Serafina stopped. She had no food and no money to give. She turned to Blu.
“We need to keep moving,” he said. “The waters are lightening. It’ll be dawn in another hour.”
“You must have something on you…a drupe or a cowrie,” said Serafina. “Give her something, or I won’t budge.”
“Keep moving!” Verde hissed.
Blu pulled off his earring—a gold hoop—and handed it to the mermaid.
“Sell it,” Serafina told her. “It should bring you a few trocii.”
The mermaid hugged Blu. She took Serafina’s hand and kissed it. “You’re the principessa, I know you are! I saw you in the Kolisseo. Thank you! Oh, thank you, Principessa!” she said.
A merman, overhearing her, turned around. “It’s her! The principessa!” he said.
“Take back Cerulea!” a mermaid shouted. “Avenge us!”
An oily-looking merman who’d been watching them from a doorway turned and swam off.
Verde yanked Serafina away. “Word’s traveling,” he said. “And that’s not good. There are Lagoonas, plenty of them, who would sell you to Traho for two cowries.”
“Are you going to sell us for more?” Serafina asked archly.
Verde didn’t bother to answer her.
Serafina still wanted to trust him, to trust all of them. Thalassa had trusted them, it seemed. But they were Praedatori. Outlaws. Why would they help two princesses?
The group swam on, though ancient archways, down dimly lit currents. Serafina looked around, wondered where Kharkarias’s lair was. She had never been to the Lagoon, but had heard many stories. It bordered the human city of Venice, and was part of Miromara, but belonged only to itself. Home to criminals, sirens, con artists, and spies, it was also a favorite haunt of swashbucklers—young mer who flipped a fin at society by dressing like pirates.
As they approached the heart of the Lagoon, the dingy currents gave way to squares lined with cafés and clubs. Lava bubbled in garishly colored globes outside of them. Loud music spilled into the streets through their open doors. Serafina saw shops where one could buy anything—songspell pearls, shipwreck silver, rare sea creatures, posidonia wine.
Then the narrow currents of the Lagoon led to human-made canals, and the clubs and cafés to Venetian palazzos. Her uncle had told her that wealthy terragogg nobles and merchants had built these grand dwellings centuries ago upon wooden piles driven deep into the Lagoon’s hard clay, and that equally wealthy mer had built their palazzos underneath them. These merfolk, exquisite in dress and elusive in manner, swam in and out of their dwellings now. Many wore masks. Serafina saw white faces with red lips. Golden faces with delicate black tracery. The face of a water bird, with a curved, cruel beak. A harlequin. A crescent moon. The face of death.
She found the effect unnerving. The masks themselves were still and impassive, but the eyes behind them were lively and appraising. It was said that these palazzo-dwellers had gained their riches by giving secret concerts for humans. Consorting with terragoggs was illegal. In the Lagoon, however, the only crime was being stupid enough to get caught at it.
“That’s the Grand Canal,” Verde said, pointing ahead. “The palazzo isn’t far.”
“It smells bad here,” Neela said, making a face.
“It’s the goggs,” Grigio said.
A quarter league up the Grand Canal, Verde turned off into a smaller canal, or rio. “This is it,” he said. “Calliope’s Way.” He swam a few yards down the rio, then stopped in front of a white marble building with a soaring gothic doorway. Lava torches glowed brightly at either side of it. Below them were carved stone faces with blind eyes and open mouths. An image of the sea goddess Neria, flanked by lesser gods, was carved in relief above the door. Above that was a loggia of pointed arches, decorated with a delicate frieze of sea flowers, fish, and shells.
Blu lifted a heavy iron knocker and let it drop.
“Qui vadit ibi?”
It was the stone faces. They’d spoken in unison.
“Filii maris,” Blu said.
Ancient words. Spoken when the palazzo was built, Serafina thought. She understood the Latin. Who goes there? was the question. Sons of the sea, the answer.
The doors opened outward.
“This way,” Verde said. “He’s expecting you.”
Serafina and the others followed him inside. The doors closed behind them with an ominous boom. The lock’s tumblers turned. A bolt slid home. She looked up and saw light spilling over the water. Verde swam toward it. Serafina and Neela looked at each other, then did the same. When they surfaced, they found themselves in a large rectangular pool that took up most of a cavernous room—a room that also contained furniture, a fireplace, electric lights, and air.
A room for a terragogg.
“I—I don’t understand,” Serafina said. “I thought this was a mer dwelling.”
“You’ll be all right,” Blu told her. “We’ve got to go.”