Chapter 557: The darkness underneath the sea_Part 2

Ivy was handed the liquid meant to let Sebastian breathe underwater, should he come down to Aquaville, and she thanked her aunt before swimming back out of the cave, glancing around for her cousin, hoping to apologize, but Yasmin was nowhere in sight. Ivy decided it would have to wait until tomorrow, when she came back down again.

She called her Tidekin and opened a portal through the thick ice covering the surface, breaking through it with ease. When she emerged, she found Alex sitting beside the frozen water, keeping a section of the ice broken open to make a passage for her, though she hadn’t come through there.

She’d been gone since the previous night, right through to morning, and hadn’t expected him to still be waiting for her, especially after spending hours trying to keep part of the ice from freezing over.

"You’re still here, Alexander?" Ivy asked as she crawled out of the water onto the ice, shivering from the cold. She frowned up at him, stunned that he’d been sitting out in the cold for hours.

Alex glanced over his shoulder at her, noticing that she’d emerged from another section of the ice, before getting to his feet. "Yes. I brought you here, so it’s only right that I wait and take you back. Hold on a moment," he said.

Noticing how intensely she was shivering, he walked over to his car, where he’d left the heater running, and retrieved a blanket and her boots. He returned to her and draped the blanket over her shoulders, which she immediately pulled tighter around herself.

"You didn’t have to wait. What if I’d gone back through a bathtub instead?" Ivy asked as Alex helped her to her feet and knelt to help her put on her boots.

As much as she had helped cure half his corruption, Ivy hadn’t done it so the man would always be waiting on her beck and call, eager to help her with everything. It made her uncomfortable in a way she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

Her brother-in-law was always at her beck and call, and the moment he noticed even the slightest discomfort in her, he would be there to ease it. She didn’t know what to make of his behavior, but she was certain it had nothing to do with romance or matters of the heart. At least, she didn’t think it did. The mermaid had been born with a heart guarded against love, though she had no idea why, and she didn’t like finding herself in situations that made her feel this way.

Alex replied as he worked on helping her with her boots.

"You told me on the way here that you don’t have reliable access to a bathtub anywhere in High Tower, so I figured you’d come out this way instead."

"Oh, I’d forgotten I mentioned that. But next time, I hope you won’t stay out in the cold waiting for me," she told him, slipping her feet into the warm boots.

"I don’t mind waiting. And in some ways, we’re both helping our siblings, don’t you think?" Alex mused, speaking as naturally as though whatever Sebastian chose to do with his life didn’t bother him at all. "My brother has shut me out of his mind and his life, but he’s still my brother. And I’m older than him by a few minutes, so I need to be the sensible one between us. Not to mention that you went down there for our sister’s sake. What kind of person would I be if I didn’t wait for you?"

He looked up at her from where he knelt, the morning sun catching in his silver eyes.

Ivy sighed and looked away from his gaze. "If you put it that way, then I guess you’re right. We are both trying to help our siblings..." she said. Then, as though something had just occurred to her, she pulled the blanket tighter around herself before speaking again.

"Do you ever feel... like you were born into this world for the sole purpose of protecting your brother from harm?" she asked curiously.

Alex’s fingers froze for a moment.

"You feel that way too?" he asked, narrowing his eyes.

The mermaid nodded. "Maybe that’s how it is with twins. I don’t know, but whenever I’m away from her, I feel drawn to her like a magnet. I always want to protect her, and I’m afraid she’ll make the wrong decision, so I feel like I have to be there to watch over her. It’s a strange feeling."

Alex’s expression grew grim as he helped her into her other boot.

"Mine is different. I feel like I have to make it up to him somehow, even though I’ve never intentionally done anything wrong to him that I need to make up for."

He paused, then suddenly frowned as he noticed the dark scales spreading across her feet before fading away.

"And... why do you have black scales on your feet?" he asked.

Ivy glanced down at her feet, biting her lower lip. "I’m not sure why it’s happening, but after spending time on land, every time I shift forms, my scales flash black before settling back to normal."

"Huh." Alex finished helping her with her boots before asking, "Is that normal?"

Ivy shrugged. "It doesn’t hurt, so I guess it might be. I wanted to ask my aunt about it, but I forgot." ℯℯ𝑙.

"Must be some kind of side effect from being on land, then," Alex said. "Did you get what you came down for?"

He stood and took her hand as they walked back toward his car. Her legs were still wobbly from transforming, so Ivy carefully followed the footprints he’d already left in the snow.

"Yes, I got it. We’ll come back here, with your brother." She showed him the small bottle, and Alex looked at it before asking, "Can I come too? I want to see her. I haven’t seen her in so long."

Ivy wanted to explain how much convincing it had taken just to get her aunt to agree to let Sebastian down at all, but then she thought, Alex deserved this chance just as much, and she’d find a way to sneak them both in together.

"Sure."

Meanwhile, back in the waters, a blue mermaid could be seen swimming through the darker depths, a faint glow flickering in her palm to light her way, checking carefully over her shoulder to be certain no one had followed her, before slipping into a dark, abandoned cave.

Yasmin had no good reason to be here, and yet here she was anyway. She told herself it was all for the good of her people and her family, and that once everything played out the way it should, they’d eventually thank her for it. She couldn’t understand why everyone was okay with Viola making her own choice when destiny had already chosen where she was supposed to be.

The Child of the Sea shouldn’t turn against them and choose the enemy when her home was here. Yasmin was going to fix everything and make it perfect again, so Aquaville would no longer have to live in fear of death, the mermaid thought.

Once she reached the far end of the dark cave, she opened her other palm, where a small, enchanted object glowed to life in her hand, and almost instantly, the wall ahead became permeable, letting her pass through it like water, sealing shut again behind her as she entered.

The moment Yasmin entered the cave prison, she was greeted by the dark energy radiating from the prisoner locked inside.

"You’re back." Came a voice from the darkness, carrying an echo, and something close to a smile.