Quince leans in over the map, studying, and I think he’s going to ask me something about the kingdoms or my plan or Daddy’s trident.
Instead, without taking his eyes off the map, he asks, “What happens if I fail?”

“What?” I whisper.

“If I don’t pass the three tests,” he says. “What’s the consequence?”

I suck in a shaky breath. This is the part I didn’t want to talk about, the part I hoped he wouldn’t ask about. But I guess he’s too clever—or has learned too much about how mer-world magic works—to assume there won’t be a price.

There is, and it’s a big one.

“If you fail,” I say, keeping my voice steady, “then you are banished from the water forever.”

He lifts his Caribbean-blue eyes to stare into mine. “And?”

“And?” I echo.

“I know that can’t be it,” he says. “Nothing in your world is ever that simple.”

A part of my heart breaks when he calls it my world. I want it to feel like his world, too. But now isn’t the time. He’s right; there’s more to the consequence of failure than him being exiled.

“And . . . ,” I say, wishing I didn’t have to tell him this, “I’ll be banished from land.” I swallow hard. “Forever.”

He stares into my eyes, unblinking, and I can’t read any sort of reaction. His mind is racing, I’m sure, but everything on the outside is a stone facade.

Finally, after what feels like an eternity, he says, “Then I won’t fail.

Auteur: Tera Lynn Childs