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  “The awabi don’t spend their profits, and they don’t let anything go to waste,” my father would say with an amused laugh. “The awabi understand good business.”

  This awabi didn’t look like he cared at all about expense reports—he just wanted to kill us.

  “What are we going to do?” I asked.

  “I could change into a bottom crab,” Kano said. “They have scissor claws that are very quick. I could fight the creature, but I don’t think I’d be big enough to win.”

  “Then change into something faster,” I suggested. “I don’t have the energy to transform, but maybe you could lure the creature away.”

  “Perhaps I could, but you can’t swim to safety,” Kano said. “Something else might be out here waiting for a chance to attack. I won’t leave you alone.”

  His human eyes met mine—they were filled with worry and determination. Before we entered the reef, I would have thought Kano’s concern was just a matter of duty. Now his determination to stay and protect me seemed like something one friend would do for another. Either way, I wouldn’t let him get hurt because I had done something stupid. There had to be another way out besides fighting or running.

  The monster glared at us with glittering yellow eyes, waiting for us to make a move.

  I always liked Okasan’s tales better than my father’s, but now I was glad I had listened to him, too. I didn’t see any shells full of gold and jewels, but the creature had to be guarding the way forward for a reason.

  “Ask what it …” I couldn’t finish. Trying to speak sent another stabbing pain shooting through my side.

  Kano understood. He faced the monster and asked, “Who are you?”

  “I am Argo of the Not-Too-Deep,” the creature bellowed.

  Kano didn’t show fear. “What do you want?”

  “I want to eat you!” Argo’s booming laugh sent ripples through the water. “I have not feasted on sliver fish in ages.”

  “And you will not eat sliver fish today!” Kano instantly transformed into a bloated fish with tough skin and warts.

  “A toadfish!” Argo roared. “They taste terrible!”

  Kano stopped his tail from shifting to match his new body, but not before Argo caught a glimpse of me.

  “What are you?” Argo demanded. “And what’s that in your tail?”

  “I am a shape-shifter in the service of Queen Patchouli of the Willowood Fairies,” Kano explained. “I have been charged with taking Sumi Hara to Bristolmeir.”

  Argo thrust his lumpy snout forward, tasting scent in the water. He relaxed his snapping claws and swished his tail uncertainly. “I know of this fairy queen. Is Sumi Hara a fairy-godmother-in-training?”

  “She is,” Kano said, “and she was wounded in the coral. If I don’t get her to mushwort soon, she’ll die.”

  “Queen Patchouli would be angry,” Argo said.

  “Yes,” Kano agreed.

  “That would not be good for me,” Argo muttered. His body heaved in a resigned sigh. “All right. You may pass.”

  “Thank you,” Kano said. “I will make sure Queen Patchouli knows of your kindness.”

  As a precaution, Kano didn’t change his toadfish form. He swam a slow but steady course toward the mushwort.

  To take my mind off the pain, I closed my eyes and thought about my line of ocean clothes. There should be lace detailing on some pieces to match the coral.

  The farther we got from Argo, the stronger the stench of onion breath and sour milk became. I didn’t have the strength to complain and just focused on inventive uses for lace.

  “We’re here.” Kano stopped and lowered his tail.

  I gasped as he gently set me down by a pit of green oatmeal goo. Foul-smelling vapors rose off the bubbling surface, and nothing but slime weed grew nearby.

  “Just get in,” Kano said. “You’ll start feeling better right away.”

  “I am not getting in that.” I mustered the energy to sound as serious as I felt.

  “You have to if you want to live.” Kano wasn’t joking.

  “There’s no other way?” I asked.

  “None,” Kano said. “Mushwort is the only cure.”

  I told myself it would be like taking a mud bath at an exclusive spa. Still, I whimpered with more than just pain as I slid off the slimy weeds into the green glop. I expected the ooze to be hot. It was cold, and just as Kano had said, the pain subsided when the chilly substance touched my injured side.

  “It’s working!” I shouted from the center of the pool.

