Hunter Lamp Array

When the eighth lamp lit up, Coral heard her own song crack.

It wasn't that her voice broke in her throat—it was that some invisible string deep inside her body had been cut. Her knees gave way and she pitched forward. Lu Wenchao caught her just in time, but the red light grazed his shoulder and back as well, and the two of them tumbled together into the culvert beneath the seawall.

The culvert was filled with waist-deep cold water, its surface slick with oil stains and broken shells. Coral choked on a mouthful, her throat so sore she couldn't speak. Lu Wenchao lifted her above the water, and his first words were still a command.

"Don't sing."

"I'm not singing," Coral said, pale-faced. "The lamp is singing. It sounds awful."

Above them, red light swept in through the gaps in the iron grate. Each time it passed, the Scale Marks on Coral's ankles faded a little more. She pressed her hand over them, but couldn't stop the feeling of being erased.

Lu Wenchao looked up to study the culvert's structure. It was an old drainage channel. At the far end was an iron grate, beyond which lay the intertidal zone. If they could pry open the grate, they could bypass the remaining lamp array and circle out from under the seawall.

He took out his silver hook and wedged it into the gap of the grate.

"Stand steady."

Coral leaned against the wall. "I feel like a piece of seaweed boiled soft."

"Then stick to the wall."

"Seaweed doesn't stick to walls."

"You're a particularly useless piece of seaweed."

She was in a lot of pain, but hearing that, she still wanted to argue back. "I'm useful. I can listen to the water."

The moment she said it, she really did hear something.

There was a mechanism sound from the bottom of the culvert. Not the sound of the tide—it was the sound of iron chains dragging through stone grooves. She jerked her head up. "There's something under our feet!"

It was too late for Lu Wenchao to retreat.

The chains at the bottom sprang up, coiled around his ankle, and dragged him violently into the depths. Lu Wenchao grabbed the iron grate with one hand and shoved Coral away with the other. Water exploded upward. His shoulder slammed into the stone wall, and he let out a muffled grunt.

"Lu Wenchao!"

"Don't come over!"

Coral, of course, did not listen.

She lunged forward, forcing her legs to transform back into a fish tail at the edge of the water. As the scales spread open, the red light shone down through the gaps, and the pain raked across her scales like a silver comb going against the grain. She bit her lip, but her tail struck the Lamp Mirror at the bottom of the water with all its might.

Once.

Twice.

On the third strike, the Lamp Mirror shattered.

The red light went out.

The chains lost their power. Lu Wenchao surfaced, coughing violently. Coral supported his chin and pushed him toward the shallows. His face was paler than usual, his forehead hair soaked, but his eyes were still fierce.

"Who told you to come over?"

"You were being dragged away by the water."

"I could handle it."

"You looked like a fish that can't swim."

Lu Wenchao coughed so hard he almost laughed in spite of himself.

The culvert was too narrow. They were too close. Coral's tail hadn't fully retracted yet, and her scales emitted a faint blue glow in the dark water. Lu Wenchao braced himself against the wall; she held his chin. The posture didn't look like ordinary rescue at all.

Coral suddenly remembered what Xiaoman had said.

"Is saving someone's life more intimate than courtship?"

Lu Wenchao nearly choked on water again. "Where did you learn that?"

"Xiaoman says that after a hero saves a beauty, they're supposed to kiss."

"She's talking nonsense."

"Then why won't you look at me?"

Lu Wenchao turned his face away, the tips of his ears flushing bright red in the dim light.

Coral reached out and touched them. He grabbed her hand.

"Don't touch."

"Another human rule?"

"My rule."

She looked at his hand holding hers. The wound on Lu Wenchao's palm hadn't closed yet; the blood had turned white from soaking in water. She remembered that before the eighth lamp lit up, he had smeared his blood on her ankle. She didn't understand human rules, but she understood one thing: some people say they won't help you, but their hands keep bleeding.

"You have so many rules," she said.

"If you think it's too many, then break fewer of them."

"But I haven't finished learning them yet."

Lu Wenchao was silent for a moment, then released her hand. "Learn once we're out."

The iron grate was finally pried open. When the two crawled out of the culvert, the intertidal zone was shrouded in fog. The lamp array was still flashing in the distance, but the red light of the eighth lamp had gone out. The tide had receded far away, revealing wet gleaming rocks and a stretch of silvery gray sand.

Coral had just relaxed when she froze.

A woman stood in the intertidal zone.

She wore a deep blue cloak, with a coral branch pinned in her hair, and her gaze was as cold as an ocean trench. The tide at her feet did not recede but circled her obediently, lap after lap, as if it recognized her.

Coral was stunned. "Aunt Lan."

Aunt Lan did not embrace her. She only looked at Lu Wenchao.

"You bring a hunter to our doorstep."

Coral quickly moved to block Lu Wenchao. She had just come out of the lamp array, her face still pale, her tail scales missing a patch of their luster, yet she still stood between them.

"He saved me."

"Hunters cast their nets first, then talk about saving lives," Aunt Lan said coldly. "Tidewater Bay does not permit your return."

Coral's smile slowly faded.

She looked toward the distant sea. Her home was there—her grandmother's Coral Lamp, the little fish who used to scold her for flicking her tail too wildly. But Aunt Lan stood at the doorstep, as if she had shut the entire ocean.

"I just want to go home," Coral said softly.

Aunt Lan's gaze flickered, but quickly hardened again. "Returning with the scent of a hunter will bring harm to our people."

Lu Wenchao tightened his grip on the silver hook. "She'll die."

"Death on land—that is brought by you hunters." Aunt Lan looked at him. "Ten years ago, your father said the same thing. He said he was just closing one door, that it wouldn't involve Tidewater Bay."

Lu Wenchao looked up. "You've met him?"

Aunt Lan didn't answer. She only dropped a black Shell Clasp from her sleeve. The Shell Clasp landed on the wet sand, a thin crack splitting open on it.

"If you want to know about Lu Qi, then don't let her go near the Sea Gate again."

The tide rolled over Aunt Lan's ankles. In the next instant, she vanished into the water.

Coral knelt on the sand and reached for the Shell Clasp. From its crack came a ticking sound, like a pocket watch.

Tick.

Tick.

The pocket watch on Lu Wenchao's chest chimed at the same time.

The two sounds, one deep and one shallow, traveled as if from far across the seabed—someone had finally answered the knock.