"Oh Neria, I've lost our children! They're gone, drowned! They wanted to look at the sea, since it's close, and there seemed no harm in it with you asleep. It was so quiet and calm that I let them paddle...but then a great wave came out of nowhere and swept them away! I went in after them again and again, but there must be a current under the water, and I couldn't find them. They're gone, they're drowned!"
"Take me to the place," she said quietly, her voice like a stone.
"It wouldn't be any use, don't you understand? I swam out as far as I could - I looked everywhere - but there's no sign of them...Oh Neria, I've drowned our babies!"
She put her arms round him then, bending over him, holding him gently. "It's not your fault. But you must take me to the place, Michael. Now, quickly. No, don't argue - if you love me, take me there!"
He thought her grief must have turned her head, but there was something in her voice which gave him no way of refusing her. And even as they came out of the hotel together, the gulls cried again, and she could smell the sea on the wind.
The beach was quite near: there was even a signpost to it which they had missed in last night's darkness. The sandy shore was quiet and empty, the sea a gently rippling calm. 
When Neria began to walk steadily into it, Michael pulled her back.
"No, darling, you mustn't. It gets steep only six feet out, and you can't even swim!"
"I could swim before I could walk. I swam with my father." The words were bitter. "Let me go, Michael. I'll be quite safe." But she could feel from his clinging hands that he thought she meant to drown herself rather than live without her children, and she was seized with impatience. The twins were so little and it would all be strange to them; they might be frightened. She knew the Sea King would not have let them drown just because they were half earth-children; they were his grandchildren, after all; his threat had not meant that. But if Michael would not let go of her...A piece of sea-lore came suddenly into her mind, and she took hold of his hand in a firm grip, then dived rapidly where the water grew deeper. Her movement caught him unawares so that he came with her before he had time to think about it. She pulled him swiftly down, down and down with all the speed she had ever learned, and as she did so she sent her voice into his head in the sea-speech.
"Keep hold of my hand, then you won't need to breathe." And it seemed the old story was true; he was showing no sign of distress down here under the water. "Don't let go, whatever happens, or the magic will break and you'll drown - do you understand?"
As she turned her head she saw him nod, looking dazed. "Don't try to answer, for you don't know this language," she said quickly, and then, steadily, "My father is the Sea King. I grew up under the sea. This is the thing that I could never tell you, for fear that you would - find me too strange, and love me less."
He shook his head violently in sharp denial and in reproach, then smiled at her, his face full of wonder. She loved him all the more for the way he accepted her words. She should have told him the truth long ago. But there was no time to think about that now. "My father has taken the children," she went on, "but he won't harm them. He will have taken them to the Palace. So that's where I'm going, to claim them back. I have to go alone - "
He shook his head at her, sharply, his face showing his determination to come with her. She hadn't time to argue - and perhaps it was the best way; perhaps her father would change his mind when he saw how much the twins loved and needed both their parents, and that it would be cruel to part the four of them. He must...
"Very well," she sent the words to Michael, "but it means going down very deep. You will see things you aren't used to, and you mustn't be afraid, or it will hold us back. And you must never, never let go of my hand. Do you understand?"
He nodded.
They swam on, always deeper. The water grew crystal clear and shone round them, luminous, a world so familiar to her that it made her heart lighten. 
She had forgotten how beautiful it was, and how free it felt to travel lightly and swiftly through deep water. She saw Michael gazing round him in wonderment. It was as new to him as the Land had once been to her. An octopus swam by, dodging round them and looking suddenly panic-stricken as it sped away; but otherwise the water was quiet and oddly untenanted. Seeing the Sea Kingdom again made Neria almost homesick all over again. And suddenly hopeful. The Sea King's power was great, and now that he had fulfilled his threat - and once all this was over - maybe he would even let them all visit him now and again...
When the first shoal of little fishes swam towards her she saw them as friends - and thought them merely clumsy when they came in a cloud round her head and round Michael's, bumping and pushing and almost blinding them both with the flick of their tails. It was only when she felt Michael begin to withdraw his fingers from hers to try to brush the little creatures away that she realized the danger, and called out to him quickly, and to the fishes too, telling them in a sharp command to go away. 
They squeaked and skittered until she shouted at them with all her might and with a fierceness which made them scatter.
