Lucia tore her eyes from her reflection and fetched her mother the ruby bracelet she was pointing at.
Portia frowned as she took it. “You’re worrying about something. Stop it. It’s making lines on your forehead. What’s bothering you?”
“The fact that I haven’t seen Serafina’s dead body,” Lucia replied.
“You don’t need to,” Portia reassured her. “She was so incompetent she could barely survive inside the palace. I’m sure she didn’t last long outside of it.”
“She escaped from Traho, though,” Lucia countered. “She made it to the Iele’s caves. He said so.”
She shuddered now to think of that he—the terragogg Rafe Mfeme. She’d met him months ago. He’d taken her hand and kissed it. His lips were like ice on her skin. The cold spread throughout her body like a sea mist, seeping into her bones, chilling her insides.
He’d smiled at her and, in a voice so low only she could hear him, said, “Beauty and ruthlessness in equal measure. You’ll go far, my dear. Very far.”
Mfeme had somehow found out where Sera and her friends had gone. Neela, Mahdi’s treacherous cousin, was among them. So was Admiral Kolfinn’s daughter, Astrid. And three other mermaids from foreign realms who were of no rank or importance. Why these six had traveled to the Iele’s caves together, Lucia didn’t know, but whatever the reason, it couldn’t be good. Mfeme had told Vallerio where the six were, and Vallerio had sent Traho after them. They’d come so close to catching them.
“Yes, Serafina did escape from the Iele’s caves,” Portia allowed now, “but she hasn’t been seen since. Do stop fretting about her, Lucia. She’s dead, and soon the rest of the Black Fins will be, too. Would you fetch me the necklace that matches the bracelet, please? It’s in the vault in my bedroom.”
Lucia swam to the bedroom, hoping her mother was right about the merls. She hated Serafina. Just as she’d hated Isabella, and Isabella’s mother, Artemesia.
Because of Artemesia, Lucia had grown up without her father, without a proper family. Because of Artemesia, she and her mother had been mocked and shamed.
The Volneros have traitors in their family, Artemesia had said when her son, Vallerio, had asked her permission to marry Portia. Their line is tainted.
A union between a member of the royal family and a Volnero was out of the question, she’d decreed. Vallerio could father no Volnero children.
What Artemesia hadn’t known, though, is that there was already a Volnero child on the way when she’d made her decree—Lucia.
Breaking a regina’s decree was treason and punishable by death, and both Vallerio and Portia knew it. Heartbroken and desperate, Portia had quickly married another man, one who looked like Vallerio, in order to keep her secret safe. When he’d committed suicide by drinking poison, there had been whispers of foul play, but nothing had ever been proved.
After her husband had died, Portia had left Cerulea to live at her country estate twenty leagues outside of the city. Vallerio had visited whenever he could. Lucia hadn’t known who he was, not at first. She’d thought he was just a friend of her mother’s.
Then, when she’d turned thirteen, Lucia had been summoned by Isabella to attend the principessa and learn the ways of the court, as a future duchessa must. Vallerio had sat down with Lucia before she left for the palace. He’d revealed that he was her real father, and stressed that she must never, ever tell a soul.
“One day, we will swim together as a family,” he’d promised. “One day all the water realms, and everyone in them, will know that you are my daughter. Until then, keep our secret safe. No one must guess the truth. Our lives depend upon it.”
Lucia had gone to court as planned. She’d become one of Serafina’s ladies-in-waiting. She’d shown due respect to the regina, and she’d treated her father with the same distant deference everyone else showed him. She’d curtseyed and smiled, but all the while hatred had burned inside her.
Poor Lucia, merfolk said. Such a pretty little thing. How sad for her to have no father.
It was all she could do not to shout out, “I do have a father! He’s Vallerio, the high commander, the most powerful merman in the realm!”
Instead, she’d bit her tongue until it bled, and she’d smiled. She’d smiled as she watched Serafina ride hippokamps with her father, Principe Bastiaan. She’d smiled when she’d seen the dresses and jewels Bastiaan had given her. She’d smiled as she’d watched him twirl Serafina across the dance floor at state dinners.
As she’d gotten older, Lucia had heard the whispers. From behind a painted sea fan. Or a heavily jeweled hand. Confided over a cup of sargasso tea.