"What's that?" I asked.

"You'll have to go out the waterfall again. The two of you will have to perform one more task. You have a visit to make."

"What do you mean?" asked Aaron. "Who do we have to visit?"

Mr. Beeston met Aaron's dark eyes with his own and replied firmly, "Neptune."

I woke early and lay looking up at the ceiling, trying to get my head around everything that had happened yesterday - and what we had to do today.

Mr. Beeston had told us where to find Neptune, and what we had to say to get the guards to let us see him. All we had to do now was get there and persuade Neptune to set them all free. I wished I was as optimistic about the task as Mr. Beeston was.

I got out of bed, threw my clothes on, and wrote Mom a note. Then I hurried over to Aaron's. The pier and the beach were deserted. Luckily for me, not many people tend to go wandering around a seaside town at seven o'clock on a Monday morning. I still had that image from yesterday's paper in my head - and I'd convinced myself there'd be others around who did, too.

Aaron was coming out of his cottage when I got there. "Ready?" he asked, closing the door softly behind him.

"To face Neptune?" I asked with a shudder. "I'll never be ready for that!"

He laughed. "Come on, let's go."

We were waiting in some sort of grand holding room in an enormous underwater palace. It turned out that Mr. Beeston's influence and instructions were as impressive as he'd said they were.

I recognized the style from the last time I'd been in one of Neptune's palaces. He wasn't exactly what you'd call subtle in his decorating taste. Marble pillars with fancy golden spirals circling their bases marked the corners of the room. The most enormous chandelier you could imagine hung from the domed ceiling, swaying ever so slightly in the gentle current.

A smartly dressed merman swam up to us. "Neptune will see you now," he said solemnly. "Follow me."

Aaron took my hand, and we followed the merman through winding corridors and twisting tunnels. Eventually, we came to a large door. It was made of gla.s.s, and the frame was encrusted with jewels. Through the door I could see a very tall throne - and a very serious-looking Neptune sitting on it.

Memories of my previous run-ins with Neptune flooded my mind. Facing his anger in his own courtroom, having a curse put on me when I accidentally found his ring, almost being squeezed to death by his pet sea monster. "I don't know if I can do this," I whispered to Aaron.

"You have to," he whispered back. "Shona's depending on us. They all are."

Just the mention of Shona's name was enough to remind me of what we had to do. "You're right," I said. Taking a deep breath, I added, "Let's go talk to Neptune."

We waited in silence, watching Neptune's furrowed brow, his narrowed eyes, his tightly closed mouth. We'd told him everything. All we could do now was wait - and hope that he didn't throw us out on our gills.

"And this is Beeston's mother, you say?" Neptune trained his hard eyes on me.

I nodded. "Among others."

"Yes, yes."

"It was a long time ago, Your Majesty," Aaron said carefully. "A time when your laws and your world were very different."

Neptune glared at him. I took up from where Aaron had left off. "You've said yourself: it's a new world now. In fact, you ordered us to make it a new world. This could be part of that."

Neptune turned his cold stare on me. "And how do you presume to figure THAT one out?"

I gulped. "Well, I -" I began. And then my mind went blank. Being in front of Neptune in his own palace trying to ask him a favor while he's staring at you booming out doubts against everything you say kind of has that effect on you. On me, anyway.

"It would send a message," Aaron said.

Neptune swung back around to face him. "It WHAT?" he bellowed. I wished he could just talk like a normal person. Why did everything always have to be so, well, loud with him?

"You would be showing the mer world that Neptune really has let go of the old ways. That sirens luring fishermen to their deaths is a thing of the past. The message would be huge, especially with what's happening now at Shiprock."

Neptune wrinkled his forehead sternly. "What IS happening in Shiprock?" he asked. "My updates have been getting unacceptably unreliable lately."

"They're turning against humans more fiercely every day," I said. "They're feeling under threat because of the development in Brightport."

"And can you blame them?"

"Well, no, but perhaps if you let the sirens go, they could join us in trying to calm the situation down. Humans and merpeople working together, to show Shiprock that there's nothing to fear . . . somehow? Perhaps that could be a condition of their release."

Neptune rubbed his beard. "Hmm, OK, let's say I do that," he said quietly, talking to himself, thinking aloud. "Attach conditions. Yes, I like that. But on the other hand . . ." Then he nodded. "Right, that's it!" he barked. "I have decided what we will do."