"Never let go of my hand - you mustn't," she cried to Michael, a warning reminder. But suddenly she felt anger come swirling up from the depths - the Sea King's anger.
It came at them in a buffet. And suddenly there was grit in the water, hitting them in clouds, stinging. And a new menace came along with it - fish of all sizes coming to nibble at them with soft lips, crabs to bite with their pincers, sea-eels whipping like ropes. Most of all they made for the place where her hand and Michael's were joined. She, who had never needed to be afraid of anything in the Sea Kingdom, knew with sudden terror that his subjects were working at the King's command, and her father meant to drown Michael by loosing him from her.
The sand and grit increased; so did the buffetting of the water, and there were more and more creatures homing in on them; lobsters along with the crabs, spiny fish scraping at their wrists. They must go back - but she couldn't, with her children down below! And she could feel Michael weakening, weary as he had been even before they set out on this swim, and now faced with this attack from a strange and suddenly hostile world. She did not know if he would even have the strength left, if she turned back with him now, to reach the surface. He was trying to defend her, too: she realized all at once as a sea-eel whipped viciously across her face that she too was the subject of attack. She who had chosen the Land - she whom he had forbidden to return - was, it seemed, the Sea King's enemy too...
She almost cried out in despair as the assault increased. Then an even greater despair caught her as she saw the dim shape of something large and dark 
coming at them through the milling attackers. Was the Sea King's vengeance so implacable that he would call up one of his greater fish with teeth to tear his daughter and her lover to pieces?
The dark shape swept round them. And then swept again, swinging his broad tail in a mighty curve, slapping at the lesser creatures and striking them out of reach. It was a defender come to them, not an attacker - and as Neria understood this, she understood too that she should have known him anywhere.
"Dolphin," she gasped, "Oh, Dolphin..."
His body was making a circle of clear water round them. She turned to Michael - but he was barely conscious, his fingers still locked into hers but his body hanging limply in the water. As she looked at him with desperate concern, the dolphin made a final graceful sweep and came to hang in the water in front of them, his eyes glistening cheerfully as if the whole thing had been just another game.
The water was empty now except for the three of them: he had chased all the others away.
"Oh, my old friend..." Neria reached out her free hand to touch him, sending him all her thanks, as he flickered his tail at her. "How could I ever have forgotten you?"
He flickered his tail at her again and nudged her gently. But there was something more that she must ask of him.
"Dear Dolphin, you have done so much for us already - but will you do one last thing? For the time I rescued you out of the wreck, and for all the friendship we had? Save Michael for me! Take him to the surface, or I think he will die! Take him and put him on the shore, as you used to do with me long ago - and keep him there!"
He had always understood her, and his bright intelligent eye told her that he understood now the voice which begged him so urgently. He twisted himself round 
so that she could lift Michael on to his back.
She wrapped Michael's arms tightly round him, clinging to his hand until the very last moment. "Take him quickly," she said, her tears falling in a bright shower round her and glistening where they caught in Michael's hair. "Keep him safe for me, Dolphin!"
The dolphin leapt for the surface, streaking away upwards, Michael on his back.
But Neria turned and swam downwards, towards the deepest places of all. There was a steely determination in her heart, and a fierce anger, as she sped as straight as an arrow towards her father's Palace.
Nothing tried to stop her this time. She reached the Palace through empty waters. The Stone of 
Renewal had done its work here too by now, she saw: the walls were repaired where they had been crumbling, and there were even sea-flowers growing. She swam round to the Outer Palace Gate. There was a swordfish guard on duty there: he looked as familiar as the ones she had teased as a child, but he didn't move out of her way.
"I am the Sea Princess," she told him imperiously. "Let me pass!"
"Yes, I know who you are. Can't pass unless you give me something!" He was as greedy as they had always been, and gave her a squinny-eyed look out of his
small eyes.
She had no gold or jewels from her father's treasure house to give him now. "Move aside - " she began, but he gave her a crafty look and interrupted her.
"Gimme those bright shiny things in your ears, they'll do!"
She had forgotten her ruby earrings. She was in no mood to bandy words with him, so she undid them in silence and handed them over. It seemed to satisfy him, for he flicked out of her way, and she went on into the Palace.
It had not changed, except perhaps to look tidier and in better repair. She wondered where to look first for her children - surely they would be here? The King would not have taken them somewhere else to hide them? She turned suddenly and sped towards the corridor where the Magic Mirror stood. That would tell her if the children were here, for it never lied.
