Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 102166 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 511(@200wpm)___ 409(@250wpm)___ 341(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102166 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 511(@200wpm)___ 409(@250wpm)___ 341(@300wpm)
“Okay, okay,” Iris said with a small smile. “I will wear clothing. But why can’t I just wear this?”
“It hasn’t been washed.”
“Washed?”
“Laundered. In a machine that swooshes the clothes around with soap. Also, if you wear the same thing every day, they’ll start whispering. They’ll assume you’re unwell, that you’ve given up; they’ll crowdfund money to buy you a new wardrobe. And it’ll be full of beige. Beige!” Monty shuddered at the thought.
“Well, Triton forbid that,” she teased.
“That’s what I’m saying. Besides, darling, you are not just normal land folk now. You are going to be political royalty. There will be entire gossip columns and ‘hot or not’ social media posts about what you wear.”
Iris let out a sigh, already exhausted just at the thought.
“Let’s get going before I change my mind and run away to live as a rogue mermaid off the coast of Antarctica with the penguins.”
“I don’t know why you’re so grumpy,” Monty declared after they caught their ride into the city. “I mean, doesn’t this just give you many more opportunities to sabotage your engagement with Mr. Tall Dark and Press-Conference-Ready?”
She hadn’t considered that.
She thought that if Finn wasn’t completely turned off by being splashed with a huge cup of salt water, nothing she could do would get him to change his mind. But actually living with him would give her many unique opportunities to make him regret the day he agreed to the arrangement.
“You know what, you’re right,” Iris agreed. “It’s not over.”
It wouldn’t be over until she was free to choose her own future once again. Or, at the very least, to choose a compatible merman who would allow her to continue to live in her beloved ocean.
“This is it,” Maria, who seemed to be some sort of employee of her mother’s, declared as she parked outside of a towering white and gleaming glass building. “Your mother wanted me to give you this.” Maria passed a small bag between the seats. “And to advise you to use it wisely.”
Before Iris could even think to do so herself, Monty was unzipping the bag and letting out a whistle.
“What is it?” she asked, looking at all the green and white sheets of paper.
“Luxury, darling, that is pure luxury.”
He didn’t elaborate, just slung the bag across his chest, then opened his door to exit.
“Thanks, Maria,” Iris said before exiting.
Monty stood on the sidewalk, gaze angled up at the building.
“I suppose it will do,” he said. “I do hope he has the penthouse, though. I had my heart set on a penthouse.”
If the people passing on the street thought a talking pelican was an odd occurrence, they made no show of it, just brushing past them as if they weren’t even there. Except, of course, for a few men who stopped and stared.
“It’s positively nauseating, isn’t it?” another voice asked.
Turning, Iris saw a woman standing to her side. She was tall, almost statuesque, with rich, warm brown skin, and long deep green hair.
There was something … not quite human about her—an otherness in her posture, in the steady, grounded way she blinked.
“What?”
“All that glass and stone,” the woman declared, shivering. “Though, it doesn’t make me quite as woozy as all this concrete,” she said, rubbing the soles of her shoes against the sidewalk. “You’re a mermaid, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Iris said. She was pleased that even out of the water, surface people could still see her for what she was. It made her feel a little more herself in this big, strange new world. “Iris,” she introduced herself.
“Willow,” the woman introduced herself, then added, “dryad.”
“A dryad? In the city?”
Dryads were tree fae. They typically lived in dense forests where they were free to live both inside and outside of their trees.
Iris had only ever seen a handful of trees in her life, usually off in the distance when she surfaced near a seaside town. She had a hard time imagining an entire forest of them.
“I’ve always lived here,” Willow told her. “I was rooted right there.” She gestured to the space where Finn’s building now stood.
“Wait … did they … did they cut down your tree? To build … that?”
“They did.”
Iris’s stomach twisted. She could only imagine what it would feel like to have a bit of your soul bulldozed for someone else’s skyline.
“How are you still alive?” Monty piped up.
“Monty!” Iris scolded.
“It’s a valid question,” Willow said. “Just as they were cutting it down, a seed capsule flew loose. I found it, saved it, and planted it in the small courtyard in the back of the building. Do you need to get in the building?” she asked, shifting a netted bag full of fruits onto her shoulder.
“We’re moving in,” Monty declared, puffing out his chest. “With Finn Westrock.”
“Oh, Finn! He’s a nice guy,” Willow said.
A nice guy? Iris just barely resisted the urge to snort at that declaration. Maybe surface people and merfolk had different definitions of ‘nice.’