She didn’t have time to find out. If she allowed herself to be captured, her father would die. Moving swiftly, she ripped a walrus-tooth button off her vest, threw it down the hallway, and ducked into the open cell. Chest heaving, she swam up above the doorway and pressed herself against the wall.
A prisoner, his hands on his head, an iron collar around his neck, floated in the center of the cell. He looked at Astrid, surprise on his face. She held a finger to her lips, then mouthed one word: Please.
The prisoner dropped his gaze and looked straight ahead.
“You there!” Astrid heard Rylka call. “Have you seen the admiral’s daughter?”
“The admiral’s daughter?” the guard echoed, in a tone that suggested Rylka might be crazy. “Here in the dungeons? There’s no one down here but me and the prisoners!”
“She’s wanted for poisoning her father,” Rylka said, swimming into the cell. “If you see her, apprehend her immediately.”
My gods, if she looks up…Astrid thought, squeezing her eyes shut.
“Ah, it’s you,” Rylka said.
Despair engulfed Astrid. She opened her eyes. It was over. Her father would pay the price.
But as she looked down, she saw that Rylka was speaking to the prisoner, not her.
“You have no right to keep me here,” he said. “I’ve done nothing wrong. I have a right to counsel. To a trial. I have—”
Rylka cut him off. “There won’t be any trial. Not in your lifetime.”
She glanced at the bowl of food on the cart. “Don’t waste food on this one,” she told the elderly guard. “We don’t need him anymore, and Miromara doesn’t want him. There’s no reason to keep him alive.”
Another prison guard was floating near the doorway. “Commodora!” he said, holding something out to her. “We found this on the floor a few feet down the hallway.”
The walrus-tooth button.
Rylka scowled. “It’s hers,” she said. “She must have let herself out. Tauno, swim to the hospital in case she tries to get to her father. I’ll go through the gate and try to catch up with her. Out of my way, you stupid old fool,” she added, shoving the elderly guard.
The cell door slammed shut. The key turned in the lock. The guard moved off, pushing his food cart.
Astrid’s entire body was trembling. She sank through the dusky water until she was sitting on the floor, still clutching the key ring. The prisoner remained where he was.
The two looked at each other. Astrid took in the merman’s copper-colored hair, his emerald-green eyes. She’d never seen his face before, yet she knew it. It was the spitting image of his sister’s. But thinner and marked with bruises.
Neither Astrid nor the prisoner said a word until the guard had finished his rounds, wheeled his cart past the cell door, and made his way back down the winding corridor. When they could no longer hear him grumbling, the prisoner spoke.
“Quite a place, this Ondalina,” he said. “You must be Astrid. I’m Desiderio. Pleasure to meet you.”
LUCIA CAST A GLANCE around the VIP room of the Depth Charge, a nightclub in the heart of the Lagoon, near the terragogg city of Venice. It was empty except for herself and Mahdi. And that was exactly what she wanted.
Music blared from the next room. Throughout the club, bioluminescents—tiny shrimps, squids, and frilly jellies—filled the darkness with a bewitching blue light. Neon angelfish darted between the glowing creatures, their scales flashing pink, green, and orange.
Lucia, dressed in a clingy, low-cut purple gown, was perched on a long banquette made of three giant clams. The creatures inside the open shells, mottled bright blue and yellow, were so soft to sit on. Or sleep on. As Mahdi was doing now.
He was stretched out across the banquette, his head in Lucia’s lap, his tail fins hanging off the edge. Lucia stroked his lustrous black hair.
Most of the club kids had already left. Lucia’s courtiers remained, as did her personal guards. They would have to leave soon, too, before the waters lightened. It was much easier to sneak out of the palace—and back in again—with her mother en route to Ondalina and her father and Traho occupied with constant closed-door meetings. Still, Lucia didn’t want to be spotted by some gossipy minister or tattling noble.
The Lagoon was forbidden because it was full of spies, informants, and criminals, but the danger didn’t worry Lucia; that’s what guards were for. Her concern was privacy. The Depth Charge’s VIP room offered it and the palace did not. Lucia needed to be away from prying eyes tonight.
She gazed at Mahdi while he slept, tracing the outline of his jaw with a crimson-tipped finger. A fierce possessiveness gripped her. She wanted him to love her as much as she loved him. She needed him to. She would not suffer her mother’s fate—being denied the merman she loved, becoming a figure of pity and scorn.