“No one will be able to get in, at least. Not with that giant rock blocking the entrance,” Becca whispered. “That’s a comfort.”
“And no one will be able to get out,” Ling said. “That’s not.”
“Anyone have a spare zee-zee?” Neela asked in a shaky voice.
No one answered her, and the witch led them farther down the passage. Just as it seemed she would lead them straight to the center of the earth, she stopped in front of a wooden door heavily carved with runes. A fierce-looking sturgeon, his back knobby and spiked, his barbels so long they touched the floor, pulled it open. Magdalena led them inside.
Serafina looked around. The room appeared to be someone’s study. A huge stone desk, its top intricately inset with onyx, stood at the far end. Behind it was a tall chair made of antlers and bones. More chairs, all made of driftwood, were scattered about. Shelves hewn out of the rock held animal skulls, freshwater shells, and stone jars with odd creatures half in and half out of them, blinking and slithering. Plump black leeches inched up the walls. A spotted salamander skittered across the ceiling. Becca put down her traveling case. Neela dropped her messenger bag on the floor.
“Wait here. Baba Vr?ja will see you shortly,” Magdalena said. She swam out of the room and the sturgeon closed the doors behind her. The mermaids were alone.
Or so they thought.
The room was filled with so many curious things that it took a few seconds for Serafina to see that there was another mermaid in it. Her back was to them. She wore a long sealskin vest embroidered with silver thread. A scabbard made from eelskin hung from her waist. Her tail had the bold black and white markings of an orca. Two ornate braids ran along the sides of her head; the rest of her white-blond hair flowed long and loose. She turned suddenly, and Serafina gasped as she looked into a pair of icy blue eyes.
It was Astrid.
Admiral Kolfinn’s daughter.
From Ondalina.
SERAFINA’S TAIL thrashed furiously. Alarms went off in her head.
It’s a trap! she thought. How could I have been so stupid?
“Coward!” she snarled at Astrid. “Ambushing us like this! Did you come alone? Or did you bring your assassins?”
“You!” Astrid spat. “This is typical Merrovingian treachery. Good thing you brought backup, Principessa. You’ll need it!”
Astrid lunged, fins flaring. Serafina dodged her. The two whirled around a chair, poised to attack. Baby went wild. Ava could barely contain him.
“Merls, hey…that’s enough,” Ling warned, but Sera and Astrid ignored her.
Serafina’s fury was alive. She could feel it, roiling and twisting inside her, wrapping its red tentacles around her heart. She could hear its laughter—gurgling and low.
“First your spies try to kill my father by putting a sea burr under his saddle—one that only grows in Miromaran waters,” Astrid hissed. “You’ll be disappointed to know he only broke some ribs, not his neck. Then they mixed poison into his supper. Venom from a Medusa anemone. You know those, don’t you, Serafienda? They grow in the reefs off Cerulea!”
“Don’t accuse Miromara of using Ondalina’s methods! The assassin’s arrow that wounded my mother was dipped in brillbane. Cerulea was attacked by soldiers wearing the uniforms of Ondalina. I was there. I saw them!”
“Stop, both of you! Please!” Neela begged.
“Your father’s soldiers destroyed my city!” Serafina shouted. She swept a handful of water into a ball and hurled it at Astrid, casting a stilo songspell as she did. Spikes sprouted from the ball as it neared its target.
“Isabella ordered my father’s death!” Astrid yelled, deftly ducking the missile. She did not fire back with a spell of her own. Instead, she pulled her sword from its scabbard, and swung it at Serafina.
“Kolfinn killed hundreds of innocent people!” Serafina spat, parrying the blade with a deflecto spell. It crashed down across the water shield she’d conjured, spraying droplets like shrapnel.
A door located behind the stone desk suddenly banged back on its hinges. An elderly mermaid swam through it. She was dressed in a long black cloak, a ruff of ebony swan feathers at her neck. Her gray hair was coiled at the back of her head. On her hands she wore rings carved from amber. Their prongs held eyeballs that swiveled and stared. Her own eyes blazed with anger.
“You fools! How dare you behave this way in the presence of the Iele!” she thundered.
Serafina and Astrid stopped still, the red trance of rage broken.
“You were not summoned here to fight. That’s exactly what the monster wants. It wants you to destroy each other.”