The Mermaids Madness

confused.
    “Snow had a pet cat for a while. But it snuck into her mother’s things. Made a horrible mess. Her mother made her watch as she killed it.” Talia’s shoulders slumped. She opened her trunk, retrieving a dented flask, then collapsed back onto the cot beside Danielle. “Maybe it’s better if . . . if she doesn’t try to save Beatrice. This time the effort knocked her out. Who knows what it will do next time? Father Isaac and Ambassador Trittibar could talk to Morveren, try to understand how to—”
    “You know Snow will insist on helping,” Danielle said.
    Talia brought her legs to her chest. “Snow’s the one who found me when I first came to Lorindar. She and Beatrice. I had stowed away on a cargo ship. The Verdant Ogre, I think. I pried the lid from a crate of cloud silk and curled up inside during the day, listening to every voice, every footstep. The hold was dark as death, and most of my time was spent alone with only the scurrying of the rats for company. Each night I snuck out to steal food and to check the stars, making sure we hadn’t turned back.”
    Danielle tried to imagine how frightened Talia must have been. Awakening after a hundred years, her friends and family long dead. Her home overgrown and crumbling, her land ruled by another. She was no princess, only a magical oddity from another age, and the one who helped awaken her had also used her horribly.
    “I wanted to sleep again, even if it meant I would never wake up.”
    Danielle bit her lip. Talia wouldn’t appreciate sympathy. Had the room not been so poorly lit, she doubted Talia would have spoken of those times at all.
    “Beatrice and Snow came to the docks. Bea knew I was there. She’s always been able to sense when someone needed her help. Like with Lannadae.” Talia took a quick swallow from her flask. “Her guards boarded first, searching the hold until they found me. They pried open the crate and dragged me out. I was too stiff and sore to resist, but I tried. I knocked one down and dislocated the thumb of another, but I could barely walk, let alone run.”
    “How did you learn to fight so well?” Danielle asked.
    “I didn’t leave Arathea right away. I was . . . angry. I wanted to fight back. Against the family who had taken my land, against the fairies who had done this to me, against everyone. I found people who could help me. I stayed with them for more than a year, until the prince’s family learned of my whereabouts.”
    Talia took another drink. “I escaped again, but not before I saw the prince’s men kill four of my protectors. By the time I arrived in Lorindar, I think a part of me was hoping the guards would kill me and put an end to it all. And then Beatrice came down into the hold, with Snow behind her.”
    Danielle could hear a faint smile in Talia’s voice. “Beatrice doesn’t get angry like other people do. She neither shouts nor threatens. All she did was walk across the hold, squeezing past barrels and crates and one moaning guard, but the way she looked at those men . . . if Bea had been a witch, every last one of those guards would have died on the spot. When she reached me, she turned to the guards and said, ‘I told you this woman was our guest.’
    “One of the guards stammered an apology and loosened his grip on me. I kicked the other one in the groin and ran right past Beatrice and Snow, thinking if I could only reach the docks, I might be able to disappear.”
    Danielle closed her eyes, following Talia’s flight in her mind.
    “Instead, Beatrice turned and said, ‘ El-sak fasiv byat-tu ayib ?’ Is this the behavior of a guest? Her accent was atrocious, but her tone reminded me of my own mother. I was so stunned to hear my own language, I stopped running.”
    “What happened next?” Danielle asked.
    Talia snorted. “Snow stepped out from behind the queen and smiled at me. I had never seen anyone like her . . . so beautiful I wasn’t sure if she was human or fey. I started to say something, and then she poleaxed me with a spell from her mirrors. It felt as if she had smashed the whole ship over my head. By the time I woke up, we were in the palace.
    “I had been bathed, dressed in decent clothes, and there was an entire tray of food sitting beside my bed. Fish fillets with that orange jelly you people like so much, fresh grapes, almond biscuits with butter melting down the sides. Do you know how good a real meal tastes when you’ve spent two weeks living on stolen