Whilst the palace continued to act as a maze, my friends' rooms were thankfully near to my own, and easier to find.

The angels in question were still convalescing outside, chatting away in the corridor. Kirsten and Iggy were in deep conversation, heads together, hands gesturing. Val stood at Morwena's hip; Morwena, who I hadn't seen for days. Val spotted us and waved brightly, Morwena gave an austere nod. Sakura and Scarlett were also huddled together, and I could see Arianna hovering between the groups, uncertain. At our arrival, she seemed relieved.

'There you are!' she said, starting towards us. 'We were wondering what had happened to you two.'

She reached out a hand, and I clasped it, smiling. 'I had an idea after dinner to talk to Niamh.'

Arianna's hair had grown longer. Her hair, a darker and straighter red than Val's, was plaited and hanging loose over her shoulder. At the mention of the mermaid, Arianna's hands leaped to her braid and began fiddling with it.

'Niamh? What did you say? What did she say?' her green eyes darted from Fabian and back.

Morwena coughed. 'Shall we sit in my room?'

'I'll stand guard,' Sakura offered.

'Don't be ridiculous,' Scarlett said, 'Please, come sit with us.'

My sister shot me a look of exasperation from behind Sakura's back. I tried not to smile; I had never seen Scar look quite so bemused.

'I really need your opinion, Sakura,' I said, nodding in agreement, 'Scarlett's right. We need you inside.'

Grudgingly, Sakura followed Fabian and me into the room. She insisted on following us, and shutting the door with a suspicious snap after we'd all entered.

'So,' Morwena said, taking a seat upon her sofa. Her room was smaller than mine and with even fewer seats. Everyone else in the room shuffled awkwardly, not wanting to take the other half of the sofa nor the remaining chair.

'Well, I'll sit on the bed,' Scarlett offered. Further back, a single bed with blue sheets was another potential perch. Besides it, a small magic lamp contained three bubbles of light, lazily bouncing around inside the glass.

'I'll take the chair then,' Kirsten said.

Iggy snorted, 'Of course you would.'

The brown-haired girl shot him a filthy look as she sat, legs crossed, on the dainty wooden stool beside the sofa.

'If no one's going to sit next to me, I'll stretch my legs out,' Morwena said.

'I'll stand,' Fabian offered kindly, and Iggy nodded.

Eventually, Arianna sat. Morwena's icy stare against the side of her face was the only indication the older woman still wished to stretch out. Sakura took to pacing the room and Scarlett watched her, shaking her head occasionally.

Valkyrie remained glued at my side. 'So? What happened with Niamh?'

I recounted my idea about finding a shaman to transform us, and then Fabian's suggestion about my stealing Iggy's shapeshifting power. Then, I told them of my conversation with Niamh and exactly what she said. Finally, I ended with our choosing a time to meet.

Morwena nodded. 'She doesn't sound overly awed by her mother as Nautia is. That's good.'

'Do you think we can trust her?' Scarlett said, folding her arms and chewing her upper lip. Sakura stopped pacing to look at her, concerned.

'What choice do we have?' Morwena sighed. 'Mer are not book people. Water is not kind to the written word. As such, there is no such thing as a "map" in Mer. The only way you'll find that trench is by following one going there.'

'And by finding a way to travel underwater,' I reminded them.

Iggy, from where he'd decided to take a seat by Scarlett, spoke up. 'I thought you wanted to use my power?'

'But only I will be able to go,' I replied, glancing around at them all.

'But only you need to meet with the shamans,' Iggy continued, 'The rest of us can leave here without Sirena caring.'

'How?' I asked, glancing around at the room. None of my friends were stashing any gills anywhere. Niamh wouldn't approve.

'I keep forgetting you were unconscious when they brought us down here,' Iggy said, waving a hand as though my fall to my death and subsequent burning had been a mere setback. 'They brought us here in this brilliant machine.'

Machine? A machine that swims underwater?

'Then it does make sense for the Princess to go alone, but let's not forget that we can't let any harm befall her, either,' Morwena said sternly towards the red-haired boy who had taken a seat on the floor by Kirsten's side. 'We don't know what's out there.'

Sakura nodded, envigored by Morwena's concern. She had found a natural ally in wanting to coddle me.

'Can't be worse than what's up there,' muttered Kirsten. 'And she did survive falling from the sky.'

Morwena turned her head towards the girl. 'Aye, Lumina survived as an angel where she belongs: on land. The water is never our ally, so we must be careful. The Phoenix cannot save her here, and neither can her wings.'

She gave a small nod towards my back, where, only a few weeks ago, my wings had burst through. Although excruciatingly painful at the time, they saved my life when I was made to jump off the tower. Now, they were neatly tucked down, hiding their span that was as big as Fabian's silver wings.

'What's the Phoenix?' I asked, shuffling from the scrutiny.

Only Morwena answered. 'It's from the Book of Nascence. I believe that there are only a few copies in Angelica; it's the history of our people.'

I wanted to ask more: what was the history of the Angels? It wasn't something I had been told, and judging from lack of recollection, the Lady had never known either.

But Kirsten had other ideas, as usual. 'The Mer people can't harm us! Fabian is the Queen's son.'

'That didn't stop Reia ordering her father's death,' I said quietly. The sentence left the room in silence. Morwena appeared unsurprised, and Val just looked sad. Fabian reached for my arm.

'Oh...' Kirsten said.
Nobody asked the unspoken. Was it true? Did you kill the King?

Of course I killed the King. Reia had asked it of me. Before her deception, I would have done anything for her.

My heart still ached for the loss of my dearest friend, and what hurt more was that she had tried to kill me at the same time.

A memory tugged at me; a whisper of a conversation.

