“Oh, you are, are you?” She laughs, weakly, like she pities me. “I’m sorry you came all this way for me to say no, but . . . no.”

“Dumontia,” I blurt; then, when I see the look of insult on her face, I backtrack. “Your highness, this is not the way to solve the problems facing our kingdoms.”

“No?” She floats closer, looming over me like an imperial icicle. “And what do you suggest is the solution? Band-Aids and care packages?”

“It’s a whole lot better than your plan,” Tellin snaps.

I throw him a silencing look and find Peri already shushing him.

Dumontia rolls her eyes at him. “I’ll pass, thank you.”

“You’re not going to drive humans out of the ocean,” I say, trying to make her see why her plan is doomed to fail. “You’re going to confuse them and make them angry. And then, maybe, you’ll make them curious enough to start investigating why all these accidents keep occurring in their offshore endeavors.”

“Will I?” she replies with a mocking tone. “Oh, that would be such a shame.”

“No,” I say, building up steam, “it will be a disaster. If they start investigating, then it’s only a matter of time before they—”

Dumontia lifts her eyebrows and gives me a casual shrug.

“You—” I can’t believe she’s implying what I think she’s implying. “You want them to investigate. You want them to find one of us, to discover our greatest secret.”

“No,” she says, her voice dripping with sarcasm, “that’s not at all what I want.”

“Was that your plan all along?” I ask in disbelief. “To reveal our existence to mankind?”

The superior look on her face melts and she leans in, looking serious. Her voice is just loud enough for me to hear, but not anyone else in the room. “Can you think of a better way to make humans realize the gravity of the situation? They could care less if whales and polar bears and entire coral-reef habitats die out as a result of their disregard for the natural environment. But mermaids? Well, they might think twice about dumping pollution into our waters if they know we’re here.”

“Dumontia,” I say, shaking my head. This time she doesn’t show insult at my use of her name. “This is not the answer. This could be the worst mistake in our history.”

“Or it could be our finest moment.”

She doesn’t understand. I’ve lived with humans for years. I love a bunch of them, and I respect who and what they are. But I also know that things are never that easy. It wouldn’t be, “Oh, look, here we are, let’s have a party.” Between scientific study and governmental intervention, revealing ourselves to the human world at large would likely be a disaster.

Clearly Dumontia doesn’t see it that way. I wonder if the other kings and queens do.

“Does the rest of your coalition know about your ultimate plan?” I ask her. “Do they know you want to expose our existence, or did you bring them on board with the false promise of retribution and kicking humans out of our waters?”

I can read the answer on her face.

“I didn’t think so.” I swim closer still, so close only she can hear me. “You call off your plans, or I will expose you.”

“So what?” she says. “They might not know this is my plan, but most of them will not care. Their thirst for revenge and freedom is stronger than their desire to keep our secret.”

“You really believe that?” I ask. “I think you’re wrong.”

I think the other rulers of the Western Atlantic—and in the rest of the seven seas—would be horrified to learn that Dumontia’s ultimate goal is to reveal our existence to humans. I think they’d do anything to stop her. And that might be just the thing I need to get them on my side.

“Try it,” she dares me. “We shall see.”

Then, with a dismissive swirl, she turns and swims out of the room.

“I knew this wouldn’t work,” Tellin says, shrugging free of the guards holding him. “No one listens to reason anymore. Maybe my father has the right idea after all.”

“Don’t be so melodramatic,” Peri tells him.

“Besides,” I say, “now that we know her secret, we can use it against her. I think I know how to stop the sabotaging. And, if that works, then it will pave the way to inter-kingdom cooperation and help for your people.”

Tellin gives me a skeptical look.

“What plan is that?” Peri asks.

“You’ll have to wait and see,” I say with a smile. “Wait and see.”

Chapter 20

“Miss Molina?”

She looks up from her desk to where I’m standing in the door to her classroom. She smiles. “Yes, Lily?”

I walk to the brown plastic chair next to her desk and sit. “So I’ve been thinking about what you said, about wishing you had done something more to stop your friends who burned that boat.”

“Yes,” she says, her eyes sad. “I’ve been thinking about that since we talked, too.”

“Well, I was wondering,” I say, tugging at the hem of my skirt. “You knew they were doing something wrong, and now you know how badly things turned out, right?’

“Yes, exactly.”

After my visit to Glacialis and learning what Dumontia’s true purpose is in sabotaging human stuff, I thought I knew exactly what to do. I’d tell the other kings and queens what she was doing, and they would be just as outraged as I am.