Neela stared at her father, taken aback. “What are you saying, Pita-ji? My mind is totally fine.”
Aran covered Neela’s hand with his own. “Think of what you just told us. That dreams are real. That make-believe witches exist. That there’s an evil monster in the Southern Sea and a kind terragogg in a palazzo. You need help and you will have it. None but the best. You are not to worry. We will keep it all between ourselves, a secret. No one else will know.”
“Wait a minute,” Neela said, not believing what she was hearing. “You think…You think I’m crazy?”
Hearing distress in her mistress’s voice, Ooda started to inflate.
“No, priyā, not crazy. Your mother and I…we think you’ve had a terrible shock, that’s all,” said Aran soothingly. “Gods only know what you’ve seen. The attack on Cerulea, losing your uncle and aunt, the violence you suffered at the invaders’ hands—these things would have undone anyone. It’s amazing you were able to escape from this terrible Traho and swim back to us from his camp.”
“But I didn’t swim back to you from his camp. I swam back from the Iele’s cave!” Neela said. Loudly.
Aran looked at Sananda. “Rest and quiet,” he said.
“Everything I said was true! Someone is trying to set the monster free. Don’t you see what danger we’re in?” Neela asked, upset.
“Bland food. Soft colors,” Sananda said.
“I have to contact Serafina! Now!” Neela protested, desperation in her voice.
Suma appeared in the doorway. “You sent for me, Your Grace?”
“The princess is unwell. Take her back to her room and see that she is not disturbed.”
“Yes, Your Grace,” Suma said. She swam to Neela and took her arm. “Come, Princess.”
“It will be all right. You’ll see,” Sananda told her daughter. “Kiraat, the medica magus, will examine you. Under his care, you’ll return to your senses.”
“No, I won’t!” Neela said. “Because I haven’t left them!”
“Come now, Princess,” Suma soothed. “There’s no need for a fuss.”
“Neela, child, go peacefully. Please,” Sananda said, fresh tears in her eyes. “Don’t make me ask the guards to escort you. No one wants that.”
Neela opened her mouth to argue, then closed it again, seeing that it was futile. The more she disagreed with her parents, the more she confirmed their belief that she’d lost her mind.
“You’re making a terrible mistake,” she said.
Her mother kissed her. Then her father did. Neela did not kiss them back.
Suma led her out of the dining room, clucking over her just as she had when Neela was a child, but Neela barely heard her. Ooda, as round as a full moon now, followed them. As she swam down the long, mirrored hallway to her room, Suma firmly gripping her arm, Neela heard something else.
Something dark. Something low and gurgling.
It sounded like Abbadon laughing.
“DID YOU HEAR THAT?” Neela asked.
“Hear what?” Suma asked.
“Laughter.”
“I’m sure it’s the grooms. The stables are underneath us.”
Neela broke free of Suma’s iron grip and swam to a nearby window. A groom was swimming across the stable yard, leading an unruly hippokamp. He wasn’t laughing.
It was Abbadon, I’m sure of it. But how did I hear him? she wondered uneasily. I didn’t cast an ochi to spy on him and? unlike Ava, I don’t have the gift of vision. Maybe they’re right. Maybe I am going insane.
Suma took Neela’s arm again and pulled her along.
“Let go of me! You’re treating me like a baby!”
“Because you’re acting like one. Come along now. This uncooperative behavior is yet another symptom of your derangement,” Suma said sagely.
“Derangement?!” Neela sputtered. “I’m not deranged!”
“Ha. There is the proof. Crazy people never think they’re crazy,” Suma said.
“I’m worried and scared, Suma. Because there are things going on in the seas. Bad things. And my parents aren’t dealing with them.”
Suma tsk-tsked. “It is all this worry that has ruined your face and your mind. But of course your face is more important. You must stop fretting, child. Emperor Aran will not let harm come to us. He will speak with his councillors and they will sort everything out. That is the way things are done. That is the way things have always been done.”
Neela, realizing she would get nowhere with her amah, fell silent.
A few minutes later, they reached her rooms. “Here we are,” Suma said. “I sent for a cup of walrus milk before I fetched you. Everything will look better after a nice, hot drink, you’ll see. Ooda, stop that!”
Ooda was so distressed by Neela’s unhappiness that she’d inflated herself to painful proportions. As Suma and Neela watched, she started spinning around in circles and floated up to the ceiling.
“Leave her. She’ll come down when she’s ready,” Neela said. She was used to Ooda’s antics.