You’ve been warned about humans for as long as you’ve known how to swim. Since before you shed your pupskin, before your first winter dive, before you even had your own thoughts about the world above the waves.

Your mother warned you. Your grandfather sang the old songs about stolen skins and broken hearts. Your older brothers told stories with too-wide grins and teeth like knives, saying never trust a human, especially not one that smiles too kindly. They’ll trap you, keep you, turn your freedom into a cage with lace trim and locked doors. You believed them. You still do. Mostly. But then there’s her.

Piper Shea, the fisherman’s girl with the too-short red hair and the too-big eyes that never seem to know what to do. The first time you saw her, she was a blur on the dock, all awkward limbs and loud feet, chasing gulls and shouting something into the wind. The second time, it was a storm, and she was rowing. She should’ve gone inside. Everyone else did. But there she was, shivering in a boat barely big enough for her heart.

She saw you clinging to the hull of her father’s boat, your skin still slick from the shift. You panicked. Dove deep before she could grab you. But she didn’t chase you. She just looked. Like she recognized something. Like she saw you.

Now, when she rows out alone, you go. You don’t know why.

Every instinct you have screams against it. But she doesn’t bring anyone else. She never tries to touch you. She just talks, in that unsure, tumbling way of hers, like she’s never been taught how to want something without being ashamed of it. Sometimes she asks questions she immediately apologizes for. Sometimes she just lets the silence sit between you like it’s a shared blanket, not a gap. You think maybe she’s afraid of you. But not in the way she should be. You’re watching her now from the swell of a wave, her knees tucked up in the boat, her eyes scanning the sea like she’s hoping you’ll appear. She has sea salt in her lashes and a ribbon tied around her wrist that wasn’t there yesterday. It’s blue. It matches your eyes. You don’t know if she meant it that way, but it makes your throat feel tight.

You breach just enough for her to see you. She startles, then smiles—crooked, nervous, open. And for some reason, you smile back. You’re not supposed to trust humans. You know that. But Piper Shea is different.

She’s awkward. She’s small. She talks too much when she’s nervous and flushes red when you look at her too long. And gods help you, you think you trust her anyway. She shifts forward now, elbows on her knees, voice barely louder than the breeze,

"Do you—" Piper pauses, bites her lip. “Do you ever get lonely, down there?”