Viola sat for a moment on the bed, trying to make sense of her tangled thoughts and her displeasure at how completely yesterday had gone sideways without her even getting the chance to have a proper conversation with her husband. It was understandable that he had come back injured, but she hadn’t even gotten more time with him before he’d left again, and she couldn’t help but wonder how long things would continue this way, probably until Nick was dealt with and finally out of their lives.

Frankly speaking, Viola had no idea why Nick was so obsessed with her that he had gone to such extremes. From his diary, which Sebastian had told her about, it seemed Nick had held resentment toward him since childhood. He believed his cousin had been given everything in life and had never been grateful for it, so now he wanted Sebastian to experience losing everything he treasured… including his wife.

He was ruining their time together, but that didn’t mean she would let him ruin their lives. Once she got Yasmin freed and safely back to the sea, Viola thought, she would be able to focus properly on her own life and make sure Nick didn’t succeed, even if it meant using her mermaid powers to track him down and drag him out of hiding.

Viola got up and, as usual, began her morning routine, intending to find Sebastian later and, if remotely possible, sit him down for a proper conversation because they desperately needed to talk.

Carrying the news of her pregnancy alone wasn’t easy, and she wanted to see his reaction to finding out they were going to have a pup in winter. She also needed to tell him about the risk of the suppressant passing into the baby’s bloodstream.

It was far too important to keep to herself any longer, and the burden of it weighed on her just as heavily as everything else.

Viola was determined to follow Doctor Gilbert’s instructions and take care of both herself and their unborn child.

She was already overwhelmed by everything happening around her. More than anything, she longed for life to return to normal, for everything to simply be all right.

Viola was in the shower, deep in her thoughts with water falling over her head when Wave plopped out of the bathtub drain with a loud, “Waah!” that made her peek her head around the shower glass to look.

The moment she saw the creature, she signed in relief before her eyes narrowed at the black object he was dragging within his water.

“Mermaidia! I finally found your house! I couldn’t find it no matter how hard I tried!” the creature said in obvious relief, almost sounding as though he were about to cry.

Wave would have indeed cried if it wouldn’t have wasted the time he needed to deliver his news. He had emerged from more than fifty different drains before finally finding hers, and the worst part was that someone had flushed him down a toilet, leaving him to carry the humiliating waste of these werewolves inside his watery body.

It had taken him a long time to cleanse himself completely, and the memory of the ordeal alone was enough to make him want to cry all over again.

Viola grabbed a towel and wrapped it around herself as she stepped out of the shower. “What is that you have there?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at the creature who had abandoned her when they went to look for the mermaid in the tank. So much for a companion, who was supposed to protect her.

Wave spat the ruined device onto the bathroom floor as he said, “That is Nick! I caught the monster in that beautiful she-wolf’s room. Put it to your ears, Mermaidia, and he will speak to you. Though I had to crush him a little to fit through the drains, I hope he is not dead. He even went down the wolves’ smelly waste. Take a look at him and see if he survived.” The creature nudged the ruined, now unrecognizable device toward her.

Viola stared at it.

Did he just say that thing had gone down the wolves’ waste? She grimaced at the thought.

She wouldn’t have even known it was a phone if it hadn’t been for the familiar, crushed phone case she recognized as Zoe’s.

“Wave, that’s a phone… and it’s Zoe’s too. How did you end up in her apartment?” Viola asked, picking up the destroyed device and turning it over in her hand.

“I don’t know what that is, Mermaidia. I just know the monster is inside it. Is he dead then?” he asked, peeking curiously at the thing.

Viola knew there was no way to explain a phone to a creature of the sea, and rather than even attempt it, she asked, “You heard her talking to Nick?”

He bobbed his head.

“About what?” she asked, and Wave suddenly looked thoughtful, as though he were trying to remember exactly what he had heard.

“I don’t remember the details because I’m still healing from the sea witch, but he told her you are the reason for his banishment. He wants to poison her heart, and the she-wolf is dense because she didn’t suspect him.”

Viola stared at Wave as he recounted everything he could remember, then let out a sigh, realizing she would have to tell Zoe about Nick’s manipulative ways and what he had done, which he was now trying to twist against her. She couldn’t afford to have Zoe believe she had ruined their family.

“Zoe isn’t dense. She’s just too kind and trusting of people. Let me finish my shower, and then we’ll find her. Goodness, this thing stinks.” She dropped the phone back onto the floor and got to her feet, grimacing.

“I told you it went down the smelly place. Won’t you talk to Nick?” Wave asked, regarding her with a frown on his watery face. He had gone through all the trouble of bringing her Nick, and she had simply discarded him without even trying to call him forth. Yes, he knew the monster smelled, but that didn’t matter when she could deal with him.

“That’s not Nick, Wave. That’s a phone. You use it to contact people through it… like a talking magic portal,” she added as an example, and watched understanding dawn on his face, as he had once told her how mermaids communicate with each other in the seas.

“Oh, like how we communicate through the water-energy currents in the sea,” he said thoughtfully.

Viola, who had stepped back into the shower, hummed in agreement.

“Wave, you said the sea witch hurt you. Why is she always after me? Not just me, I realized my sister is hiding from her too. What does she want from us?” Viola asked, unable to get past the fact that a creature she had never even seen before had become so obsessed with reaching her. From the way things looked, it seemed she wanted Viola even more than Ivy.

“Don’t know. I wasn’t created when the sea witch first started wanting you, Mermaidia, but she is very scary, along with her Tidekin. I fight her Tidekin everyday, the one who makes portals between land and sea for her. She—”

Wave suddenly cut himself off as he remembered the real reason he had been looking for her before stumbling into Zoe’s apartment and getting distracted.

“Oh! Oh, Mermaidia! Your sister’s Tidekin sent you a message and told me to tell you urgently, but I couldn’t get here urgently because I ended up in—”

“My sister?” Viola’s eyes widened at those words, momentarily forgetting everything else. She turned off the shower and peeked her head back around the glass. “You met her?”

“Not her. Her Tidekin. I can’t meet her because I have—”

“What did it say? Oh, Wave, you talk too much sometimes, and I can’t listen to everything you say. Tell me what the Tidekin told you first before anything else.”

“It told me to send you this message,” Wave said.

Viola looked at the creature expectantly, waiting for the message, but he simply stared back at her with a smile, saying nothing.

“Wave, where is the message?” she asked impatiently, growing more anxious by the second.

The creature blinked, then snapped out of his smile.

“Oh! I forgot to make it sound out for you.” Saying that, Wave lifted his watery hand and extended it toward her.

“Bring your hand forward, Mermaidia.”