Pearl surfaced in the dive pond with a name on her tongue and no way to know if it was the right one. The sacred trials opened at the next tide. To enter, she had to petition one of the three sea deities by speaking their true name into the deep water. Speak the wrong name, and the deep would close to her forever. She rested her arms on the smooth stone rim and watched her reflection break apart. Her whole life she had waited for the trials. Winning a place among the immortals was the only future she wanted. She had trained in this pond since she could swim. She could hold her breath longer than any mermaid in the lagoon. None of that mattered if she picked wrong at the gate. Marina slid over the rim and dropped in beside her, green hair fanning across the water. "You've been down there three times already," Marina said. "The tide won't wait for you to guess." "I'm not guessing," Pearl said. She lifted the glowing pearl from the pouch at her hip. The core burned white in her palm. Her mother had left it for her before she vanished, and had told her once that it would answer any true question, but only one. Pearl had saved the question her whole life. "I'm going to ask." Marina caught her wrist. "That's your one. You're spending it on a name?" "I'm spending it on the trials." Pearl pulled her hand back. Coral broke the surface at the far end of the pond, out of breath, a diamond staff clutched against her chest. Hunters had chased her here two nights ago. Pearl and Marina had hidden the staff for her, hollow around a crystal that only glowed for the coral bloodline. Coral swam over and gripped the stone rim between them. "Do it now," Coral said. "The regent's hunters are working the reef road again. If they come back through the pond, none of us gets to the tide." Pearl held the pearl under the water and pressed it to her chest. She thought of the three names her tutors had made her memorize, the three deities who judged the trials. She asked which one would hear a mermaid with no house and no title. The pearl warmed against her ribs, then cooled. A single name settled in her mind, clear as a struck bell. Not the one she had expected. The smallest of the three. The one who took petitioners no other deity would. She spoke the name into the pond. The water below her went still, then sank, as if something on the far side had drawn a breath. A narrow blue channel opened at the bottom of the basin, where no channel had been before. The pearl in her hand went dark and stayed dark. Marina stared at it. Coral stared at the channel. Pearl let go of the rim and dove.