Cold water slapped Elf hard across the face, once, twice, then he opened his eyes only for a third to sting his eyes and shock him into being alert. Coughing, Elf struggled upright, his arms shaking violently as they struggled to hold his weight. His entire body was numb and his mouth was dry, full of sand that scratched at the back of his throat. White, calm waves lapped over his hands, surprisingly warm and glowing a soft teal in the low light of the night. No, not night, but the volcanic darkness that enveloped the sky.

His strength gave out and he collapsed back into the sand, his mind grasping to remember what happened or where he was. He remembered the crew being freed, and goodbyes, and falling in the water… did he die?

With a grunt, he forced himself up once more, kicking his legs into motion and stumbling, swaying, his entire body twinging with pins and needles. He couldn’t feel his legs. He couldn’t feel the pain in his shoulder, or even the sand in his toes. He tried to step forward, but his legs gave out and he collapsed again, his face slamming into the sand. He couldn’t remember land in the part of the sea he had sailed to, but he had no idea where he was now. Elf shook his head, his ears popping as water released, then took in the scene around him.

He wasn’t laying on the edge of the sea, but what he could only describe as a crater. Rather than a gentle dip into the waters, the land ended in a massive cliff, a hole the world filled with clear water. The land dropped far below the surface into an inky blackness, the rocky walls rising up in the distance to create a giant circle, the sand surrounding it forming a misshapen ring. The sea lapped the ground behind him, stretching out into the regular ocean, a strange opposite of the midnight darkness stretched before him. Lying on the sand a little way away, was Anwen.

Unable to stand, Elf crawled along the shore, his hands sinking into the sand as grit stuck to the underside of his fingernails. He tried to lift himself up, but after a single step he collapsed again, almost landing on top of the unconscious mermaid. She looked almost human, laying in the sand with her eyes closed. Elf couldn’t tell if she was breathing. He didn’t even know if she needed to breathe.

With shaking hands, he grabbed her shoulder and shook it, rougher than he intended, but she didn’t respond. Her grey skin felt cold to the touch.

The water rippled next to him, and a head appeared above the surface. His ink black face was overshadowed by a mushroom shaped hat that flattened as he came further and further out of the water. His head and arms were covered in ribbons that floated around him in the water, reminding Elf of the poisonous jellyfish that sometimes washed up on beaches. Another face appeared next to the creature, this one more human, with pale indigo skin and instead of hair, the frills and feathers of a betta exploding out of her head. One by one, other mermaids broke from the water. Elf saw one with whiskers bursting from its cheek, one with skin that rippled in the light, one with red and gold patches of skin and spikes protruding from their head. Each of them hovered in the dark waters, watching him silently.

Elf turned back to Anwen, his movements automatic as he dug his hands under her body and lifted her from the sand. His muscles screamed and his legs bent at awkward angles as he pulled her up, before stumbling once again and dropping her hard into the water. He could only watch as she sank down into the depths, her tail wavering with the motion. Elf dropped onto the sand, giving into his exhaustion. The water by his head rippled, the mermaids spurring into motion, but he couldn’t find the effort to move away. When an icy cold hand wrapped around his arm, it shocked everything back into focus, and Elf lifted his head as the jellyfish mermaid met his gaze, then pulled him into the water.

He managed to stay on the surface, the cold water seeping into his clothes and turning his numbness into drowsiness that made it impossible to move. Slowly, fragments of what had happened came back to him, seeing Quotinir under the water, the horrible pain… he had died!

A hand grabbed his leg, and Elf gave a shout as he was dragged under the water. The grip was iron, refusing to let go as they pulled him further and further down. Water filled his lungs, making his ribs ache, and Elf waited for the moment where the panic would set in, but it never did.

Elf continued to fall deeper into the black, but even as water ran down his throat, as salt burned his mouth, nothing else happened. The struggle of not being able to breathe never screamed for him to rush to the surface. He could breathe.

He could breathe.

Elf screamed, a long slew of bubbles escaping from his mouth as the mermaids surrounded him, hovering around him and following his descent further and further down. Elf struggled, kicking out against the hand wrapped around his ankle, swiping at the creatures that swam around him, each of them unbothered. His breathing - however it was possible for him to be breathing - came out ragged, his chest growing tight as panic finally set in, his entire body thrashing as he struggled to pull himself up.

‘It’s okay!’ Anwen’s voice echoed through the water, and the hand disappeared from his ankle as she appeared in front of him, her frills glowing a soft orange. Elf cried out again, seeing her fins, her tail, the light pulsing out from her body and realising all over again that he was underwater. Anwen only grabbed his shoulders, holding him still. ‘Try and relax. You’re okay.’

‘What did you do to me?’ Elf demanded. ‘How am I… What happened? I died! I—‘

‘Relax,’ Anwen said. ‘Your soul was broken apart by the Chained One. I put it back together.’

Elf struggled to breathe, to calm down, but he only tasted water and salt running through his airways, and his brain screamed that he needed oxygen to survive. He was dead, he had died.

‘You didn’t die,’ Anwen said. ‘You were turned into spray, then turned back. You need to readjust. Just try to relax.’

‘But, I… I can’t breathe!’

‘Yes, you can,’ Anwen pressed. ‘You were remade in the water, just like we all were. You’re safe here. You’re still alive.’

