The Mermaids Madness

using leftover leaves, and honey was a luxury remembered only from her most distant childhood.
    Beatrice laughed. “Snow never has learned to make proper tea.”
    “What did she put in here?”
    “I’ve learned it’s best not to ask. She said it would help your stomach.”
    Though Snow White’s culinary skills left much to be desired, Danielle trusted her. Snow had saved her life the year before, after all. The least Danielle could do was drink her overly pungent tea.
    If nothing else, the tea helped wash the salty taste of the sea from her mouth. She took another sip, then turned to watch the Lord Lynn Margaret following in the distance. The Saint Tocohl trailed them on the opposite side, the three ships forming an elongated triangle in the sea.
    “You’ll adjust.” Beatrice clapped a hand on Danielle’s back in a manner more fitting a deckhand than the queen of Lorindar. “I do feel for you. I’ve never suffered from seasickness, but when I was pregnant with Armand, I spent three months unable to eat anything more exciting than oatmeal. Even then, it was an even wager whether I would keep the oatmeal down.”
    “Yet in spite of your sympathy, you still chose to inflict this misery on me?” A year ago, the mere thought of joking with the queen would have driven Danielle to her knees to beg forgiveness. Now she narrowed her eyes in mock anger. “I never imagined such cruelty from you, Your Majesty.”
    The laugh lines on Beatrice’s face deepened. She leaned closer, lowering her voice. “If I wanted you ill, I’d let your husband take the helm.”
    Danielle grinned and shaded her eyes as she turned to search for the prince. Though Beatrice had formally given command of the ship over to her son, Prince Armand had yet to take the wheel. The last time Danielle saw him, he had been inspecting the cannons on the right side of the main deck.
    The starboard side. Armand had inherited his mother’s love of sailing, and while they both tried to hide it, neither Beatrice nor Armand could conceal their amusement when Danielle stumbled over yet another nautical term.
    Beatrice folded her arms on the railing and leaned out, peering into the water. “I spared you this voyage in the fall when Jakob was born, but there are limits. King Theodore can avoid these journeys if he chooses, but as future queen of Lorindar, you must be presented to the undine.”
    Her words brought Danielle’s nausea back in full force. She gulped the rest of her tea and took a deep breath.
    “Also, it was past time you set foot on this marvelous galleon.” Beatrice’s eyes positively twinkled. “It was named in your honor, after all.”
    “Yes, I know.” Danielle remembered her horror the first time Armand broke the news. “They couldn’t come up with anything better than the Glass Slipper ?”
    The queen shrugged. “I’m told the Midnight Pumpkin was also discussed.”
    “Midnight pumpkin? There was no pumpkin! I never—” Danielle caught herself. “You’re teasing me again.”
    “Perhaps.”
    Danielle frowned. Beneath the queen’s exuberance, she sounded distracted. Her smile faded too quickly, and she kept turning away. Normally, Beatrice gave her undivided attention to whomever she was with, whether that was an emperor or a stable hand. “Bea?”
    “Does the tea help?” Beatrice asked without looking up.
    Danielle nodded. “Why didn’t Snow make some when we first left?”
    Another absent smile. “Over one hundred young, strong, hardworking sailors crew the Glass Slipper . You should be grateful Snow remembered you at all.”
    From a platform near the top of the front mast—the foremast—came a shout. “Undine ahead!”
    All at once men were racing about, hauling ropes and furling the sails. From the quarterdeck, Armand cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “Ease away tack and bowline! Stand by to take in fore topsail!” He waited a beat, watching the men work, then yelled, “Haul taut, and up topsail. Stand by on main topsail!”
    He might as well have been speaking a foreign language, but Danielle could hear Beatrice whispering the commands along with him.
    Danielle leaned back, studying her husband. His sleeves were pushed back, exposing the lean muscles of his arms. Armand had allowed his dark hair to grow longer over the winter, and Danielle still hadn’t decided whether or not she liked the new beard. It filled out his narrow features, but tended to tickle at inopportune times.
    Smiling