Another swordfish guard stood on guard in front of the Mirror. 
As Neria opened her mouth to speak to him he snapped, "Can't look in the Mirror unless you give me something! It's a new rule!" And then, almost as if he were slightly ashamed of himself, "That glittery thing round your neck will do - unless you've got some other stuff hidden about you!"
"I haven't." It was her locket, Michael's wedding present, which must have caught his eye. Neria hesitated for a second, but she must look in the Magic Mirror. The swordfish guard let her put her hand against it to clear its cloudy surface as soon as she had hung the locket on one of his spikes. And, as if the Mirror knew exactly what she sought, it cleared to show her the Throne Room.
There on his throne sat her father - and there, one on each of his knees, were the twins! They were leaning against him, looking up and smiling as happily as if they were at home. Declan was tugging at his shoulder, and Leonora had one fat little hand twisted into the seaweed of his beard. She could not see her father's face, for it was turned away from her - but she could swear that the Sea King, who had never smiled as long as she could remember, was laughing!
If the sight touched her, it made her no less angry with him. She swept towards the Inner Palace - 
to find a swordfish guard at the doorway there, on duty in his usual place.
"Can't pass unless you give me something - "
They were such creatures of habit! "I am the Sea Princess, and I wish to see my father," she told him coldly.
"Still can't pass unless you give me something! Give me that ring on your finger."
Her wedding ring was the only ring she wore. He was looking stubborn, however. "Oh, very well!" she said, and slid it off. He took it from her as she slipped it on to one of his sharp teeth, and let her through into the Inner Palace.
The Throne Room was ahead of her now. Neria knew that she must calm herself. Her father was no ordinary person, to be faced with angry demands; she must think how best to approach him. She turned the last corner, moving more slowly now.
Blocking the arch of the Throne Room doorway was a giant crab, huger than any other member of his species. Here was one she had not met before. Crabs could be nasty-natured if annoyed, and she thought politeness might be wise.
"I should like an audience with the Sea King, if you please."
"Would you, now? And who might you be?"
"His daughter, the Sea Princess. When I was last here," Neria said with a touch of sarcasm, "anyone could have an audience with the King, and without having to ask anyone but him!"
"Hoity toity," said the crab, unmoved; though it looked quite amiably at her from its stalk eyes. "I'm the King's Chamberlain, so you have to ask me first. Never mind how things used to be done, that's the way they're done now! What's your business with his majesty, pray?"
She had not come all this way to discuss it with a crab, with her children just beyond that doorway. Neria began to lose the coolness she had striven for. "My business is with the King, not with you," she exclaimed, "so be good enough to move out of my way!"
"But perhaps the King doesn't want to see you."
She realized all at once that this might be her father's orders; she might bribe herself as far as this, but then he would stop her with something impassable. "Oh, he will see me," she said glitteringly to the crab, raising her voice so that it would carry. "He will see me in the end, whether he likes it or not! He won't want to stay shut up in his Inner Palace forever! So even if he has guards on all the rooms and every back way in and out - yes, even if he sends every one of his creatures against me - he will see me in the end! Do you hear me, Father? Do you really imagine I shall just go away?"
"There's no need to shout," the crab said with mild irritation. "I don't even know if he's in there. He was. But he may have gone out of the other door, you know." He looked at her consideringly. "Yes, I can see whose daughter you are, all right. Definitely. You've got quite a temper - "
"And you are impertinent! If you don't even know if he's in there or not, why are you blocking my way?"
The crab merely looked at her patiently. 
"It's customary to offer the Chamberlain something," he told her in a reproachful voice. "Before you go in, you know. I hate to mention it, but it is usual. Anything you have on you will do. Nothing at all? Well, how about that belt you're wearing? It would go nicely on top of my shell."
So he was simply as greedy as all the others. Neria stared at him. Her hands moved slowly towards her belt, and slowly she unclipped it. She held it tightly for a moment. Then in a swift gesture she placed the belt on top of the crab's shell and stood back. One eye swivelled on its stalk to look at her offering, and seemed pleased by what it saw.
With a lumbering creak, the crab hoisted his mighty bulk out of her way, leaving the Throne Room doorway clear.
On to last instalment