“It’s a disaster, that’s what it is,” Beka said gloomily. She didn’t even move away when he slid closer and put one comforting arm around her. “I’m right back where I started, with nothing to show for it. Your father and Queen Boudicca are going to think I’m the most incompetent Baba Yaga in the history of Baba Yagas. Gah.”
“Surely not,” Kesh said in his best imitation of kindness. “I doubt that even the old Baba could have solved this problem.” He shuddered a little at the thought of the former Baba. He was not afraid of much on sea or on land, but that one . . . she made his spine twitch. “It is merely one of the mysteries of the wide world, destined to remain unsolved. The Selkies and Merpeople will adjust to their new homes. The weak will die, as they always have. No one will blame you.”
Now she shifted, backing off to stare at him in amazement. “I will blame me,” she said. “And it doesn’t matter, because I’m not giving up.”
It was Kesh’s turn to stare. “Surely you are not serious. You told me yourself that all your hard-won bits and pieces are gone, swallowed up in a fire. And there is no guarantee they would have shown you anything even if they had not been. You have no clues, no answers. Your helper has returned to his rightful place in the sea. It is time to accept the inevitable and move on to other things.” He put one hand on her knee to suggest what those things might be.
Frustratingly, she ignored him as if he had not spoken. Kesh was not accustomed to being ignored.
Beneath his calm exterior, his temper boiled like lava, although nothing showed on the surface except his usual boyish charm. If the twinkle in his deep eyes suddenly hinted at sparks as hot as the blaze he had started in the laboratory, Beka seemed not to notice.
“I’ve been thinking about this ever since I got the phone call from Bran,” she said, animation returning to her tone as she spilled her plans out as if they were pearls instead of the foolish schemes of an inexperienced girl who had no idea what she was up against.
“I’m going to dive and get some more samples, but this time, instead of just sending them to a lab, I’m going to do some magical experiments on them as well. Maybe I’ll be able to determine something that way. Just because I couldn’t get a handle on the problem underwater, where working magic is more difficult, doesn’t mean I won’t be able to sense something pertinent once I’m in the school bus, with all my tools.”
“How clever,” Kesh said through gritted teeth. “But how will you dive without your Merman assistant?” He tilted his sleek head, the picture of regretful disappointment. “I would take you out myself, but of course, I have no boat sufficient for such a task.”
“Oh, that’s no problem,” Beka said. A slight breeze off the water picked her hair up, making it float around her shoulders in silky waves. “Marcus said he’d help me.”
The copper goblet Kesh was holding made a slight crunching noise, covered up by the sound of the breakers hitting the beach. He set it down out of sight, lest Beka spot the finger-shaped indentations now marring its classic lines. “Oh?” he said, not quite growling. “I thought the two of you did not get along.”
Beka shrugged, taking a sip from her own goblet and nibbling on a bit of salmon, her usual healthy appetite obviously returning as she cheered up. “I’ll admit, when I first met him, I thought he was a jerk. I would gladly have run him down with my Karmann Ghia, if I hadn’t thought it would dent the poor baby. But it turns out he’s got hidden depths.”
Kesh snorted. The only hidden depths he was interested in were the ones where he could conceal his unexpected rival’s dead and mangled body.
“No, really,” Beka said, blissfully ignorant of the sudden homicidal turn of her companion’s thoughts. “He’s taking care of his sick father even though he can’t stand the man; you’ve got to give him credit for that. He spent twelve years in the Marines, and Chico, that’s the sailor who’s been with his dad for years, told me that Marcus has all kinds of medals stowed away in his gear that he never tells anyone about.”
“Medals, foolish Human tokens,” Kesh muttered under his breath. “Let him kill a whale with only a spear and his bare hands, and then tell me of shiny medals.” His sharp teeth pulled a raw clam from its shell, tearing it into shreds that he swallowed to wash the bitter taste out of his mouth. This was not going as he had planned.
“And he took this boy with cancer out on the boat for the day. I couldn’t believe how patient Marcus was with him.”