Jacket Copy
Sixteen-year-old Livi, from the coastal country of Merritaine, must reach the Nocturne Isles. For legends say Nocturne holds healing springs-waters that could cure her mamá’s cancer. Passage to Nocturne is scarce, though, for Nocturne keeps more legends than that of healing waters.

Sirens-powerful, human-like, aquarian creatures-are said to haunt the waters of the Mar de Basilisk raging around Nocturne. Not to mention, Merritaine and Nocturne are engaged in an unjust war, incited by Merritaine’s Admiral Eris Machai.

Livi’s closest friends, Célian and Jules, have been drafted as reconnaissance scouts-boys who work with dolphins to find and disarm sea mines left in the wake of the Admiral’s war. Though the ocean is littered with warships and arsenal, the seafarers fear Siren reports more than the threat of the war reigniting. For Sirens, legends say, can rend steel and flesh. And they can manipulate human thought.

Livi, though, dismisses Sirens as mythical. Monsters don’t take the form of sea legends. Monsters take the shape of Admiral Machai, of volatile sea mines, of cancer. Or so she believes until she discovers the terrible motivation of the Admiral’s war.

Livi may be the only person who can stop him. But first, she must learn to master her birthright-powers of influence, of strength, and of destruction.

 

Excerpt 1 – From Chapter 1
Livi stood before the tavern’s bleak threshold, its heavy door cobbled of wrecked ships.

She peered through its ragged window, quieting the wiser part of her, an inner voice calling for her to turn back. And truly, she was stunned that she’d mustered the daring to try this.

There were dozens of men here—sailors all brooding over their flagons, many looking to be harboring grudges.

The tavern’s splintery walls were studded with trophies—toothy payaras, dry in their death throes, tacked beneath golden portraits of infamous Korps Mariner ships and their dread captains.

The men frequenting this sand-dusted, fish-pongy tavern—The Orphic, were the sun-beaten sailors and damaged soldiers of Merritaine, mercenaries and relieved fighters who’d reached the shore of old age still breathing.

No one dared step a toe in The Orphic unless he bore epic tales—bloody acts of acclaim on the baleful blue seas.

Many here had killed. Some for honorable causes in noble wars, yes. But they’d killed.

For all their savagery, though, they were brave.

Livi had heard enough stories to understand them as uniformly dauntless and skilled. If anyone could help her skip Merritaine’s coast and reach Nocturne, he’d be drinking here.

Through the brume of pipe smoke, she measured each face for hints of affability. Or at least for traces of good humor—signs that someone might consider her offer. If she could just single out one sailor more approachable than not, perhaps she could move to him unnoticed.

But that wouldn’t happen. Women scarcely set foot here, and sixteen-year-old girls certainly didn’t.

A few of the sailors came across as jovial—but even they harbored an undercurrent of trouble in their looks, their ease striking like a gusty southerly bathing the seaside, forecasting a typhoon’s assault.

The afternoon seemed all at once to grow late, a shaft of misted sunlight sluicing through the windows and casting the place in watery relief.

In fixing on that panorama of ocean, Livi could almost see Nocturne’s peaks in the deep west, its moonstone shores marbled with the shadowy ash given by its volcanic chain.

Those heights, she had to reach. For it was said that Nocturne’s high places were hived with sea caves—chambers shining with waters rumored to have healing properties.

Some believed those springs could stave off even death.

Livi eased from her jacket a small jar of pearls, each perfect, as plump as a blueberry—these a mere sampling of the trove she’d collected. They ought to be more than enough to buy passage to Nocturne from someone here bearing the skill, and the gall, and the ship, and the time to set sail for the Isles, along with some assurance that he could ferry her through storms, over waters where lurked sharks and killer whales and squids that tore up boats, and finally beyond the dread Maelstroms.

Livi had imagined this moment many times—making her bold approach in The Orphic, striking a deal. She’d imagined that arriving at this brink would feel like the onset of her escape.

But in finally standing here, readying to approach men alleged to be the most barbarous in Merritaine, the idea seemed beyond reckless.

Célian, her best friend—maybe more—would be sick at the thought of her here. And truly, in darkening this threshold, she felt she was skimming the rim of the Maelstroms, those great whirlpools unceasing in their churning, twisting what strayed near straight down in a tempest, claiming ships and seafarers alike as a part of themselves.

The bright Merrow Ocean glinting in, though, delivered some steadfastness. For at the sight of its rolling, Livi could gather a sense of what it might feel like, teaming with someone here, cruising on his scabrous ship to the treacherous west.

A man seated at the tavern’s back corner stood out a touch.

He looked a decade younger than the rest, and he had all his limbs, which was saying something. He seemed not resentful, or affable, or angry—just somber. His solemnity made it clear that he wanted to be left to himself.

But it also lent an impression of patience. Maybe he’d listen.

She edged open the tavern’s door and crept in. She eased behind a column in the entryway and held still.

She’d have to get to the somber man quick. If she drew too much attention, the barkeep—a tall man, his eyes sharp to check all the action, his manner busy and swift with his bottles—would cast her out before she could lay down one word of her offer.

