would it matter how I wear my hair in the solo?

  He purses his lips. “Ready to go, then?”

  “Yes, the sooner we go, the sooner you can help Nico.” Anxiety pulses in my knuckles. I want to get moving.

  “I’m telling you we have at least a day, if not more.” His charming smirk is gone with a firm nod.

  “How do you know?” I wring my hands together.

  He rubs his hand along his chin. “Because I do. Now, let’s move. This stretch of beach is empty this time of day, but it gets crowded at night with people walking their animals.”

  “Their dogs?”

  “Yes, whatever they’re keeping.” He takes a step toward me, and his height hits me again. He tucks a piece of my hair back and holds out his hand. “You ready?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t you want a suit?” He pulls one from the top of his bag. It’s a full-coverage black suit with a flouncy little skirt, just the opposite sort of thing I would have imagined Eros picking out.

  I laugh. “The propulsion unit, a swimsuit. You came prepared. What were you going to do if you couldn’t find me at the airport?”

  “I had the first-class seat next to yours. It’s kind of a shame we wasted the boarding champagne. But then there was Nico to think about. Flying to Boston and back would have taken time.”

  My eyes roll into the back of my head. I take the black one-piece swimsuit from him. “Turn around.”

  “Turn around?” He grumbles, but he does it.

  My clothes are off and the suit is on. “Okay.” It fits surprisingly well.

  His eyes flash, and it’s everything I can do to keep my inner mermaid from taking him up on it. He’s wearing a long shirt, a long shirt with nothing on beneath it. The sinew from his muscular thighs engages as he comes closer to me.

  “We should go.” I hold my clothes up as a barrier between us. “What do you want me to do with these?”

  “Put them over there.”

  “Why did you throw my bag away, then?”

  His lips thin. “I wasn’t sure I could trust you with the knowledge about the crypt.”

  “But the walk changed your mind.”

  He gives me a single nod.

  “And now you do?”

  “And now I do.”

  There’s no time to ask him why. We’re outside, and the door closes behind us. He’s got the yellow device in one hand and the waterproof bag in his other hand. It’s a lot fuller than it would be if it just held my documents.

  “Straight in. When you can’t stand anymore, shift, like you do. And I’ll give you this.” He holds it up. “It’s simple to use.”

  “Sure.” I eye the thing like it might take off like a cartoon rocket. Because I might be smart, but I’m not graceful. “How far out do we have to go?” The memory of Nico holding me to his chest as we swam in the icy water of Boston Harbor races in. It can’t be worse than that.

  The water is colder than the air, and it takes me a minute to get myself balanced with the waves crashing at my thighs before I wade in to my waist. Eros is already swimming in water deeper than he can stand, but he hasn’t shifted. His head bounces on the waves close to me. I duck down and swim underwater to him. It’s a moment, but then I realize I’ve shifted into gills and it kind of happened automatically. Not one wheeze, cough, or gasp for breath. The guys are going to be so proud of me.

  I’m proud of you too. Eros is holding on to the propulsion unit. Come here, Sunshine. He pulls me to him. In the next beat, my hands are on the metal of the propulsion unit, and his hands are over the top of mine.

  I glance back at his fluke. It’s a brilliant blue.

  Handsome, isn’t it?

  It’s blue.

  Yes. His neck is above mine. In his arms, I feel safe. I’m turning up the speed now, or it will take too long.

  An hour later, my arms are vibrating and my eyes are drifting shut.

  Stay with me, Sunshine. I know it’s a long way, but the alcove for my solo isn’t much farther.

  I don’t want to ask and sound like a toddler. But the phrase “are we there yet” is stuck in the back of my head, and I’m doing my best to shield it from Eros hearing it every two minutes.

  We’re going fast enough that I can’t make anything out. And I’m just hoping that Eros is watching well enough to keep us out of jellyfish swarms and away from untamed sharks. Because I can’t keep my focus on anything but where our hands join the yellow-cased motor. This journey is something I’m going to remember for the rest of my life—as something I don’t want to ever do again. Not even if I have a fluke.

  Eros switches the motor off. Okay, Sunshine, we’re here.

  I pry my fingers off the unit. We’re nowhere near the bottom of the ocean—or the surface, either. Where are we?

  Eros leans in. He hits a button on his ring, and a cloaked solo materializes. We were on top of it, and I couldn’t see it. Not like the sub when Nico and I had the encounter with the shark.

  Encounter. It makes it seem so innocent, right? But no, his solo is right here, and unlike Castor’s, this one shimmers like the color of water. Even outside the force-field, it has a glow about it that makes it feel difficult to nail down, even when you’re looking directly at it. When I came to land with Castor and Holter, they’d used a bigger omada, one that had an airlock in the back that allowed us to leave without flooding the entire vehicle.

  How do we get in it?

  The front is an airlock. Come.

  He pushes the button on his ring, and the entire roof opens up. Water floods into it. I’m not sure how saltwater rushing against such advanced electronics is a good idea. But there’s a lot I don’t understand.

  Eros heaves the propulsion unit behind the driver’s seat and helps me in. He reaches across me and helps me buckle up. It’s beyond weird having water all around while sitting in what, to me, is a car. He’s buckled next to me, and with a push of a button, the roof encloses us inside.