I froze as I waited for him to continue. What was he going to say? Would I ever see Shona again? Had we made a ma.s.sive mistake coming here? Please help us. Please don't send us away with nothing.

"I shall undo the waterfall curse on the caves," he announced. "The sirens will be free to leave."

"And Shona?" I asked, hardly daring to hope.

Neptune waved my question away. "Yes, yes, of course, all of them - including Beeston and your friend."

Aaron caught my eye and gave me a thumbs-up. We'd done it! Shona was going to be free!

"I haven't finished!" Neptune boomed before I had the chance to get too serious about the idea of celebrating. "Here are my conditions."

We waited in silence.

"ONE: you are to redouble your efforts with the task you have been set. I gave you a mission, and I intended for you to take this mission to heart. Until now, I can see no serious progress. You are to make significant progress. And this progress is to begin with settling the situation with Brightport and Shiprock. I want it taken care of. You hear me?"

"Of course," I said. "We'll do everything we can to -"

"You will not do everything you can to make this happen - you will MAKE THIS HAPPEN!" Neptune bellowed. "Or else you will face my wrath!"

"Absolutely, Your Majesty. We will make it happen," I hastily agreed.

"TWO: the memory drug remains lifted in Brightport."

My hopes began to sink. The whole of Brightport was still on a mission to catch a mermaid. How could we keep on living there? We'd have to move. Or I'd have to get a plastic surgeon to give me a new face. I opened my mouth, about to ask Neptune to reconsider this condition. I couldn't imagine trying to convince Mom and Dad to start again in yet another new town. And if I was honest, I quite liked my face the way it was.

"Nonnegotiable!" Neptune said, reading my thoughts and cutting them down in one simple word. "How do you expect to bring together the human and the mer worlds if you wish the one to be in darkness about the other? How do you expect the people of Brightport to care about their neighboring town enough to stop destroying it if they don't even know it EXISTS?"

He did have a very good point.

"You will make this work," he said somberly.

I let out a sigh. "OK," I said eventually - not that we had any choice in the matter, so I don't know why he was waiting for us to agree each condition. Then I had a thought. "My grandparents," I said.

"What about them?"

"Well, if we agree about the memory drug staying lifted in Brightport, will you lift it from them too - permanently?"

Neptune's face reddened. "Do not PRESUME to barter with me!" he roared. "I, and only I, make conditions! Do you understand?"

"Yes, of course, Your Majesty," I said meekly. "I'm sorry."

Neptune thought for a moment. "If I do not know where your grandparents are, there is nothing I can do," he said. "But I will grant you this: if they come to Brightport, the rule will apply to them also. That is the best I can offer you."

"Thank you sir, thank you, Your Majesty," I gabbled.

Neptune raised his hand again. "There is one more condition," he said. "The most important of all."

This was it, then - the bit where he told us that I had to give up Aaron and Shona, never see either of them again, or leave Brightport forever, never to return, live out my days in a solitary, dark - "You must give up your power," he said. For the first time ever, he seemed uncomfortable, awkward, almost like a normal person.

"Our power?" Aaron asked. "You mean . . ." He took hold of my hand. Curling his fingers around mine, he held our hands up in front of us. "This?"

Neptune clutched his trident. "No one should have the ability to undermine my power," he said. "It is not right; it is not how things should be; it is not what I intended with that verse. But once it is done, the nature of the magic you have claimed means that I cannot undo it."

"You can't undo it?" I repeated. "How is it undone then?"

"You must relinquish it," he said starkly. "You must agree to give it back to me. On this, and this alone, I need your agreement." He held his trident over our hands. "You must willingly give it up. If you both agree to do this, the power can be returned to me." He held tightly on to his trident. "Do I have your agreement?"

I looked at Aaron. He didn't have to worry about his best friend being trapped in an underwater cave with a bunch of evil sirens. He might not want to give up such a cool power.

He didn't look back at me. Without blinking, Aaron tightened his grip on my hand. "We agree," he said firmly.

As soon as he'd spoken, I wanted to leap up and hug him. I wanted to throw my arms around him and - and - my face burned when I realized what I wanted to do, and for once I hoped he couldn't read my mind. I wanted to kiss him.

