Alex woke to the sensation of cool water being dripped gently onto his forehead.
He blinked groggily, disoriented for a moment—then remembered.
Mer-people. Healers. Zale. Safety.
"Easy," a soft voice said. "You've been asleep for three hours. I'm just cooling you down—your temperature rose slightly."
Alex focused on the speaker—a young mer-man with pale green scales and kind eyes, his hair bound back with shells.
"I'm Kai," he said with a gentle smile. "One of Healer Mira's apprentices. I'm part of your attendant rotation."
"Attendant rotation," Alex repeated, still half-asleep.
"Mmhmm. Three of us at all times, remember? I'm on monitoring duty. There's also Reef—" He gestured to a massive mer-man lurking near the entrance, his scales dark blue and his expression intimidatingly serious. "—on protection duty. And Zale is... well, Zale's handling everything else."
As if summoned by his name, Zale surfaced in one of the pools, carrying what looked like a woven basket.
