The ocean above them was loud as a city. It hummed with life and rumor and hungry light. Little fish flared like neon advertisements then scattered into glitter. Kelp forests swayed as if they were breathing. Vordi slid through all of it like a black god, scales catching a stray bioluminescent glow and shredding it into sparks. When she moved, the water folded and bowed.
Kail slept on Aiden's back like she had not a care in the world. Her head was heavy against his shoulder, her hair a wet halo, one arm slack over his chest. She muttered nonsense—exam schedules, chocolate conspiracies—then snored and drooled, little warm patches darkening his cloak.
Lizz trailed beside them, fingers sparking tiny green motes, half spell, half attitude. She looked at Aiden and made a face you could hear: "Really? Drool?"
"She did not," Aiden said. Flat. Quiet. The way people say something when they mean more than the words.
"She did. Mint, coffee, and spit." Lizz laughed until it was a bubble that popped and a school of fish spelled LOL and then scattered. Vordi snorted; the sound vibrated the water like a low chuckle.
Kail's eyes flew open. "Wait, wait—did I drool?!" She clutched at his collar, sudden and frantic. "Tell me I didn't drool on you."
"Yes," Aiden answered, like stating the weather.
Kail went through ten emotions in the time it takes to blink: mortified, outraged, embarrassed, furious, joking. "You—oh my God. You monster. Why didn't you wake me up?!" She shoved his shoulder. Hard. Still clinging like a koala.
"You were asleep," he said with the patience of someone used to idiots.
"That is not an excuse, Mr Tall-as-a-Tower." She jabbed him again and word-played the nickname like a weapon.
Aiden's mouth softened just a sliver. Lizz made a point of spraying more light around her palms and laughed like a demon. Even Vordi made a long, satisfied rumble. The small domestic ridiculousness of it all softened the corners of the world for one ridiculous second.
"Fine," Kail said, folding her arms. "Next time I'm sleeping on Lizz. She can take my drool."
"You'll sink," Aiden replied.
"Excuse me?!" she snapped.
They cut through a coral maze that was half city, half nightmare. Pufferfish puffed up into balloons and blocked the path, an old turtle trudged by with two crabs screaming about shell taxes, and three mermaids stood at an intersection holding a wooden sign carved in bubbly script: MERMAID LANE, NO SURFBOARDS.
Kail blinked and smacked her lips. "You have traffic rules? Do you meter the currents?"
A crowned mermaid floated forward as if she were the coastline's mayor. "Tourists must pay a pearl," she intoned.
Kail's face went cartoon wide. "I don't have pearls. I have debt and an expired student ID. Do you… accept debit?"
Aiden pulled a tiny shell from his cloak and thumbed it to life, the shell catching light like an honest coin. He tossed it over like a bribe. The mermaid sniffed like a sommelier and nodded with that terrible mermaid severity.
"You may pass," she said. "Shoes off kelp lanes."
"Shoes?" Kail whispered. "We are discussing footwear under the sea. Drama."
She slipped. The current did this little jealous tug and tried to take her. Aiden's hand closed on her waist like iron. He didn't look; he simply took her weight. Their eyes caught, held, and everything else winked out—Lizz arguing fashion with a crab, the mermaid already back on duty. That one second felt like everything: a little sweet, a little wrong, and entirely electric.
He wiped a stray hair from her face with one short motion and tucked it behind her ear. The contact should have been nothing. For Kail it was a hole in her chest and a fire. She told herself it was water pressure. She told herself the reef light made him look like an idiot.
"You like her, don't you?" Lizz sang, smug and loud.
"I am not a wave," Aiden replied, deadpan.
"Keep telling yourself that," Lizz said, grinning like she had the whole future figured out.
When the palace rose from the deep it was more bone than beauty; ribs of black coral braided into spires of pearl, and statues of long-dead sailors stared hollow-eyed. The water tasted metallic and old. A voice came from the walls, deep as a gorge.
"Who wakes me?"