Or worse—he’d let the men handle the disruption.

Livi stepped from the shade, into the amber light of the tavern.

 

Excerpt 2 – From Chapter 4
Célian rubbed the back of his neck, his head aching.

His dolphin scouts had been unstoppable, and by the time they’d called it quits, he’d started to question who was working for whom.

Though today had been profitable, it was a relief to be sitting on his pier, watching the water move, empty of dolphins.

There were four males in his pod and one female, and after the morning drills, they’d fanned out, each dolphin locating a mine. The female was the best at it, and she’d come back first, touched her beak to her yellow target, received her reward, bargained for a larger reward.

Célian had gone soft and given her more, and then she was off again, not returning until her brothers did, tapping her beak to her sunny circle, flickering her tail, signing “follow,” leading the way to another lost mine.

They were probably still at it, routing out mines to show him tomorrow.

The thought of his five dolphins nosing at sea arsenal was upsetting. But at this stage in the war, the whole ocean was perilous.

On the western horizon, a haze of smoke crowned a row of sharp mountains—Nocturne’s volcanic cones, wakeful. They weren’t destructive but rather kept a low burn, a constant deposit of nutrient-rich lava and ash sliding down.

Those peaks seemed a taunt. They marked Nocturne as looming so close as to be within sight on a clear day—and yet never had Merritaine succeeded in conquering the Isles. The dolphins seemed to understand Nocturne’s stalwartness. With how hard they were driving him, it was like they sensed an escalation on the horizon.

It was lucky the scouts had worked him so hard today. If he hadn’t needed to go back to the market for fish, he might not have caught Livi at The Orphic.

By Syro. The Orphic. He’d really thought she’d let go of the notion of running.

But her obsession with Nocturne was understandable. Anyone bearing such sorrow would feel desperate. Papá thought any night could be Astraea’s last.

Even if Livi did have a papá in Nocturne, as she believed, she never would find him. The Isles and Atolls pierced a thousand miles into the west, and though not all of them held hamlets, most did. She couldn’t investigate the whole chain.

As deeply as Célian ached for Nocturne, as homesick as he was, as skilled on the water, as strongly as he cared for Livi—even he wouldn’t dream of taking on the black waters of the Mar de Basilisk rocking before the Isles.

Those waters held terrors deadlier than hazardous sea terrain and Admiral Eris Machai. They held a nightmare that, until recently, Célian had resigned as mythological.

In the gentle blue of an incoming swell, a gray fin cut toward Célian.

He kicked water at it. “What are you doing back?”

A dolphin glanced at him over a wave. It was the female—Etta. She flipped onto her back and coasted underneath him.

As tired as the sight of her made him, her intelligent glance also summoned a thrill.

Sailing way out, diving to clip mines, persistently training and reinforcing behaviors with his scouts was trying work that felt endless. But relieving the ocean of weapons of war, his valiant dolphins beside him—it delivered an incredible high.

“Where are your brothers?” As he spoke, he signed “brothers”—the term he’d chosen for the scouts.

She flashed her tail at the northwest, then twisted to her side.

“Had enough of the boys, have you?” He stroked her, then signed, “No more brothers?”

She touched her beak to his foot. She edged back, her mouth open.

“No more,” he signed. “You ate all the fish.”

She seemed to click a complaint, then ducked under the film and came up under his feet.

“You—yes, you. You personally finished off every fish.” He signed, “Greedy.”

“Greedy” normally made them back off. They knew it meant he was putting his foot down, the supply of reward definitively cut off.

She touched her beak again to his foot.

“Finished,” he signed. “No more work.” He held her chin. “There are no mines around here. You’ve scrubbed this place.”

She rose out of the water and touched her beak to his forehead. A dolphin’s achingly sweet kiss.

“Too much night now,” he signed. “North. Tomorrow. High sun.” He pointed to the wide ocean. “Brothers—Teppo, Rush, Tate, Demi—go.”

She swayed in the water.

“Hunt,” he commanded. “Go hunt fish.”

She opened her mouth.

He reached down and rubbed her mallow tongue. “How is it you’re the littlest? You eat more than all of the boys.”

She slapped the water, splashing him. He had no fish, but she was determined to get something out of him. She wanted play.

He signed, “You’re trouble.” He unbuttoned his shirt. “I’m supposed to meet Papá soon to look in on Astraea.”

She splashed harder, soaking the front of his clothes.

“For a moment, only.” He peeled off his wet shirt and hung it on a docking post. “Short time,” he signed. “You’re done with your work. I’ve still got some left.”

She flipped into a dive, wiggling her tail as she did when she knew he would follow.

He unbuckled his belt, but car lights flashing down the pier halted him.

The car stopped at the edge of the sand, and from it climbed a Korps Mariner high officer.

Captain Nicodéme.

Etta poked her head out of a wave.

“Bad—danger,” Célian signed. “Go.”

Etta dove, thrusting water, sinking away in an even glide.

Célian watched her until she was far from the pier, and then lost—her silver skin part of the waves.

