The Mermaids Madness

can get her alone, but he knows better than to kill her or anything like that.”
    “No danger?” Danielle repeated. “She’s a child.”
    Hephyra stared. “I was four days from the sapling the first time I knew the pleasure of a man. She’s what, ten years? Fifteen? Hard to tell with you mortals.”
    “How can you know what he’ll do?” Danielle asked.
    Hephyra cocked her head to the side, studying Danielle. “It’s been two weeks since you last slept with your husband. Though you wanted to this morning, I think.”
    Snow’s snickering only added to Danielle’s embarrassment. “She’s a dryad,” Snow explained. “A nymph.”
    Talia’s voice shook. “If your man lays a hand on her, I’ll break it. And then I’ll make sure Snow sinks this ship to the bottom of the sea. How long will you and your tree survive in the sunless depths?”
    “Don’t get your knickers in a knot.” Hephyra shook her head. “Martin, are we going to have any trouble with you keeping your mast under control?”
    “No, ma’am!” Martin broke away from Lannadae and turned to go.
    With a sigh, Hephyra crossed the deck and seized him by the belt and collar. Martin barely had time to scream before Hephyra tossed him overboard. “Never try to hide your lusts from a dryad, you foolish man.” She turned around. “Anyone else so much as thinks about bothering our guests, I’ll do worse to you.” To Danielle, she said, “Happy now?”
    “Thank you,” said Danielle.
    Hephyra turned to Lannadae. “I’m not entirely sure where we’ll put you.”
    “I can stay in the boat for now,” Lannadae said. “I like the rain and the puddles.”
    “A girl after my own heartwood.” Hephyra clapped Danielle’s shoulder. With her other hand, she gestured toward the barrels James was bringing on board. “Just tell me one thing, Princess. These three barrels of bait and fish offal you brought along. Don’t tell me you mean to divert this ship for a spot of fishing?”
    “Oh, those?” Danielle matched her smile. “Just keeping a promise to my husband.”

    Lirea walked among the humans throughout the night and into the morning, searching for any clue to her sister’s whereabouts. On a calmer day, she might have tried to track Lannadae through the water, but today the waves were too violent. Lannadae’s taste would have swiftly washed away.
    Eventually, her questions led her to one of the taverns, a crowded place that smelled of old beer and dead fish. She looked around until she spotted a bedraggled fisherman with a curly brown beard, crooked nose, and hair so thick it could have been undine. Robson, if the last person she had talked to was to be trusted. Robson was huddled in the corner by the hearth, waiting out the storm with a half-empty mug of beer.
    Lirea sat down across the table from him, her back to the fire. She forced a smile and asked, “You hunt lobster?”
    Robson studied her for a long time. The heat of the flames raised steam from his damp clothes. “That’s right.”
    “Have you sold any to the queen?” This was the ninth fisherman she had spoken to. She had received five drinks and two propositions, but the closest she had come to answers was one man’s suggestion that Robson had been seen making deliveries to the palace.
    He frowned. “Not the queen, no. There was a woman who came to me a month or so back, asking for a barrel of live lobster. She didn’t say who it was for, but she dressed too well to be a commoner. Gorgeous eyes, lips as red as blood. Saucy lass. If I weren’t married, I’d have—”
    “What did she want them for?” Lirea asked.
    “Can’t rightly say. I can’t imagine a lady as fine as her eating something so crass. The commoners enjoy them, but you’d never catch me dining on bottom-feeding sea roaches.”
    “Where did you deliver them?”
    “To the lady’s boat.” He scratched his chin. “I suppose she might have been a shipowner, stocking food for her crew. Though live lobster is a strange choice for a sea voyage, and I can’t imagine an owner rowing her own boat about.”
    Lirea stood. “Thank you.”
    “Lannadae will kill you, you know,” he said casually.
    Lirea’s hand went to her knife. “What did you say?”
    “Easy, girl. I only asked why the interest in lobster.”
    “I thought you said . . .” Lirea closed her eyes, trying to shut out the voices in her mind. A simple fisherman wouldn’t know Lannadae’s name.
    The conversation in the tavern had