The Sea God floated out like an emperor come to check on his fields. Beard of seaweed, eyes that sucked light like whirlpools, trident that hummed with something like memory. A shark paced behind him like a guard dog.
Lizz went theatrical with a bow and a kiss to seaweed, an overdone jest to honor the mood. Aiden didn't bother. Kail pressed her nails into his shoulders, trying not to breathe wrong.
The God's gaze landed on Kail. He cocked his head, the smallest smile lifting like a tide. "Ah," he said. "This one."
Kail's voice cracked open. "This one? Me? I… great. Do I need a manager now? Where's my fee?"
"You know what he means," Aiden snapped, all teeth and not much humor.
The Sea God snorted. A spray wet Kail's hair. "Vampire brings a witch, a beast, and a human. Quite the circus."
"We are a small traveling troupe," Lizz corrected with offended dignity.
The God didn't argue. He slammed his trident and split the water into three mouths of light, glowing blue, storm grey, and a useless, ridiculous pink that made Kail squeal with private delight.
"The waters between will test you," he said, voice rolling like thunder. "Not with swords. With truth. With what you hide in the seams of yourselves. If you cannot look at it and not flinch, you will spin and be gone. Laugh, or be eaten."
Kail sneered. "Lovely. A couples' retreat with drowning and no free breakfast."
"If you pass, you will be spat somewhere on the human shore. If not… you may end up somewhere regrettable. Bournemouth, for example."
"Bournemouth," Lizz said like a curse. "A fate that ruins your colloquial soul."
Aiden's fingers closed on Kail's wrist like a clamp. "Stay by me. Don't let him pry you apart. Lizz keeps you breathing. Vordi keeps everything else in its place. I'll keep your lungs where they belong."
Kail's face warmed. "You sound like a travel blog. Trust the vampire, all-inclusive." She tried to joke and failed and liked it anyway. Her fingers curled into his cloak and refused to move.
Lizz blew a green bubble. It popped and spelled #TEAMVIBES when it burst. "I did this before," she said, voice settling into a serious ribbon for a second. "Once. Got a discount on sea pearls. Long story. Pirate ex, cursed pearl, bad dating choices."
Aiden's jaw tightened. There was everything caught there, some memory that snagged and bled.
The Sea God clapped—an enormous clap that made fish jump. "Begin."
They dove.
It was not just water that grabbed them. Currents fingered through them, picky hands pulling at loose threads. The whirlpool wanted names and moments. It wanted the soft stuff.
Kail felt it first—the library smell, the exact scrape of a chair, her father's laugh like an anchor. Then a too-sharp memory slid up, smoke in an alley, the way fear tasted in her mouth. She reached for Aiden and found his hand like a promise.
"Say it," he said. Not loud but a stone steadiness.
She breathed and spat out truth like a bad confession. "I am terrified. But I'm safe with you. And—this sounds awful—but I'm happy when I'm with you. Ridiculous, embarrassing happiness." She wanted to laugh at herself and the whirlpool did, answering with a bubble that popped into letters: TRUE.
Now the currents focused on Aiden. The water pushed like a teacher banging on a desk. Memories came up like drowned things: halls that smelled of polished wood and blood, servants' whispers, the small trembling hand of a child who trusted him once and then was taken from him.
He could have lied. He could have recited titles, old victories, the elegant mask of a vampire aristocrat. Instead he cracked open the safe of what was real. "I remember a face that rescued me," he said, and his voice broke just enough that it bruised. "Someone who kept telling me I was not filth. I remember wanting to keep that. I remember being less afraid." The words were not a poem. They were a small carved thing to carry in a pocket.
Gold bubbles wheeled around him and shimmered.
The tests got meaner. A current pitched them into a chorus line and demanded they sing, a cruel thing because Kail had the singing of a strangled gull and Aiden was used to silence. Dolphins fled in embarrassment. A wall of little fish popped out in judgment and mocked Aiden's haircut with the viciousness of an ex. A bubble shaped like a phone lit up with the message you up? 3 AM and Kail felt the blood burn all the way to her toes.