  Ready to shift?

  I nod. And the water rushes out of the solo with a roar. When it does, air rushes around us like a vacuum. I’m lifted from my seat. My hair is everywhere, in a tornado around me. My hair elastic is long gone. It’s shifting in a windstorm that could whisk anyone off to Kansas.

  “Holy Harold, Eros.” When the wind stops, I’m still gulping air like I might disappear down the drain ducts with the rest of the seawater. My hair . . . I can’t even begin to imagine what it must look like. I run my fingers through the ends, but I’m barely able to comb through a few inches.

  “I should have warned you about that.” He winked at me.

  “Ya think?” My eyes might bulge out of my head. “I guess you tried. Maybe be more specific next time. Anything else you want to tell me?”

  “Nothing else to bring up. Other than it’s going to take a while. I’m not the golden boy. We have to take a slightly different route.”

  “Oka-ay.” I draw it out. “You’re going to make it back in time to help Nico?”

  “Yes.” His jaw snaps shut.

  We’ve been going for a long time. I don’t mean to drift off, but I do, and when I wake up, there’s a blanket over my shoulders. A blanket with a wet spot under my chin from where I’ve been drooling.

  I glance up at Eros next to me. “Hi.”

  “You fell asleep.”

  “Yes, sorry. Swimming always does that to me.” Not that I used to swim before all of this, but he doesn’t need to know that. I did more wading or flailing. I sense he’s got tons of secrets he’s keeping from me, so I can keep a few things back from him too. Like how, until I arrived at the Veiled City, I couldn’t swim at all. Or how I was afraid of the water.

  “I want you to trust me.”

  Darn these Dorian males. It’s like they can read my mind. “Trust is something that’s earned with me.”

  “Me too. But you fell asleep with me. I’ll take that. It’s a good start.”

  I didn’t think about it, but that’s true; falling asleep with someone takes an awful lot of trust.

  I fold my arms over my chest and wiggle in the seat. For having so much technology, it’s not a comfortable ride. In fact, my hour-long bus ride to high school each day was more comfortable. I can’t help but squirm in the seat.

  “Sorry. The tech takes up a lot of space.”

  “It’s fine. It won’t last forever.”

  He beams at me. “Nope, just a bit. We’re cloaked and aren’t going to be taking the direct route, sorry.” He’s glancing at me like he wants to talk about something but he doesn’t want to say it.

  “Oh. I’ll survive.” I move my legs around. There really is something else, though. “What?”

  “Do you know much about shifters?”

  “A little.” I rub my eyes. I have no idea where this is going.

  “Right.” He presses a button on the console and turns to me. “Do you know about shifter widow illness? Because Dorian have something just like it.”

  “I do.” I swallow. If a shifter or a Dorian mate dies, they risk dying from a horrible disease. It’s like literally dying of a broken heart, and it’s one of the reasons why I mated Holter. But that’s a secret.

  “I think we should mate.” Eros takes his other hand off the throttle and puts it on my knee. “Autopilot.” He nods at me; I must have made a face.

  “Nico’s alive. And you’re going to help him. Aren’t you?” My ears pop from holding my breath. Shit, I can’t help how I feel about Eros. I want him too. But in my lessons, it’s not something mermaids are supposed to do, mating without discussing it with the current members of the pod. But then I remember Ophelia, Castor’s mother, saying a mermaid can do whatever she wants.

  Is it getting hot in here? My eyes glide over the muscles in his arm, back up to his hazel eyes. I’m taking him in like cattle at the livestock auctions back home.

  Oh, fudge pop. I’m not comparing a mate to cattle. I’ve got to stay focused. I’m going back to the city, to help Nico. This is going to help Nico. Eros will find a way. “You’re going to help him,” I say.

  “Yes. Yes, I’m going to damn well try.” He takes my hand. “But if I fail, you could be in danger.”

  I look out the windshield. It’s dark, and I can’t see much. I need to tell him. “I’ll be okay if Nico . . .” I can’t say it. I blurt, “I’m mated to Holter,” and cringe at what I expect Eros to say next.

  He laughs. “No.”

  I pull back in confusion. “Yes.”

  He holds my hands to my knee, glances out the front, then back to me. “Well.” He nods, leaving me baffled.

  “Well?” I ask.

  “Well, that’s great. They don’t get better than Holter, viro or geminae, and he will keep you from getting widow illness. But he can’t protect you.”

  “Wha—”

  “Oh, Sunshine, the hero of Hestertåtten has more clout than any other geminae out there. But he’s not going to be able to protect you on his own. I don’t want to scare you, but there are inky waters flowing through our city. Ones with a lot of power and agents. One geminae mate, no matter who he is, won’t keep you safe.”

  “And you can.”

  “When the dark forces are after you, it’s best to stick with someone who knows their kind.” The way he says it makes me shiver. “I’m not trying to scare you. In fact, I didn’t want to bring it up at all.”

  I nod.

  “You believe me?”

  “I do.”

  “Take some time and think about it.” He moves his hand from my leg, and I shiver from the cold. I really do believe him.

