Neela sang a velo spell.
Waters blue,
Hear me cast,
Rise behind us,
Make us fast!
The water in the hall rose like a breaker, swiftly pushing the mermaids ahead of it. They’d outpaced their pursuers for the moment but still had to find a room where they could barricade themselves. Neela didn’t live here, and she didn’t know where to go. They were in another hallway now, one filled with portraits of Miromaran nobles. Neela recognized it. Suddenly, she knew where they were.
“Sera, we can make it to my room!”
Her suite was nowhere near as secure as the vaults, but it was all they had. Serafina, roused now, sped ahead and cut left. Neela was right on her tail. They swam down a narrow loggia and then through a coral archway.
Seconds later, they were at the door to Neela’s suite. But it was too late. There was no time to get it open. The soldiers had cast their own velos and had gained on them. In a desperate move, Neela cast a fragor lux spell, hoping to slow the attackers with a small light bomb.
Lava’s light,
Now attack,
Cause my enemies
To fall back!
She’d sung the spell too fast. It was weak. They were done for, she knew it.
But the spell wasn’t weak.
All at once, every globe in the hallway dimmed. The light from each one swirled together into a brilliant, glowing ball. It hurtled through the water, hit the ground a foot away from the soldiers, and exploded, forcing them back. Serafina swung the door open. The two mermaids raced inside and pushed it closed. Neela threw the heavy bolt in the nick of time. Just as it shot home, a body thudded against the door.
“What kind of frag spell was that?” Serafina asked, panting for breath.
“I don’t know,” Neela said. “I’ve never done it before.”
There was another thud. The door shuddered.
“They’re going to break it down,” Serafina said. “We can’t stay here.”
Neela swam to a window. The waters outside were thick with soldiers. “Where can we go?” she asked frantically. “They’re everywhere!”
“We could cast a prax spell and camouflage ourselves against the ceiling,” Serafina said.
“They’ll search every inch of these rooms. They’ll find us.”
A pounding started, rhythmic and loud. The invaders were battering down the door. Neela saw that it was bowing out of its frame with every blow.
“Is there anything here we can use to defend ourselves? A knife? Scissors?” Serafina asked. “I’m not going without a fight.”
Neela rushed to her vanity table and started pawing through the bottles and vials on it, looking for any kind of sharp object. And then she saw it—Yazeed’s whelk shell necklace. She’d taken it from him when she and Serafina had found him and Mahdi in the reggia.
“Sera, over here!” she said. “Hurry!”
“What is it?”
“Yaz’s transparensea pearls.”
Neela shook the pearls out of the shell. The songspell of invisibility used shadow and light and was notoriously difficult to cast. Spellbinders—highly skilled artisans—knew how to insert the spell into pearls that a mermaid could carry with her and deploy in an instant.
Neela and Serafina each held one between the palms of their hands. A second later, they were invisible.
“Come on!” Neela said, opening a window.
She couldn’t see Serafina, so she felt around in the water for her, got hold of her arm, and pushed her out through the opening. Her own tail fin had just cleared the sill when the door came crashing in.
“I CAN’T GO ANY FARTHER. I have to rest. Just for a few minutes,” Serafina said.
She and Neela had been swimming fast for over an hour through dark waters and were almost three leagues west of Cerulea, heading for the fortress at Tsarno. A sputtering lava torch, picked up on the edges of the city, was their only source of light.
“We’ve got to keep moving,” Neela said, looking around warily. “You’re shimmering, Sera. The pearls are wearing off. Come on.”
“I will. I just need a minute,” Serafina said. She was exhausted. She sat down on a rock, leaned over, and vomited.
Painful spasms racked her body until there was nothing left inside her. Nothing but the images of the arrow burying itself in her mother’s side. Of her father’s body sinking through the water. Of the dragon tearing through the palace wall.
“Here,” Neela said, handing her a kelp leaf.
Serafina took it and wiped her mouth. A tiny octopus, spooked by their movements, shot out from the seaweed and swam off. As she watched him, she thought of Sylvestre. She’d left him sleeping on her bed when she’d departed for the Dokimí. She had no idea if he was dead or alive. She had no idea what had happened to Tavia. To the ladies of her court. Or even of her mother’s final fate.