An eddy threw up their most stupid, raw memories and tried to use them as anchors. Kail yanked herself from a bubble labeled That Time You Texted Your Ex and turned three shades of regret. Lizz launched into a spell that looked like a tango and shoved the bubble away with the kind of magic reserved for bad dates.
Then the water made its teeth. A cluster of squids with sharp little beaks dove downward to nip at their ankles. Vordi uncoiled like a living whip, tail cracking. She smashed the squids into ink and bone. They inked the water around them and the bubbles turned darker. Vordi hissed in a way that felt like a warning shot for the whole sea. Aiden pressed himself closer to Kail and the world narrowed to the press of skin and the pounding of his blood as a counter drum.
"Good girl," Lizz breathed. There was ugly pride in it, like cheering on a loved one who'd eaten your enemies for you.
At one point the current tried to make them into jokes, to flatten their edges into something ridiculous. It threw them a dream of being human tourists: sunburn, bad souvenir T-shirts, a seagull stealing Kail's handbag. Kail laughed so hard she started to choke and Aiden had to pat her back under the water like it was the most domestic, absurd thing possible.
When the water finally stilled it left them bobbing in a black-blue pool that reflected each other's faces like cracked mirrors. His fingers did not leave hers.
"You were stubborn," Aiden said. That was a compliment, thigh-deep and rare.
Kail's throat made a small sound. "So what, I get a pearl? A certificate? A ridiculous postcard?"
"You get to keep breathing," Lizz said, voice flat with relief.
The Sea God's voice came from all over and nowhere. "The sea has a sense of humor. It will try to make you ridiculous between here and there. Remember who you are."
And then the whirlpool coughed them up like a toy and spat them through a tunnel of colored light. Foam fanned across their faces like a curtain. For a violent heartbeat they were a puppet on the sea's hand, pitched and twirled until aloha-lands and waves blurred into a smear.
They landed on a platform of foam the sea used as a waiting room. Kelp couches. Lanterns made of eels. It smelled of ozone and wet pages. Far on the horizon some seam in the sky pulsed like a bruise, and through it daylight poked, thin and hungry.
"That is Earth," Kail said, voice small and bright.
"Together," Aiden said.
"Together," she echoed, cheeks still flushed, bright-mouthed. "But fair warning: I swim like a dying chicken when I'm nervous. If you're thinking 'soft hands, slow kisses,' maybe don't. Expect splashing and clawing and possibly a minor water tantrum."
Aiden let a smile come, not much, but real. He pulled her into his arms, not only to steady but because his body wanted to close like a fist around something fragile. She leaned in like she belonged there.
Vordi curled around them like a guardian and tucked her head near Aiden's shoulder, cold scales humming like a machine. Lizz pretended she was bored and gave them a thumb's up that was all sarcasm and mothering, and the eel-lanterns glowed an odd, approving color.
The final whirlpool opened, huge and hungry, a laughing mouth that wanted to hurl them between worlds. The water shook like a living thing. It smelled of rain on hot asphalt and the old tobacco of books.
Aiden held Kail's hands like a vow. "If it gets bad, don't let go. Don't pull away. I'll see you on the other side."
Kail snorted. "If you die, I'm ordering you back. Refund policy on vampires—does that exist? Because I want my money's worth."
He didn't smile. He looked at her, a long, dangerous, gentle look. "I'll be there."
They stepped into the whirlpool together.
The water closed around them like an embrace that might be a choke. For a second there was nothing but the press of salt and the sound of their breaths. Memories smashed like glass. Laughter came and went. The sea tossed their bodies like a child tossing toys.
Then the world folded.
They were not on Orion, and they were not on Earth yet. They were between songs, between ribs, in the darked seam where the sea keeps its secrets.
Kail's fingers tightened around his. She tasted copper and the echo of library dust. "If we die here," she said, voice thin with a joke that wasn't all joking, "I will haunt your afterlife so hard you'll have to move continents."
He let out a sound that almost, almost was a laugh. "Fine. Move continents."
The water pulled them, and the universe ripped like paper.
....