Sera didn’t argue. She sat down, leaned against a wall, and closed her eyes. Sophia untied the blood-soaked bandage and grimaced at the wound. Fresh blood was leaking from it. The spear had torn Sera’s flesh horribly.
“Wow. Gods. This is a mess. So’s your face. You’re as white as a barnacle.”
Sera managed to smile. “Great bedside manner, Soph.”
Shaking her head, Sophia asked Sera for her dagger, cut the sleeves off her own jacket, and used them to fashion a new bandage.
A few minutes later, she said, “There. Done. Hopefully that will do the trick until we get back to HQ.”
“Thanks,” Sera said. The pain was still bad, but the bleeding had slowed.
“Any idea where we are?” Sophia asked, glancing around.
“Not a clue,” Sera replied.
She rose, held up her illuminata, and looked around. The room was hexagonal, and every square inch of it was covered in mosaics. Painted urns stood on the floor. Ancient bronze lava lamps hung from the ceiling.
“I thought you knew everything about the reggia,” Sophia said.
“So did I,” Sera said, her eyes wide, her voice full of wonder. “I’ve listened to every conch there is on this place. And no one—no courtier or minister or historian ever mentioned a room under the stables.”
“Sera…those figures,” said Sophia, pointing to one of the six walls. “They’re not gods. And they’re not mer.”
Sera swam to one of the walls and gazed up at the intricate mosaic of the man who adorned it. “They’re human,” she said, running her fingertips over the man’s sandaled feet.
Each figure had a name above it, written in ancient Mermish. Sera’s pulse quickened as she read them aloud. “Merrow, Nyx, Sycorax, Pyrrha, Navi, Orfeo…the Six Who Ruled. This is a tomb, Soph, only it has no bodies in it. I bet Merrow had this built in memory of her fellow mages.”
Sera knew that Merrow was the only one of the Six who had survived the fall of Atlantis. The other mages’ bodies were never recovered. As her eyes traveled over the figures, she saw that they were all depicted the same way—gazing out at the viewer, left hand at his or her side, right hand raised to chest height, palm up. Resting on each palm was a different object. Sera gasped as she realized what they were.
“Great Neria, it’s all here in this room…” she whispered, trembling with excitement. “The answers I’ve been trying to find ever since I entered the Iele’s caves are right in front of me!”
She and Ling had discovered what three of the six talismans were when they visited the ruins of Atlantis, but they’d had to flee for their lives before learning about the rest. “Sera, check this out,” Sophia said. “Merrow’s holding—”
“—a blue diamond,” Sera said.
“And Navi’s got—”
“—a moonstone.”
“Orfeo’s holding—”
“—a black pearl.”
“How did you know that?” Sophia asked. “You’re not even looking at them.”
Sera didn’t answer. She was still gazing at the figure before her—a regal, dark-skinned man with long black braids and blind eyes.
“Nyx has a ruby ring,” she said out loud, wanting to engrave the image into her memory.
She swam to the next wall. A tall, strongly built woman with long red hair and intense blue eyes stared back at her. “Pyrrha has a gold coin with an image of Neria on it,” she said, her excitement growing.
The mosaic on the next wall featured a slender woman with onyx-black hair and almond-shaped eyes. Sera examined it closely. “Sycorax has a white…is that a puzzle ball? Looks like it has a phoenix on it. Remember that, Sera. You have to remember,” she told herself.
“Hey, Sera?” Sophia said. “What’s going on?”
“We know where they are. I discovered where Merrow hid them thanks to a conch in the Ostrokon. And now we know what they are—all of them. We know, and Rafe Mfeme doesn’t!” Sera said, still staring at Sycorax.
“Um, okay. Which means?” Sophia prompted.
Sera turned to Sophia, her eyes triumphant. “Which means that maybe, just maybe, we actually can do this!”
“WHAT EXACTLY ARE you talking about?” Sophia said, her patience with Seraphina’s cryptic comments wearing thin. “Would you please tell me?”
Sera struggled with herself. Only a handful of mer knew the enormity of the battle they were fighting. It was safer that way. Spies were everywhere.
“You can trust me. With your life. You know that,” Sophia said, as if sensing the reason behind Sera’s hesitation.
It was true. Sophia had proven herself worthy of Sera’s trust outside the Traitors’ Gate. Also, Sera realized, as regina and leader of the Black Fins, she was currently in a compromised position—badly wounded and a long way from safety. There was still a good chance she’d be captured. If that happened, how would she get the information she’d just learned to Neela, Yaz, and the others? She had to rely on Sophia.