  “I know!” Kano called back.

  I didn’t care if he gloated a little. The pain eased as the gash began to close, and I sank into the mushwort with a sigh of relief. That was when I felt something hard bump up against me.

  I wasn’t alone.

  7

  Plant Tricks and Fish Treats

  I thrashed in the mushwort to get away from whatever was lurking in the pit.

  “What’s wrong?” Ignoring the odor and fumes that kept other fish away, Kano swam toward me.

  “Something else is in here!” I frantically looked around, expecting something to bite me or pull me under. I didn’t see anything at first. Then something jagged and goo-covered bobbed to the top. It was hard to tell, but I thought it might have been shard number two.

  “Takara’s truth,” I said.

  The Yugen mirror appeared in a burst of dazzling light. As the shard shot out of the pit, the green goo peeled away. The shard snapped into place with a satisfying click.

  “That’s two!” I transformed one of my fins into a thumb and gave Kano a thumbs-up.

  “Nice work!” Kano grinned.

  The expression on his bumpy toadfish face was so comical, I laughed. My side didn’t hurt at all.

  I felt refreshed and energized when I swam out of the pit. My wound was completely healed. My side didn’t even have a scar.

  When I swam next to Kano in his toadfish form, my body immediately started to change. I fought the impulse to copy him. After being attacked and dunked in really gross, smelly stuff, I didn’t want to be a plump fish with warts. I smoothed out the bumps and kept my slim sliver fish figure, but the struggle drained some of my recovered strength.

  “Are you staying like that?” I asked Kano. “Toadfish aren’t even a little bit cute.”

  “But they taste like mud and burn your mouth,” Kano said. “That’s why we’re not digesting in Argo’s stomach.”

  “Argo’s gone now,” I pointed out.

  “Yes, but it takes too much energy to shift for no reason,” Kano said.

  I opened my mouth to argue, but it was true, and I didn’t want to admit I was using my reserves to be a pretty fish. Kano was such a boy. He’d never understand that girls need to do a lot of unreasonable things to look nice. He’d probably tell me I was foolish and vain. That wouldn’t be new. I’ve been called vain before, but it never bothered me. Jealous people are quick to call names.

  Kano was different. He clearly didn’t envy me or anyone else. He didn’t need to. Kano could choose his appearance down to the finest detail. If he wanted, he could be a tall, dark, handsome human with silky hair, flawless skin, and perfect white teeth. He just didn’t care how he or anyone else looked. He valued form and function. I’d never met anyone like him—except maybe Okasan, I realized.

  A wart popped up on my snout. I tried to ignore it, and I might have been able to if the blemish had been on my back. But it wasn’t. It was right on the tip of my nose, like a horrible pimple I couldn’t stop watching. I pushed it back down and swam without looking at Kano, which helped me control the impulse to change. I was still a sliver fish when we swam over a ridge into a field of green seaweed.

  The plants grew on a slope that gradually descended deeper into the sea. Kano changed into a green fish that was wider top to bottom than a sliver fish but just as thin, with a longer tail and fins. He blended into the seaweed so perfectly, I couldn’t see him for a moment. Without being able t
o see him, my body couldn’t automatically copy the new shape, but the delay was an advantage. It gave me time to add a few Sumi Hara touches to Kano’s basic design: Instead of pea-soup green, I picked an iridescent green with hints of blue, pink, and gold. I emphasized the rainbow effect in my longer fins and tail, adding diffuse pink and blue stripes flecked with gold.

  “What is this?” Kano asked when I finished.

  “This is style!” I swam in a tight circle, modeling my flashy fish fashion.

  “Change color,” Kano said. It sounded like a command.

  I automatically resisted. “No.”

  “You’re too visible in the seaweed,” Kano explained with a hint of worry.

  “That’s the point!” I met his gaze and stood my ground. “I like to stand out.”

  “But you might attract something dangerous,” Kano argued.

  “If that happens, I’ll change.” My alterations to Kano’s basic form had been easy enough. I could shift into dull green if I were threatened.

