I'd lost too much blood, and the world kept fading to black in waves.

The baby they'd cut out of me lay against my side, pale and weak.

He couldn't even cry.

Before I could so much as touch him, Asher's assistant came again.

He didn't knock. He shoved the door open, sweat streaming down his face.

"The senior Mrs. Sanchez is having a difficult labor. The second young master says he needs your blood to keep her alive."

I said nothing. I only slid one hand out from under the heavy blankets.

The little blood I had left was drawn out of my body, and the cold made me shudder.

Something pained flickered through the assistant's eyes.

"The second young master says mermaid blood has powerful healing properties. She's hemorrhaging, barely clinging to life, and only you can save her. Don't worry, the blood-bird's nest tonic is already simmered. You'll get your strength back soon."

My eyes half closed, I nodded.

Years ago, when Asher took away my clansmen's bodies, he told me not to worry too.

For three years, every time I wanted to go and mourn them, I was stopped.

He said, don't worry, I'm here, going there will only break your heart and your health.

But I never imagined that the burial he spoke of meant sending them into a laboratory,

processed into life-sustaining blood packs to keep Emily Delgado alive.

And now, it was my turn too.

The blood was carried to the old estate, pack by pack.

My mind drifted further and further into the dark.

Faintly, I heard cheering beyond the door.

Emily's baby had been born without trouble. Mother and daughter both safe, plump and rosy.

While my baby lay in my arms, his organs not even fully formed.

My phone was buzzing. A video call from Emily.

She waved the baby's chubby hand at the camera.

"Mari, thank you."

"I really thought I was going to die. Thank goodness Asher said your blood could save me."

I stared at Asher beside her and didn't speak.

"Mari, don't be angry with Asher."

"He's too young, he still has his immature moments. The two of you found each other against the odds. Don't give up on him."

She exchanged a glance with Asher and smiled.

"Years ago, your eldest brother-in-law and I were the same. We'd have died for each other. I think the two of you are just the same."

Asher's face changed for an instant.

"She's not like you."

"Tonics poured into her like water, and she still let herself waste away into this dying state. Isn't it just to make me feel sorry for her?"

I looked at him.

"Do you know that you and her look just like a family of three?"

My voice was very faint, because I had no strength left.

But Asher reacted even less. "My brother's setting sail. I'm going to keep him company."

"Emily came to thank you, not to listen to your sarcasm."

All at once I felt how absurd I was.

Even now, I was still secretly envious that Emily could be loved that much.

While my own feelings were like a stone dropped into the deep sea.

No one there to catch me. I could only sink to the bottom without a sound.

"All right. Emily, you need to rest."

"Mari, you should rest too. Tell Cary Lambert if you need anything. Take care of yourself, don't hold up the voyage."

I'd heard those words countless times.

Asher was like the ocean. Generous with his hand, and yet stingy.

Tonics, jewelry, money. Whatever I asked for, he gave. But he never gave me love.

Even this child in my belly was an accident, conceived after he'd been drinking.

That night he murmured Emily's name,

and I thought he simply hadn't had enough, so I sat with him and opened several more bottles of fine wine.

The call ended. My gaze moved frame by frame, settling on the table piled with tonics and medicinal dishes.

I threw myself at the table and forced them down my throat, mouthful after mouthful.

But my stomach churned, bitter, sour bile rising up,

and I clutched the table and vomited until the floor was a mess, my throat burning raw.

I dragged myself to the edge of the bed, tore the bandage off my wrist, and forced out a few drops of blood.

They fell onto the baby's cracked lips, and he wouldn't swallow.

I passed out.

Somewhere in the haze of it, the scent of cedar drifted to my side.

"How is she?"

The doctor kept his voice very low. "Not good. Miss Marisol has lost too much blood. She's far too weak. If she goes back out to sea, there's a good chance she won't come back."

"Is there any way?"

Asher Sanchez didn't say it outright.

But everyone knew it wasn't a way to save me. It was a way to keep me going out to sea.

The sea was brutal.

The salt wind cut across your face like a knife, the blazing sun split and peeled the skin. Sometimes a swell came, and one missed footing sent you into the water, never to make it home again.

How could he ever bear to send Emily out there.

"This child is underdeveloped. He survives entirely on Miss Marisol's blood."

"Unless you give up the child, Miss Marisol's blood won't be enough. Sooner or later something will go wrong."

This time, Asher was silent for a long while.

I could feel his hand touch the baby, and then, cruelly, carry him away.

"Then we won't keep him. He's a monster anyway."

"Emily's already booked the postpartum center. My brother's out at sea, so I have to stay with her. It'll have to fall to Marisol."

So this was the taste of despair. So bitter.

Tears slid into the corner of my mouth as I struggled to open my eyes.

"Asher Sanchez."

He turned his head. There was still blood on his hands.

I gave a small smile. "Give me back my heart-scale."

A woman of the Merfolk Clan gives her heart-scale to the one she loves, praying to the Sea God that his life be smooth,

that every disaster fall only upon herself.

