The Twice Lost Read Online Free

there, waltzing with a girl whose hair spread out into a kind of floating globe of pink lace, singing a song about the ghosts of lost sailors. The dancers seemed to have their own internal light, but everything else was dark. They weren’t actually on a lawn, though; like her they were suspended in some uncertain middle depth, a half-place inhabited by dreams.
    Suddenly the pink-haired girl was no more than a yard away, staring at Luce over her shoulder. She wore a complicated dress of pale lace that frothed up her neck. Dorian had lied, Luce thought, when he’d said Zoe wasn’t especially beautiful. She was snow-colored, glinting, splendid, but also hard to see clearly . . .
    Dreamily Luce reminded herself to hate Zoe. But it seemed like too much trouble.
    “Luce?” Zoe said. “Isn’t there something you’re supposed to be doing? Something important?”
    Probably,
Luce thought. She couldn’t speak.
    “Then why are you drowning?”
    That’s a good question,
Luce thought. She didn’t have an answer. Certainly she was very deep under water now. Too deep, even for a mermaid. But her body didn’t seem to be interested in swimming anymore.
    Zoe turned to go back to her dancing, and Dorian reached for her with an exaggeratedly formal grace. Then, with no warning, Zoe swung back around and punched Luce hard in the gut, driving her fist up and in so that Luce gagged and doubled. The fist kept plowing into her stomach, forcing her rapidly up through the water . . .
    Luce opened her eyes wide—when had they closed?—and found that her body was draped over something crimson, slick, and fleshy. Whatever it was, it was shooting upward through gray-black water. It was carrying her toward the surface, but apparently not because it wanted to. It began to shake and thrash, and Luce tumbled into watery space. Her body was so cramped and weak that she could barely control her movements anymore, but she could still look around at the flashing swarm of animals on all sides.
    There were dozens of them. Hundreds. Rocketing shapes, dark in the distance but blood-red where they came close to her, all propelling themselves toward the air Luce needed so desperately. Winglike triangles flapped at one end of each tubular crimson body while at the other end tentacles looped and pulsed. Squids, Luce realized, though some of them were almost as big as she was. A huge one was hurtling toward her, and Luce instinctively threw her arms around it and held on. It was speeding upward so quickly that by the time it managed to shake her free the terrible weight of the water was lessening noticeably. Luce began to feel a slight tremor of hope.
    Did she
want
to live, then? The questioned ached inside her, and Luce ignored it, flinging her body a few yards to one side to grab for the next squid. She could barely swim, and she knew she didn’t have enough air left in her lungs to form even one whispering note, much less to sing the powerful song that controlled the water. But if she could ride enough of the squids toward the surface, she might still be saved from drowning.
    The squid turned on her. In an instant Luce was caught in a kind of living net made of two long tentacles that bound her back and shoulders, squeezing her like sticky, raspy fronds. Its shorter arms pawed her, exploring her skin as if it couldn’t quite make out what she was. But even as it grappled with her, the squid was heading toward the surface. Luce tensed against her own urge to fight as the tentacles dragged her closer to the thing’s thick body, as a kind of pale fleshy tube approached her face. In the center of that tube, Luce realized, there was a hooked black beak like a parrot’s, and it was opening.
    Luce gritted her teeth, twisting her face as far away from it as she could. A bite wouldn’t kill her. Drowning would. As long as the pressure of the water kept getting lighter, it would be stupid to fight back. The black beak came at her cheek, and Luce fought down