‘No…’ Elf twisted around, desperate for a sign of help, but the other mermaids only stared at him, watching him struggle. He glanced down at his legs, both of them treading out of habit, solid and in two parts, like normal legs. He needed them to stay that way. He couldn’t become a fish. ‘No. I can’t breathe!’

‘O Se…’

‘Let me back up!’ Elf cried. ‘I can’t breathe!’

Pity crossed Anwen’s features, and she let go of his shoulders, giving a single nod. Elf spun, ready for the other mermaids to try and stop him, but they only stared. He lifted his arms and kicked hard against the water, pulling straight up towards where he hoped the surface was. He found himself holding his breath, even if he didn’t need to.

Elf broke through the surface, gasping as air slammed into his lungs, making him dizzy. He thrashed, sending up large bursts of water as he tried to bring himself up further, out of the water where he could feel human again. Slowly, with more effort than he thought, he pulled himself towards the edge of the crater, clawing up the rocky cliffs and back onto the sand.

‘It’s okay to be scared.’ Anwen broke the surface next to him, climbing onto the sand and sitting with her legs crossed. Elf’s entire body shook. He couldn’t move, trapped on his hands and knees. Elf expected the water to rush back up, for him to vomit it out the same way he had so many times when Quotinir dragged him down, but nothing happened.

‘What did you do to me?’ he demanded.

‘Like I said. I couldn’t free the binds without your name. It was too late to stop your soul from being crushed, so I took the pieces and put them back together. There’s a chance other parts of the ocean are now part of you, but they are a part of all of us in the same way.’

‘Does that mean I’m going to turn into a fish?’ Elf asked.

Anwen shrugged. ‘You might. There are many different forms this magic can take, many different ways it could react to your body, and many different creatures in the ocean. You could turn into any one of them.’

‘Does it hurt?’

Anwen shook her head. ‘Millions of years ago, humans were fish who changed. You just forgot how to go back. It won’t happen immediately. By the time you notice, it’ll already be done.’

Elf collapsed onto the sand, twisting around and staring up at the black sky. It would have been easier if he was dead, and he still wasn’t completely convinced he wasn’t. He felt alive; he felt scared and small and his body shook violently, but the pain he had felt beneath the water, and the aches in his shoulder were gone.

He let himself imagine what it would be like to have a tail, to sail through the water as a terrifying creature, and the thought made him shiver. He remembered the monsters that tore his boat apart, the bird-fish that came to their aid against the warship. The undine who could only steal another body to function. The selkies.

He wanted to go back to Ossory. He wanted to go home to the Isle Cullian, and pretend none of this had happened, that it was all a bad dream. Though, Elf could do exactly that. He glanced down at his wrist. The mark was nowhere to be seen. The others in his crew, they were free, alive and ready to go home. They could go home. They could do whatever they wanted. They were all free. If anything else, at least he knew now that he had succeeded. He had won.

‘You are still alive,’ Anwen said. ‘You didn’t die at any point when you were pulled apart, I made sure of that. Your friends and your boat can travel through my waters to reach land again. They are safe.’

Her waters. Elf guessed that this ring counted as a shoal, though he would consider the collection of mermaids in the water to be a shoal as well. ‘This is your home?’ he asked.

Anwen nodded.

‘It’s, um… it’s very pretty.’

‘Thank you.’

Elf sighed, sucking in a deep breath as his body finally calmed down. Whatever had happened now, it was too late to change it, and he wasn’t going to get anywhere from panicking. He glanced down at his wrist again. It was still blank. He didn’t feel like he had won, but he had. Humans weren’t supposed to be in the archipelago; that was the only rule he knew to be universally true, but it wasn’t anymore, not to him. He didn’t know what he was or what magic now had its hold on him, but the others had survived, and that was enough. He silently prayed that Jian found his home. He begged to the stars above that Mihri snatched her old life back. He pictured the moment where Aitan landed in port and his sweetheart was waiting. He imagined each of those scenarios, and the thought of them helped Elf calm. If each of those scenarios played out, maybe he would be okay with this.

‘Really, thank you,’ Anwen said. ‘I’m honoured that you went so far to bring me here, that you risked everything. I’m sorry that this is the result, and know that if I had any other option… but I promise to do everything I can to help you adjust to this. We all will. No matter what changes you end up with, you are welcome here.’

Elf pushed himself up, meeting Anwen’s gaze. ‘I want you to know, I mostly did all of this to spite that sharky fucker.’

Anwen laughed. ‘I wish I had seen the look on his face when I put you back together.’

‘Same here,’ Elf said.

‘It’s not so bad, you know,’ Anwen said. ‘Quotinir is a monster in every circle, but the ocean is much larger than him. I love living in the ocean. I could show you, if you like. We could go and visit your friends.’

Elf’s gut twisted painfully. The last time he had seen them, he had been convinced he was going to die. Even if each of them had some kind of idea about what would happen, he wasn’t sure he wanted to see them now. He didn’t know if the only thing he could do was say goodbye all over again, or admit he wasn’t human. He couldn’t tell them with a straight face that he would be okay. Not yet anyway.

Anwen got to her feet and held out her hand. ‘Come on. I’ll show you. You’ll feel better.’

Elf sighed and took her outstretched hand, letting her pull him to his feet. His feet sank into the sand, his muscles finally willing to support him. Then, with another deep breath, he gave a nod and let Anwen pull him back into the water.