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Katalina blinked at Joshua. Then something seemed to click, and she switched back to English. "Sorry, Joshua," she said. "It's just...easier." She shook her head. "They must have someone on their side who can sense our magic. All ocean children have it in them - it would make them easy prey if there's someone who can sense the difference. And injured ocean children would be the easiest of all. Those you three met...most of them have either come back to their clan or taken their families far enough away to be safe. We hope. But there's one..."

"Kiro," said Tianara, her voice still blank and steady. "Kiro is still in the hospital, Joshua. Sorry was suggesting that we go back, check him out, and bring him here. Or send him away to safety, or bring him home to the clan. It doesn't really matter where. But he can't stay where he is."

She looked over at him uncertainly. "The others are getting out to safety, and most of them are finding ways to help protect the merfolk from there. Others are just finding means to protect themselves and help us from home. I don't know if the village has been reached yet. But I want to get Kiro out of it, just to be safe. And Aria...she needs to be warned as well. It's only a drop of magical blood for her, but we can't be sure she won't be mistaken for an ocean child."

A little colour came back into Tianara's too-pale face. But her voice remained quiet and steady. "Here. I should take him home, Joshua. Back to the clan, at least until he's healthy again. After that...we could just see how things turn out."

Katalina looked troubled as she looked between them. At last, she said simply, "And maybe you should stay with him once you take him home, Tianara. This isn't the kind of thing you need to be dealing with fresh out of the clan. Do you know anything about how to deal with a human threat - without revealing yourself?"

Tianara opened her mouth as though to reply angrily, then hesitated and went quiet. "I..." She sighed. "No," she admitted. "But that doesn't mean I'm going back to wait in the clan until it's all over. I have to help, Sorry." Sensing her way and pressing her advantage, she insisted, "I'm practically the safest of all of us - I'm out here, away from the town, so it would be really hard to sneak up on me. I have you guys and Joshua here." Seeing that Katalina still looked worried, she said at last, "We'll talk about it after we get Kiro, Sorry. Okay?"

She looked at Joshua, hoping for backup on this.

Tianara had barely restrained herself from snapping at him when he'd suggested she'd be safer at home. But a small return smile had surfaced when he'd switched tacks.

Katalina shook her head. "I still don't like it," she said resignedly. "Your mother will kill me if anything happens to you, Tia, and with good reason. You know she's going to ask you the exact same question when you get there - and she might not be as willing to listen to your reasoning." Sensing Tianara's distress, she waved a hand. "Go on. Get your brother. We'll finish talking about it when you three get back."

Tianara nodded and turned to look at Joshua. "Coming?" she asked him hopefully. She might be stubborn, but she wasn't crazy - she wouldn't be real comfortable going to the village alone.

Katalina watched them go - and she did not miss the look of surprise and happiness that came into Tianara's eyes when Joshua said he would have gone with her either way, only for it to vanish when he continued his sentence.

Tianara fled from the debate (and Katalina's knowing eyes), following Joshua up the path. She was keeping her attention out for threats - she had not forgotten Kiro's earlier words. "Thanks," she said after a few minutes of walking, not looking at Joshua. "For what you said back there. It was true."

Tianara smiled to herself rather secretly. "I guess," she said. "They don't need me at the clan." But then she grew a little more solemn. "But I don't know how much use I am here, either. I mean, Sorry and the others can handle the merfolk while you deal with the humans. I don't really have a place. My only idea so far has been worse than a failure - now the ocean children are being targeted." She sighed. "Maybe Sorry was right after all."

She smiled up at him a bit, sadly, when he went on. "Well, if I went home, there'd still be Mac. And I know Sorry and probably Narcis and Nezik would stick around - they like it here. Jinx would be here as long as Narcis and Nezik were. You wouldn't be alone." She felt like an idiot for not thinking of this before.

But there were the Dark Ones. And her ability to sense the other ocean children. Those things she could do were useful, right? Right? She wasn't entirely useless to them. Just because she didn't know enough about the human world and was too young to always be taken seriously among the merfolk didn't mean she couldn't help.

Tianara gave him a strange look for a second, dismissing the first part of his sentence, then smiled a little. "I suppose you can read minds, now, too," she said gently. "I was just thinking about that. To be honest, if it hadn't been for me, I don't think you would even have needed to find the ocean children. And then..." She looked down. "They probably wouldn't be in danger now." It was something she was still blaming herself for.

Shaking that off, she looked at him sympathetically when he shuddered, putting her hand lightly on his shoulder for a brief second before taking it away again. She remembered that deep-seated horror. It went away after a while; one could get used to anything in time, after all. "However, I can and will give myself props for the Dark One, even though I have to say you also did a remarkable job of taking it on the second time around. You might have reached Sorry, and she would have told you what to do, but I don't know if it would have helped."

She sighed. "But I guess it doesn't really matter. I was there. And now that I'm part of this, I want to stay part of it - I don't know if I even could go back to the clan, knowing they aren't safe yet. So." She smiled at him again, and there was a lighter note to it as they entered the town. "Let's go get Kiro."

Tianara bounded ahead of him, looking eager - either to see her brother or to get the hell out of town again. Possibly both. She looked back at Joshua, and was unsurprised to see him looking pensive. He was probably worrying about how to take Kiro out of there. Tianara wasn't worried - they'd figure out something.

She calmed as they walked into the hospital, and looked around. "Where do we go?" she asked Joshua in a soft whisper, looking confused. She didn't remember how they'd gotten in to see Kiro last time. Hopefully Joshua would know.