“I guess you’re right. We should tell the others. I’ll cast a convoca. See if I can get us all on the same wavelength.”
Serafina tried to cast the songspell, but nothing happened. She tried again. “Ling, aren’t you getting anything from me?” she asked, frustrated.
“Nope. Nothing. Nada. Nihilo. Nichts—”
“Okay, okay, I get it!” Serafina huffed. She slapped her tail fin against the cave wall. “Why can’t I cast this spell?”
“Because you’re tired.”
Serafina arched an eyebrow. “You mean I’m no good at it.”
“No, I don’t mean that. You know, I just tried to talk to an octopus. While I was out looking for our breakfast. I wanted to ask him where I could find some clams. I learned Molluska when I was, like, two years old, but I couldn’t even remember how to say hello.”
“You know what’s weird, though?” Serafina recalled. “Back in Atlantis, I could talk to an eel. And I don’t know Eelish. I think it happened because of the bloodbind. Because I’ve got some of your blood in me now.”
“Huh. I guess that explains why the illuminata I just cast when I was looking for breakfast was the best one I’ve ever done,” Ling said, chewing an olive. “I’ve got some of Neela’s skills now. I’m going to try to summon waterfire later. See if I’ve got some of Becca’s, too. But you know the deal, Sera—magic’s not exact. It depends on a lot of things. Ability. Strength. The moon. The tides…”
“The utter lameness of the songcaster.”
“Try again in a day or two. When you’re stronger. When you haven’t just outswum five hundred death riders, Rorrim Drol, a whole pack of Opafago, and an eyeless gogg.”
A chill ran through Sera at the mention of the terrifying man with the black, empty eyes. He’d first appeared to her in her own mirror. He’d tried to crawl out of it, to come after her, but her nursemaid, Tavia, had scared him off. At the time, Sera had told herself he was only a hallucination. Now she knew he was real. And that he meant her—and her friends—harm.
“Who is he? Why is he after us?” she asked.
“I wish I knew,” Ling said, pulling a limpet from its shell. “Promise me something, though.”
“What?”
“When we go our separate ways, stay out of mirrors and Atlantis. They’re too dangerous.”
“Yeah, sure,” scoffed Serafina. “I’ll just take it easy from now on. Head home to Cerulea, kick back in a war zone for a bit.”
Ling laughed.
“Actually, I might make one slight detour first.”
“Another one? It sounds like you’re trying to avoid Cerulea, not get back to it.”
Sera bristled. Her reluctance to return home had been a bone of contention between them. They’d argued about it on their way to the Iele’s cave—right before Ling was caught in one of Rafe Mfeme’s fishing nets. Sera still blamed herself for the broken wrist Ling had suffered while struggling to escape.
“There’s a reason for the detour. A good one,” she said, a bit defensively. “Remember when I told you and the other merls how Neela and I had been captured by Traho? And that we escaped with the help of the Praedatori? They took us to their headquarters, to a palazzo in Venice owned by a human, Armando Contorini, duca di Venezia. Traho found out and attacked the palazzo. Because of us. I’ve got to go back. I’ve got to make sure the duca is okay.”
The duchi de Venezia, of which Duca Armando was the most recent, had been created by Merrow herself to defend the seas and their creatures from the terragoggs. They had fighters for their cause in the water—the Praedatori—and on land—the Wave Warriors.
At first Serafina had not understood why the duca had involved himself and his fighters in the attack on Cerulea. After all, she’d thought, no terragoggs had been involved in the invasion, only mer. But the duca had taught her otherwise. Traho had been aided by a human named Rafe Iaoro Mfeme. Mfeme, a cruel and brutal man who owned a fleet of trawlers and dredgers, had transported troops for Traho. In return, Traho had revealed the hiding places of tuna, swordfish, and other valuable sea creatures.
Sera remembered the night Mfeme had broken into the duca’s palazzo and hurled him into a wall. And how Traho’s mermen, invading from the waters below the palazzo, had fired their spearguns at the Praedatori. One of them had hit Blu. The last image Sera had of him was his body twisting violently as he tried to cut the line from the gun to the spear. Grigio, another of the Praedatori, had rushed Sera and Neela into Sera’s bedroom during the attack and had locked the door.
When Traho’s soldiers had started battering on that door, both mermaids escaped through a mirror. Sera had been worried about the duca and his brave fighters ever since. She desperately hoped they were all right. Though she hadn’t told anyone, and could barely admit it to herself, she had fallen for the mysterious Blu. He was everything Mahdi—the merman who’d broken her heart—was not.