  “If there’s no warning—”

  “I’ll be fine!” I cut him off with a sharper snap than I intended and softened my explanation. “I can’t wear the beautiful outfit Queen Kumari let me pick out because I have to be a fish. So I’m going to be a beautiful fish.”

  Kano snorted bubbles. He was annoyed.

  I didn’t want anything to ruin the little bit of joy I had found in Aventurine. I headed down the slope, leaving him behind to pout.

  The motion of my flowing fins through the water felt wonderful, like the swish of the dress I wore to my first school dance. The dress was royal blue with sparkly sequins, and I’d stood out in a crowd of white and pastel pink. Everyone had told me that I looked gorgeous.

  None of the ocean creatures I passed seemed dangerous at all.

  Kano was worried for nothing, I thought smugly.

  Although we were swimming deeper, the water stayed warm and teemed with interesting life. Long grassy seaweed dominated the scenery, but dozens of other plants grew on the ground around the slender stalks. Brown, green, and gray fish of various shapes and sizes swam through stands of matching foliage. A turtle with two heads, six legs, and a pointed shell wandered through clumps of small cabbage plants. It stopped when its heads wanted to go in opposite directions. After a brief struggle, the left head won, and I giggled as the turtle turned left and swam away. When I swam over a pile of flat black rocks, they turned into rays with wide, rippling wings and took off!

  It dawned on me that unlike the creatures living in the coral reef, everything in the seaweed field was camouflaged to blend in.

  Everything.

  Maybe Kano was right to be worried about my color scheme? I took another look around.

  Giant clams with jagged-edged shells were buried in the sand, waiting for anything to swim too close. The fuzzy green disks opened into huge mouths that sucked in small fish, shrimp, and jelly globes. What if something bigger and more ominous were hiding, waiting to strike?

  I was too embarrassed to admit my mistake, but I wasn’t foolish enough not to change. As I started to shift to the safety of boring old green, I was distracted by a glimmer of light. Was it the third shard? I couldn’t be sure. The water wasn’t as clear as it was in the sea urchin chamber or the coral reef. I swam toward the glint for a closer look.

  “Where are you going?” Kano asked.

  “I think I saw a shard!” I shouted, bursting with excitement. When shard number three was back in the mirror, I’d be more than halfway toward my goal.

  “Where?” Kano asked as he swam after me.

  “It’s in that mass of seaweed.” I pointed with a fin.

  There was no doubt. The missing piece of mirror was in the leaves. I didn’t have to navigate through stinging urchins or take a dip in foul glop to get it. The shard was just sitting there, waiting for me to summon Takara.

  “Stop!” Kano called out as I sped toward the shard. He sounded panicked.

  I was swimming too fast to stop suddenly, so two inches from the shard, I whipped into a turn and circled back toward Kano. I didn’t see a threat and nothing seemed to be chasing me, but I didn’t want to risk it when he sounded this concerned.

  “What?” I gave a bewildered shrug with my fins.

  Kano wasn’t amused. “Maybe I should have let you swim into that carnivorous sea sponge. It might finally teach you a lesson.”

  “What carnivorous sea sponge?” I didn’t see anything big enough to eat me.

  “The one holding the mirror shard,” Kano said. “It blends into the seaweed around it. That’s how it tricks unwary prey.”

  Like me, I thought.

  When I looked at the green mass now, I could see things I hadn’t noticed at first glance. The giant sponge stood in a thick patch of seaweed, where its lacy flaps blended into the leaves. As I watched, a brown fish swam too close. Long spongy lip flaps shot out and snapped it up. The fish was gone in less than a second.

  If not for Kano’s warning, I would have been devoured. That possibility was a hundred times more frightening than being attacked by an eel. The eel had just been trying to protect her eggs, not actually eat me. The feeling of cold terror severed the last threads of my denial. Despite all the evidence, I had been dealing with my mission as if it were just a vivid dream. As if nothing could really hurt me. But I wasn’t dreaming.