I had decided I would not love Asher Sanchez anymore.

"Why?"

He walked back and sat down on the edge of the bed.

"Marisol, you can take it out on me. But losing the baby isn't my fault either. Even with my memory gone, I'm still grieving too."

He didn't understand.

He took my withdrawing my love as a fit of temper.

I stared at him until he turned his face away.

"I gave it to Emily."

"She said she thought it was unique, so she had it made into a necklace."

"It's just a scale. Be generous about it."

Generous.

He was always telling me to be generous, to let things go.

But he never once asked whether I was willing.

He said his memory loss made him slip up, but I had to be generous and understanding, to forgive him.

One day he would remember, and turn back into the man who loved me.

But that day stretched endlessly out of reach.

And I couldn't afford to wait any longer.

"Once this voyage is over, I'll—"

"Marry me?"

He was silent. "Once I remember, I'll marry you."

But a love that had never existed in the first place, how was he supposed to remember it.

My voice was shaking. "When you slaughtered the Merfolk Clan, you couldn't remember your love for me then either. How would you remember it now?"

"Marisol. Has someone told you something?"

He stood up, his steps unsteady.

I grabbed hold of him, and the wound on my wrist split open.

Blood dripped onto the back of his hand, and he flinched as if scalded. "They're lying to you."

"You're the one lying to me. Asher Sanchez, hundreds of lives. Have you forgotten them all?!"

"You... you know everything?"

"It was an accident. I only wanted to cure Emily."

I let go of him.

The last shred of feeling in my heart died too.

"It's time. Emily panics if she wakes and doesn't see me. You should rest."

He stepped away, and I followed behind him.

We walked out of the cabin, and the edge of the sky was slowly brightening.

I stood on the deck and watched the hurry in his steps.

The sea wind moaned, as if pleading with him to stay, and seeing me off.

4.

"Asher."

In the end, I couldn't stop myself from calling out to him one last time.

But he didn't turn around.

And just like that, I remembered the first words each of them said the year they woke.

One swore he would be my guard, at my side whenever I called.

The other swore I would be no princess but a queen, every command mine to give.

Yet now he couldn't spare so much as a moment to let me say goodbye.

I slipped the diamond off my finger.

A pink diamond, many carats, blinding even in the dark, the gaudy nouveau-riche kind Emily had cast aside as beneath her.

On my withered finger it looked like something I'd stolen.

I threw it into the sea and climbed barefoot over the railing.

The sun broke free of the water, blazing gold.

I tipped backward and fell into the deep.

My body dissolved into foam, drifting out with the waves without a single sound.

Asher turned, as if he'd sensed something,

and saw only the empty deck.

He closed his eyes a moment and let out a tired sigh.

By custom, before setting out, the lady of the shipping house led the sailors' families in a blessing before the statue of the Sea God.

Emily and Asher stood at the center of it, shoulder to shoulder.

"You shouldn't have come out here. The wind's strong on the water."

Asher steadied her, helplessness in his eyes.

"I can't let Mari carry it all forever. Once my recovery's done, I mean to learn to navigate too."

Emily's voice was gentle.

Asher didn't argue. All at once he thought of Mari.

He thought: if Emily took to the sea, maybe he could wean himself off her, maybe Mari would lose her temper a little less.

His mind hadn't wandered long before the appointed hour arrived.

Asher lifted his head and didn't see Marisol.

"Where did Mari go? Go find her."

"Asher, maybe Mari's just avoiding us. Don't be upset."

Emily's words left him strangely on edge.

He knew the Tideveil Sea had cursed him, knew he wasn't to board any ship. He stepped onto the deck anyway and went searching with quick strides.

The next moment, the sky went dark all at once, and the wind and waves rose on the sea.

The sailors' faces changed, and they whispered uneasily among themselves.

"The Sea God is angry! The second young master truly is one the sea won't bless!"

"Where is Miss Marisol? Only with her here will the storm quiet."

"We want to see her!"

Amid the clamor, Asher's expression grew darker and darker.

The ship pitched under the battering waves, rocking violently.

The half-shut door of my room banged open in the wind, and Asher turned on instinct.

He saw a bed soaked in blood.

Blood that had flowed out of my body.

At the foot of the bed lay countless dull, dimmed scales.

The skin a mermaid sheds before she dies.

"Second young master! We can't find Miss Marisol anywhere!"

"Second young master! The cameras show... they show her last on the deck!"

Asher's brow twitched, and he raced to the deck.

Emily stood there, bewildered, the sea behind her drifting full of snow-white foam.

"Asher."

He pushed her aside, muttering to himself,

"The legends say a mermaid turns to foam... but how could that be..."

"Mari lived three whole years just fine, didn't she. It can't be... it can't be..."

He raised his eyes to Emily, meaning to give her a reassuring smile.

His gaze fixed on her, and his face drained of color.

He watched the heart-scale necklace crumble to ash out of nothing,

gone in an instant, just like the foam on the sea.

At last something dawned on him, and he hurled himself toward the water like a madman.

"Mari!"