Before I had a chance to worry too much about what I wanted and whether he wanted it too, and whether it was ever going to happen, Neptune was speaking again. "Now, you must keep your side of the bargain. Do not forget the first condition. I will give you and your families one week to show me you are serious about your task. If I do not see evidence by then . . ."

He didn't even need to finish his sentence. I knew what it was like to be on the receiving end of Neptune's threats. He didn't make them lightly, and he didn't hold back in carrying them through.

"We'll do it, Your Majesty," I said. "We promise."

"Very well. As long as we understand each other," he said.

Oh yes, we certainly understood each other. The shiver that ran menacingly through my body, carrying with it memories of monsters and curses and storms unleashed by Neptune's temper, reminded me precisely how well I understood him.

"Now, hold your hands still," Neptune instructed us. We did what he said, and he held the trident over our outstretched hands.

"Power that should never have been set free, Now you shall return to me," he intoned.

A millisecond later, my hand burned and itched and tingled. Aaron gripped it harder and I held on to his hand as tightly as I could while flashes of power and light surged through me. It felt as though someone had shot a ma.s.sive bolt of electricity into me. The volts ran up my fingers, through my hands, along my arms, danced their way through my whole body - and stopped.

Nothing.

Neptune removed his trident. "It is done," he said. "Thank you. Now, we must return to the caves, and I shall complete my side of the bargain. Come, you shall travel with me."

And with that, we turned and followed him out of his grand chamber, out of the palace, and into the chariot that was waiting, with its gold-adorned dolphins, to take us back to the caves.

It took moments. Neptune held his trident over the waterfall and muttered something in a low rumble. Then, with a brief nod at us, he said, "It is done," and left.

As I watched him ride away, I let out a breath so big it was as though I'd been holding it since we were in his palace. Then, as the chariot became a dot in the distance, I turned toward the well, now still and calm - thanks to his side of the promise.

One by one, the sirens swam shakily up the well and out into the open depths of the ocean. Each one nodded a silent "thank you" to me. None of them actually came over to talk to me. Maybe they were too embarra.s.sed after the way they'd treated us.

Then Melody came out. She swam straight over to me. She took hold of my hands. "Emily, you have no idea what you have done for me today," she said, her voice husky, her eyes shining with tears. "I am in your debt - for always. If there's anything you need, come to me and I will help you. Remember that."

"I will," I said, twiddling a finger through my hair.

Melody touched my cheek with her finger. "I mean it," she said. "Anything. OK?"

I held her eyes for a moment. "OK," I said. "Thank you."

Melody laughed. "You have nothing to thank me for," she said. "Nothing at all. And I have everything to thank you for."

I nodded toward the other sirens. "What's going to happen to them?" I asked.

Melody smiled. "They'll go back to the lives they had, and hopefully in time, they will forgive me. They'll be fine," she said with another smile. "We all will."

A moment later, Shona's head appeared at the top of the well and I swam straight over to her.

"Emily!" She threw her arms around me. "You did it!" she breathed. "You got us out! It's over!"

"It is," I said, hugging her back. I didn't want her to see my face. If she did, she might see the worry on it, and realize it wasn't over at all. We had a week to come up with an incredible world-changing idea, or I would face the terror of Neptune's rage - again.

Mandy stared at us, wide-eyed and speechless, while we caught her up with everything on Monday evening over at her house. "Wow!" she said eventually.

"Wow? That's it?" I laughed.

Mandy shook her head. "What else can I say? It's amazing. You're heroes."

"Yeah, I guess," I said.

Aaron nudged me. "Hey, what's up? You should be happy."

"I know, it's just . . ."

"The task," Mandy said. "You've got a week to show Neptune you can really make a difference and figure this situation out."

"Exactly. We'll never manage to make a difference in that time. And you haven't seen what he's like when he's disobeyed," I said with a shudder. "I can't be on the receiving end of that again. I just can't!"

Aaron patted my arm. "Hey, we'll think of something," he said with a weak smile. He sounded as though he believed it about as much as I did. "Look, you got all the sirens out from that cave where -"

"We got them out," I reminded him.

"OK, we got them out. But what an amazing achievement, right? They'd been in there for years! You saw how grateful Melody was that we rescued her. Remember the look on her face the next time you need something to remind you how swishy you are!"