Coral Waverly combed the reef for the third day, hunting a name she had never asked for. Three sunrises back she had pulled a drowning sailor from a splintered hull and hauled him to a strip of pale sand. He had opened his eyes once, said something she could not hear over the surf, and gone still-breathing. Coral had wanted to stay. A patrol of gulls and boots came down the beach, and she slid back into the water before they saw her tail. Now she wanted legs. She wanted to walk up whatever dock he called home and say hello. But the coast ran for hundreds of miles, and she did not even know what to shout. Her red hair drifted around her shoulders as she circled the broken ship again. Its timbers leaned in the sand, cargo spilling from a split in the hull: coins, bottles, a dented cup. She had searched it twice for a logbook. The pages had turned to pulp in her hands. "Coral, up here." Her best friend clung to the mast, six legs braced, claws full of colorful beads he refused to drop. Chabastion Tidecaller was not from her ocean or any ocean she knew; he had washed in on a green tide two winters ago and stayed. His shell was blue and pink and always a little too cheerful for the moment. "You are going to wear a groove in the reef." "I need a name," Coral said. "One name." Chabastion's antennae twitched. He looked away. "About that—" An indigo arm shot out of the hull's shadow and wrapped his middle. A second arm took his claw. The octopus poured itself over the deck, speckles glittering, eye fixed on the beads. Chabastion squealed. Coral dove. She pried one arm loose, then another. The octopus squeezed harder. She pressed her thumb to the soft spot between its eyes the way her mother had taught her, and it let go all at once and jetted off into the blue. Chabastion sagged against the mast, counting his legs. "Six. Good. Six." "You were going to tell me something." He would not meet her eyes. "I know who he is." Coral went still. "The sailor." "His name is on a crate in the hold. I saw it the first day. I did not tell you because—" He waved a claw at the open water. "Because once you know, you go. And then what happens to me?" "You come with me." Chabastion blinked. His antennae lifted. "Oh." "Say the name." He said it. Coral repeated it twice, tasting the shape. It was a small, ordinary word, and it changed the size of the ocean. She took Chabastion's claw and pulled him off the mast. "Which way to the harbor town?" He pointed north with two arms at once. Coral turned her tail and swam.

Coral swam north for an hour before the water changed. The reef fell away. The sand turned gray with silt from the harbor town somewhere ahead. Fishing lines drifted down like pale weeds. Chabastion Tidecaller paddled beside her, six legs churning, the beads still bunched in one claw. "Slow down," he said. "You are swimming like the name is going to expire." "It might," Coral said, and kicked harder. The net took her before she saw it. One moment she was moving. The next, a wall of knotted rope dragged sideways across her tail and cinched tight. She spun. The net twisted with her and pulled worse. A float bobbed somewhere above, tugging the whole thing toward the surface. "Hold still." Chabastion caught up, dropped his beads, and grabbed a rope with both claws. "Hold still, hold still." "It is cutting." Coral felt the mesh bite the thin skin at the edge of her fin. If she thrashed, the fin would tear. She had seen it happen to an older cousin. He had never swum straight again. "Do not pull," Chabastion said. His antennae shook. "Please. I can cut it." "With what?" He looked at his claws. Then he looked back the way they had come. "The wreck. The cup in the wreck had a broken edge. I saw it this morning." "There is no time." The float above her jerked. Somewhere a line was being hauled in. Chabastion climbed onto her back and set one claw against a single strand where it crossed her scales. He squeezed. The rope frayed. He moved to the next strand. His claw was slow, but it was sharp enough. The float jerked again. Coral rose a foot. Then another. She kept her tail still and let him work. One strand. Two. Four. The net loosened around her fin but held her waist. "Keep going," she said. "I am." A shadow crossed above. A hull. Voices carried through the water, blunt and quick. The net rose faster. Chabastion clung to her shoulder and cut. She saw the underside of a small boat, the dip of an oar, a pair of boots braced on the rail. The last strand snapped at her waist. Her tail came free. But the net around her arms did not. It pulled her up through the last of the water and into open air. She hit the bottom of the boat on her side. The sailor above her froze with the net rope still in his hands. His face was the face from the beach three days ago. He knew hers too. She watched him recognize her. He looked once at the shore, once at the water, and threw a tarp over her. "Stay down," he whispered. Then he began to row. Beneath the boat, Chabastion clung to the rudder and held on.