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mention of the fine.
    “Yes, sir,” Shea agreed, as if getting on that bus were important to him. “Thank you, sir.”
    “And no more dogs on the beach,” the officer called after him as Shea crossed the parking lot.
    He didn’t acknowledge that last order but broke into a run, heading back to his grandmother’s house.
    ***
    Kae peered from behind the rock jetty. The boy and dog had left the beach, and the big black and white land boat was also leaving. “Not a boat, but a car ,” she said experimentally, recalling the name of the thing from her previous encounter with drylanders. A good memory was essential when things couldn’t be written down. “The girls in Florida called those machines by the name of car .”
    She climbed up onto the jetty, and walked carefully to the end of the rocky outcropping. The sky above her had already changed from its hesitant pastels of early morning to a brilliant shade of blue, the few clouds having evaporated like morning mist on the ocean. Seagulls wheeled overhead in slow lazy circles.
    At the jetty’s end, she clambered nimbly down the algae-covered boulders. She sat on the one lowest to the waterline, feet dangling ankle deep in the lapping waves. Putting one hand around the stone medallion hanging at her neck, she closed her eyes and recited the words her mother had taught her long ago. “ A pedibus usque ad caput mutatio .”
    Suddenly, the sun seemed to shine more brightly on the water at her feet, orangey and yellow sparks dancing on the blue green surface. Kae watched the sparkles slide soundlessly along the surface straight toward her, to where her feet made contact with the lapping saltwater. The dancing lights ran up both her legs, shimmering along the skin as they twined up her thighs. Sitting very still, she kept her hand on the transmutare stone, rubbing her thumb in slow circles around its rim. The whole process took mere seconds until the twinkling lights receded back down to the water’s surface, leaving behind a glittering green mermaid tail where once two separate legs had been.
    Smiling to herself, Kae slid down into the ocean, quickly submerging in the cool depths. The codium weeds grew thick near the base of the jetty, dancing in the dappled sunlight that penetrated the waves. The seaweed parted easily as she swished through the undulating underwater forest. She wanted to hurry home, back to her mother to tell her about her encounter with the boy. She knew she might get in a teensy bit of trouble, but she had to tell her. Secrets were too hard to keep in their small community, let alone within her own family.
    Just as she reached the far end of the weedy patch, she heard a large splash and an unfamiliar voice. Kae froze, sinking down to the sandy ocean floor, hidden within the edges of the spongy field of seaweed.
    “I can’t believe the rumors are true.” An unfamiliar merman swam right past the spot where Kae lay in hiding. Although he was as clean-shaven as a young boy, his hair was completely white, flowing behind him as his tail fin fluttered at high speed. “After all these years…” He swam so quickly that in mere moments he was miles beyond where Kae could see the flick of his tail.
    Pushing aside the weeds, she squinted after him. All the older mermen she knew had long flowing beards, so she reasoned this one must be from a different clan altogether. “Only Adluo soldiers are rumored to swim so fast,” she murmured to herself, trying to piece together this puzzle. Shaking stray bits of the seaweed from her curls, she started swimming deeper into Nantucket Sound, wondering what the stranger had been doing on shore in Windmill Point. Everyone knew that Adluos hated drylanders. “Maybe it’s something to do with the peace accords?”
    The upcoming accords had been the hot topic in the kitchens of the Summer Palace, as the servants cleaned the signs of winter’s neglect from the building and unpacked the supplies they’d hauled with them