  “I will.” I wrap my arms around my torso.

  “You should get some more sleep.”

  I nod and close my eyes. I don’t normally second-guess myself. I make a decision and stick with it. I’m not saying I’m being wishy-washy. When I walked away from Castor and Holter, it felt wrong. I was cracked open like an egg. And now a little part of me wonders if I made the wrong decision again. I don’t like the idea of mating Eros without talking to Nico and Holter.

  But I can see how Eros is right. There is a lot about the Veiled City I still don’t understand.

  3

  EROS

  “The bedroom is here.” I switch on the lights. I’ve got the windows set so no one can see into the dome. “The bathroom is off of it. I’m sorry there isn’t a mermaid lounge, but this was my uncle’s bachelor pad for a long time. He willed it to me.”

  “Did he expect you to stay a bachelor?”

  I laugh. “Yes, everyone expects me to stay a bachelor. Well, everyone but my uncle Rockney.”

  “He’s a clerk at the dress shop?”

  “Yes. He’s the only one in the family who doesn’t believe I’m a rogue.”

  “I see.” Her arms are crossed over her chest.

  “You must be cold.” I race to the bedroom and grab the smallest tunic I have. And in doing so, I realize I haven’t cleaned back here in ages. I resist the urge to. “Here. I’m sure you want to take a shower.”

  “Yes, it’s what separates us from the fishes.”

  “No, Sunshine. It’s what keeps us from getting a disease called Magna-Oödinium. It’s a micro bacterium that attacks us under our scales.” Her hair catches the dim light in my living room, and it reminds me of her sitting at the café in Athens. She is my Sunshine. Her warmth fills me. My fathers all have special names for my mom. I always thought it was silly, but I get it now.

  “Really?” Her blue eyes light up like I’ve unleashed her heart.

  “Yes, my uncle, the rogue that he was, was also a lead medical entomologist.” I slide the small hidden panel on the wall to the side and push the button for his library. The door opens. The books are something I’ve been meaning to donate so I can use the room for something more practical, like as a place to store weapons or a gym.

  She hasn’t moved.

  “Here, come look.”

  She walks slowly over. Her eyes are wide, and she reaches out to touch one of the many shelves. The room is covered in shelves, and in the center of the room stands his sturdy table with several pieces of research tech on it. “These are all scientific journals?”

  “Yes, he wrote a bunch of them. If you put them under that device there, it will translate the texts to whatever language you like. He liked books. He even turned the second bedroom in the side dome into this room with no windows. It’s especially humidity-controlled. He also didn’t like the artificial lights coming off the main dome on them. That’s why it’s kind of dark.”

  “I was going to say cozy.”

  “We can go with cozy.” I’d have said claustrophobic. But if she wants to call it cozy, I’m all for it. “Do you want to shower before you get sucked into these?”

  She raises her chin at me from where she is reading the titles of the books in Dorian.

  “Do you want me to show you how to use the translator?” It’s the smallest machine on the table.

  “Please.”

  After a few minutes, she’s got the hang of it with ease.

  “I’m going to grab a quick shower.” When I head off to the chasm, I’m going to be sitting for who knows how long. I’m going to get a message any time now, and I resist the urge to clean up the mess of clothes in my bedroom and head straight for the bathroom.

  I’m confident this is going to work out. I’ll do what I can to help Nico. Or I won’t. That’s what my mission is: make sure he doesn’t get the trident at the bottom of the chasm. If he does, I’m going to have a whole other problem on my hands.

  I stare at the shared wall between the bathroom and the library like I’ve got some kind of X-ray powers. Letting Nico die would be a hell of a lot easier. But lying to a mate isn’t a great way to start our future together.

  I’ve been dying to touch her. More than placing my hand over hers. To run my hands down her sides. The hours with the propulsion unit were torture. I could feel how tired she was, and when we got into the solo, I wanted to run my hand up her leg. I’ve never been that hard in my life. And I will continue to be this hard because I’m not rubbing one out now.

  I put on my deep-water shirt. It’s thermal protection; my regular gear goes on top. I’m hoping I don’t have to go for a swim. But the likelihood of that happening is minimal. I head back into the bedroom, half expecting her to be collapsed on the bed, and then out into the main room where I’m also surprised she’s not looking for food that looks like anything she might recognize.

  She’s still in the library. And when I peer around the corner, I catch her covering a yawn. Her foot is on the seat of the chair, her knee between her chest and my uncle’s old table. She’s turning the pages of one of his books like it’s a precious ancient text. Which I suppose some of these are; that’s why I kept meaning to donate the lot. But now I’m thrilled I didn’t. Still, I keep the room a secret. With my line of work, a secret room comes in handy. When you’re unofficially off the books of the security council, doing the dirty work they can’t do, secrecy is a must.

  She looks up at me. “Do you know what you have here?”

  Flippant me wants to say, “not a gym.” But instead, I nod. “Yeah. He was well-respected in that regard. It’s the only reason why the string of Zaffiro governors tolerated him.”

  “I’m only understanding a bit of what is in here, but it’s fascinating. You don’t mind if I read them, do you?”