The six metal buttons on the breast of the captain’s suit glistened in a dull way like bullets. The sunset glinted off heavy rings that the captain wore on all but his middle finger, which was missing.

Anyone bold enough to ask him what’d happened received just a single word. “Teeth.”

 

Excerpt 3 – From Chapter 6
Livi scanned the skyline for any tells of Célian’s boat, but the whole plane of blue stretched unbroken.

She turned her jacket’s collar against the night and drew her lantern close.

Soon, Célian would come sailing in on the shining dark water, the smooth risings of starlit dolphin skin trailing his sailboat. The boat would smell rancid with croaker fish, and so would he, and he’d hand her the bucket and let her feed the last of them to Teppo, to Rush, to Tate, to Demi, and to Etta, their smiling faces entreating for more, until her fingers would sparkle with scales.

The vanished sun curled in its lingering tendrils, leaving the west ghosted.

In the nascent dark water, way out, a silhouette appeared.

Livi picked up the lantern. Célian would know it was her and would sail here rather than pressing on west. She drew breath to call to him, but her voice hitched as the silhouette vanished.

She studied the water. That hadn’t exactly looked like a boat—but what else could it have been? A boat wouldn’t have just disappeared, though. There’d been a person’s head and the turn of two shoulders.

Maybe that hadn’t been anything. Just a trick of the moonlight.

Livi settled back. She’d been staring at the water so intensely, wanting so much to see Célian—it was no wonder she’d imagined him.

She set the lantern close, putting herself in the heart of its bubble of light. She listened as the canopy deepened to sapphire.

The ocean remained quiet, the ebbing tide just a blush.

Then a splash.

A punch of shade breaking the rippling ocean, water-colored by moonlight.

That was no boat.

Livi wet her fingers and pinched out the lantern’s flame.

Dark moments passing brought into sharp relief stars lighting something, the rolling waves carrying something.

The shape clarified as a person—a man in the water, facing her.

He seemed a man altogether made of bleakness. His face was barely visible. His eyes, catching the moonlight, were the most definite feature. He was looking straight at her.

Soon. The sea whispered. Or seemed to.

Had that been the wind? Or was it the person speaking? Was that a person?

She’d listened all afternoon to tales of the strange, the unexplainable, coming out of the sea. Her imagination had to be a touch piqued.

She blinked hard, but the shape in the water did not change, did not fade.

It was probably a Korps Mariner, swimming. The waters off Merritaine’s beaches were warm enough for a long swim.

But where could he have come from? Any swimmer setting out, Livi would’ve seen.

Livi. The voice was unmistakably clear. I’m with you.

The voice felt ghostly. Yet something about it struck as soothing. Familiar, even.

The men in The Orphic had called up the stories of sea demons and gods haunting the ocean. If that were a god, would it sound so inviting? If it were a demon, it certainly would.

“I’m imagining you,” she said.

Soon, said the wind. Or the demon. Or the god.

Livi peered into the water beneath her.

The voice struck her with a strong sense of comfort, and with it, the whole ocean, rippling with stars and with moonlight, felt soothing. Inviting.

This warm, salted sea—how delicious it seemed it would feel, sheathing her like a skin as she dove.

If that shadow was a figment of her imagination, there’d be no consequence to diving. If the man in the water proved real, diving would deliver answers.

And if she met with a monster?

But she wouldn’t. Monsters didn’t take the shape of sea legends. They took the shape of Alastar Deimos. Of Admiral Machai. Of cocked sea mines. Of cancer.

Livi stripped off her jacket. The figure was way out, but she’d swam farther than that, many times.

A song rose—not of words, exactly, but of a low, even chanting.

A warm current rushed in and whirled the coastal waters into a tiny maelstrom.

The figure held up something that glinted in the moonlight, then he laid it in the water.

A wave took it. It bobbed through the slipping breakers, tight in a current sweeping near.

Livi climbed down from the pier. She kept the figure in her sightline as she moved through the shallows.

The breakers delivered the shining thing quite close.

It was a corked bottle. It lilted before her until the frothy waves pushed it onto the wet sand.

She drew it out of the tetchy wash and knelt.

Inside the bottle, seawater was sloshing together with sand, with shells, with wisps of sea grasses. And strewn among everything—at least two dozen silver pearls were jostling, shimmering where they weren’t marred by algae. They were as big as acorns.

A flashing in the water clipped her gaze from the bottle.

She glanced up to catch a flicker—the dive of the figure—the arc of legs kicking.

She stared at the water so hard, for so long, her eyes burned. She let them fall closed, felt the relief of warm tears. The flash of starlight on glassy skin lingered in her mind’s eye.

She looked up again to see the shore waves tumbling.

The moon blanched and climbed a hand’s width up the dome.

Livi felt spent, as though she’d woken from a restless sleep. She struggled over a sense of having seen something important. But she could hardly remember what.

The impression of something in the ocean way out—someone watching her—seemed to have been an illusion. The gist of a dolphin tail striking the water seemed real enough, though.