'You spared his life?' Freya asked, rushing into the consulting hall. The prisoner was still being dragged out by his arms, cackling.
'Yes,' I replied, sighing in my seat. My temples throbbed, and I was dearly sick of listening to petty thieves' petitions today. So much for a quiet afternoon, as my parents had promised. Their anniversary out of town meant that my days were filled with duties and leadership. The bones in my bottom hurt from sitting on the large throne of the Opal Kingdom.
'But he was a criminal!' Freya cried. 'He raped that woman! He deserves no less than the death penalty.'
I groaned. 'I don't know what to do, Freya. What could I do, condemn him? If I say that...they will actually kill him!'
There was a glint in Freya's eye, and a grin split her face. 'Good. So they should.'
I gaped at her. 'You think I should have ordered him killed?'
'No,' said Freya, her fists balling, 'I would have ordered that the woman he raped decide his punishment. And then I would have him killed.'
My hands flew to my mouth in horror. 'Freya! That's macabre!'
My blonde haired friend gave me an unusually serious stare. 'Ruling is macabre. I would have set an example for anyone who thought to do the same.'
I sighed again, feeling weary and suspiciously in the wrong. 'I don't have that bloodlust.'
'It's not bloodlust,' she replied, staring out at where the prisoner had been sitting. 'It's making the hard decisions that nobody else can. It's the burden of protecting the city. It's being the one that will bloody their hands in order for those around them to be free.'
I sighed again.
'I think you'd make a better ruler than me.'

My own words: Reia would make a better ruler than me. Her ability to kill her own father wasn't malice, but her own volition to do the things other people couldn't. The King had been a tyrannous ruler.
And she'd decided to have him removed.
In a twist of irony, she'd completed two objectives in one: murder of a corrupt and terrible ruler, and two: discredit and sentence her opposing ruler to death.

Even now, the cleverness baffled me. Shame that she'd chosen her supposed best friend to act it out with.

'Therefore,' I continued, my voice low, 'we take the machine. I'll need help, Kirsten. We'll need your pheromones.'

The girl blinked and nodded, taken aback by my direct order. I didn't care.

The group took to discussing plans: who was going to go with Kirsten, how they would deal with the guards. I was to meet Niamh and explain that whilst yes, I could swim with her using Iggy's power, I would be followed by the underwater machine. Fins crossed that she didn't object to the entourage.

By the time we had finished, everyone was yawning and curling up where they sat. Scarlett was snoring gently on the bed, and I watched as Sakura tucked a strand of hair behind her ear with a caress. Kirsten gave me a tentative smile, and passed Fabian without saying a word.

Huh, I thought. That's odd. Where's the flirting?  Did something happen?

Iggy, saying a bleary good night, followed her.

Valkyrie shuffled over, rubbing her eyes in an childish manner. Wrapping her arms around my waist didn't have quite the same effect now that she was taller than me and twice as busty. Her power didn't touch me; Morwena beamed at her control over what had previously been a death sentence.

I ruffled her red haired curls, and the girl chuckled. 'Kaelan used to do that,' she said wistfully. 'Why isn't he here? Mama won't tell me.'

She addressed this to Fabian, who also gave her hair a gentle stroke.

'He chose to stay with the other Exchangers,' Fabian said, 'He helped Lav, Arl, Kitty, the twins...the aftermath of Lumina's imprisonment meant that security was tightened. They had to remain as a troupe to avoid suspicion.'

Val nodded, but I saw the way her head dropped. Morwena rolled her eyes, shaking her head at me as if to say: I trusted you not to let her age prematurely, or talk to boys.

'Are we not good enough?' I teased, giving her a nudge. 'Is jumping from a tower too easy for you, being in unknown territory not as cool as Kaelan?'

The girl blushed furiously.

'Maybe you'll meet a hot merman--' Fabian began, before Morwena threw a pillow at his head.

We made our exit quickly after.

Along the corridor, Fabian bid me good night. He hovered on the doorstep. I stared up at him, wanting to ask what his expression was, what it meant that he was chewing his lip. He rocked slightly, as if undecided, and then clamped his mouth shut.

'I--' I began. Fabian started speaking at the same time.

'Good night, Lu,' he murmured, 'I'll see you in the morning.'

He turned to leave, but my arm clasped his before I could stop it. Impulses were not something I was used to, and when he turned to give me a quizzical look, I had no answer.

Damn it, Lumina. Stop being a fool.
'Good night,' I squeaked. Internally I slapped myself.

A brief smile came across his face. 'Good night again, my Queen. Unless you don't want to let me go?'

I will not have limb spasms this time, I vowed.

Instead, I said something entirely worse.
'Why would I ever want to let you go, my King?'

I saw his blush before I slammed the door, heart hammering. What on Angelica possessed me to say such a thing?

He would take it as a joke. Right?

I lay awake for what seemed like hours, tossing and turning. Fabian burst through my thoughts constantly, and mixed into it was Kirsten, breezing past him, and Sakura, who alternated between a protective wolf and brushing Scarlett's hair behind her ear. Some of my thoughts became light dreams, dreams where I chased after a child called Freya, before finding the old King, dead at my feet, and the child crying. After I woke from that nightmare, I realised what had been haunting me.

Freya could have asked me to abdicate, and I would have done so gladly. But instead, she'd thrown to me a challenge that I would rise above.

For although she made the decision about her father, it was I who usurped the King. The blood was now on my hands, and nothing would take it away. In proving my upmost loyalty to helping my friend by slaying her father, I had unwittingly taken up the role I should have over eighteen years ago: a Queen.

---
A/N: what do you think of their new plans? Next chapter: Lumina's nerdy machine love returns and we finally embark into the sea...

Are you excited for a swim?!
Plus, what did you think of Kirsten in this chapter?

Lots of love
Larissa

Xxx