“Technically, I am your emotional support bird. Emotionally, I am struggling.”
“What are you struggling about?”
“I was having dreams of penthouse apartments or brownstones with some order-in sushi and eighteen seasons ofThe Real Lives of Desperate Minotaurs.”
“I fully support you going out and getting that dream life for yourself.”
“And leave you all alone? The woman who gave me life?”
“I gave you a voice,” Iris clarified.
“Same thing! Do you think I enjoyed squawking and grunting? Like some … some animal?”
Iris smiled down at her old friend. “I’m sorry to destroy your dream. If it makes you feel any better, I amgoingto suffer for it.”
“A platter of anchovies would make me feel better.”
“You got it. If I’m not grounded like a child, that is.”
By the time she and Monty made it back to the hotel, gathered her things, and drove back to the beach, Iris had rehearsed a long speech to give her mother. Then revised it half a dozen times.
“You’re going to need to go and face the music eventually,” Monty said as the two of them sat on the sandbar, watching the sun lower down on the horizon, casting pink and purple slashes across the sky.
“Yeah,” Iris said, flapping her tail in the water. “I guess, so long as it isn’t the singing eels, I can deal.”
She sucked in a deep breath and slipped further into the water. For the first time in her life, all she felt was dread as the water enveloped her.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, if I can get away,” she called to Monty.
She dipped under the surface, humming to herself as she swam slowly back down to the seafloor.
The subtle headshake from the gate guard was all the evidence she needed that the word had already gotten back to her mother.
It was time to face the consequences of her actions.
“Where is she?” Iris asked Juna as she swam past her sister. She chose to ignore the judgmental eyes.
“In her room.”
If possible, Iris swam even slower as she neared her mother’s quarters.
“Come in,” Tatiana called before Iris could even lift her hand to knock.
Iris’s brows knitted when she didn’t hear any sharpnessin her mother’s tone. But she pushed open the door and swam inside.
“Mother, I can—”
“That arrived for you,” Tatiana said. She waved her hand toward the table where her jewelry collection was set.
Iris moved closer, brows knitting when her gaze landed on it.
“What is this?”
“A book.”
“A book? Like … a land book?”
She’d come across many a land book in her time—ones that had likely been left by careless humans on the beach and had been swept away in the tide. But by the time they made it to the seafloor, there was nothing left but a soggy clump of paper.