  Aventurine was real. And so was the scary sea sponge that had my shard.

  A mere two inches had saved me from being eaten like the unfortunate brown fish. I didn’t want to go on.

  But if I didn’t finish my mission, I would dishonor my mother and the Yugen Lineage, and I’d be banished from the fairy world.

  In the tradition of all Japanese heroes, death was better than dishonor.

  “Thank you, Kano.” I paused to hush the tremor in my voice. “I can’t think of anything worse than being eaten.”

  “It’s probably not fun,” Kano joked, trying to calm me.

  “Definitely not on my top-ten list of things to try,” I added. I didn’t want him to know I was afraid. “But I still have to get the shard.”

  Kano bobbed in the water, nodding. “You’ll find a way.”

  I had to, or die trying.

  I swam in a wide arc with a wary eye on the sponge’s brown rolled-up lip flaps. After cautiously circling the camouflaged creature twice, I was certain it only had one mouth. There was less chance of being snagged if I approached the shard from the rear.

  I didn’t charge right in. I studied the lacy flaps that covered the sponge from a safe distance. Several fish swam by without being attacked. Putting off the task was pointless. I had to go for the shard quickly, before I lost my nerve.

  With all my senses on high alert, I swam at the sponge from behind. When I came within a fish’s length, I said the magic words. “Takara’s truth!”

  The brass hand mirror didn’t appear.

  I inched closer to the sponge and tried again, with no luck. I swam back to the front and realized that the shard was tangled in seaweed. I had to free it before the mirror could appear.

  I backed up to ponder the problem.

  I could grow teeth and eat the seaweed, but that would put me dangerously close to the sponge’s mouth. What wouldn’t a sponge be able to eat? I ran through all the different sea creatures I could imagine, when I finally struck on an idea.

  I changed one of my fins into a very long crab leg and claw. With my new, indigestible tool, it took no time at all to pull the seaweed away from the shard. I called for the hand mirror, and it appeared in a flash of light. The third piece of glass quickly snapped into the frame.

  “Takara’s truth!” I sent the mirror away and changed my crab leg back into a fish fin. Then I turned my fish mouth into a goofy grin at Kano, who’d been circling anxiously behind me. “Three down, and two to go.”

  “If you live that long,” Kano said.

  He had a point. I wouldn’t survive if I didn’t start using common sense. I had
been so intent on getting the shard, I had forgotten to fully change from my brilliant colors to plain green.

  “Point taken,” I said. I couldn’t tell him that I had meant to change right before I noticed the shard. It sounded like a lame excuse, even to me. I quickly finished changing color.

  I looked to Kano for his approval. But he wasn’t looking at me. He had a frozen, horrified expression.

  “Kano?”

  This seemed to shake him out of it. He screamed, “Big fish!”

  The warning came too late. I turned and found myself staring down the gullet of a gigantic fish. It clamped its mouth closed around me.

  Several thoughts raced through my mind. Each worse than the last. I’m stuck in a disgusting fish mouth! I’m eaten! I’m dead!

  The fish’s mouth heaved as it prepared to swallow. I knew if I went down its throat, I’d be a goner.

  I desperately shifted into the first thing I could think of that would keep me from being swallowed: an octopus. It’s another Japanese delicacy, like fugu, that is dangerous. Some people eat live octopus, but they have to do it just right, because if the octopuses use their suckers while you swallow, they’ll choke you to death!

  I quickly finished my transition into an octopus with sucker-covered tentacles and spread my many new legs around the inside of the fish’s mouth. When its muscles contracted to swallow, I gripped hard and held on.

  The fish tried several times to dislodge me. I was stuck fast, but unlike the culinary daredevils who die eating live octopus, the fish didn’t choke. It just kept trying to swallow me over and over again.

  I waited for the fish to open its mouth, thinking I could make a break for it and swim clear. I was wrong. The instant the fish’s mouth opened, I loosened my tentacles, and the fish shut its mouth and tried to swallow me again.