And now they wanted her to go back. Back to pink. Back to smiling until her face hurt. Back to chatting about the tides. Back to never doing anything important, or saying anything honest. Back to the eternal beauty contest.
Neela had tried to get out. She’d tried to pick the lock on her door, just as she’d picked the locks on the iron collars that she, Sera, and Thalassa had been forced to wear when they were Traho’s prisoners. But this lock had been enchanted. It could only be opened by the key Suma carried. Neela’s entire bedchamber had been spellproofed. She couldn’t get the windows open. Or blow them out. She couldn’t cast the tiniest vortex, or throw a weak frag. Even the convoca she’d tried to cast, to inform the others of her predicament, failed. She’d thought about escaping through one of her mirrors, but fear of meeting up with Rorrim had stopped her. In fact, she’d covered all her mirrors to keep him from spying on her.
So Neela sat, staring listlessly out of the window, watching the Matali flags flap in the current. She unwrapped another sweet, wondering who was going to break first. Kiraat? Her parents?
Or her.
SERAFINA WOKE WITH A GASP. For a moment, she panicked. She didn’t know where she was. Then she remembered—the Ostrokon. She’d swum under a table to hide, and passed out from exhaustion. Now she rolled over onto her back and opened her eyes. How long had she been here? She felt as if she’d slept for three days. Her body was numb from the hard floor. Her mind was numb, too—from all the questions still plaguing her, the ones that had no answers.
She thought of Mahdi, Cira, and Kallista. Had they escaped? Maybe she could make her way back to the Market Street safe house and find out.
She recalled the lethal darksong spell she’d cast against the death riders. She’d had no choice; she knew she’d do it again if she had to.
When the Praedatori had killed a prison guard in order to free her from Traho’s camp, Sera had been traumatized by his death. She’d felt sorrow for him. More death riders had died at the Basalt Street safe house. Because of her this time. But she felt no sorrow for them. She felt nothing.
I’m changing, she thought, and not entirely for the better.
There were barnacles on the underside of the table, glowing whitely in the darkness. She pressed her palm against their sharp edges. She wanted the pain. Wanted to know she could still feel something.
Voices drifted through her mind, hers and her mother’s.
Mom, can you just be a mom for once? And forget you’re the regina? Sera had shouted on the morning of her Dokimí
Isabella had smiled sadly. No, Sera, she’d said. I can’t.
Serafina had been so angry at her for that. But now she understood that Isabella had loved her people so fiercely she’d given up many things for them—including time with her family. She now understood that Mahdi loved the seas so much, he was risking his life to defend them.
Sera was beginning to see that love wasn’t pretty words and easy promises. Love was hard. It challenged you and changed you. It filled your heart and sometimes hardened it, too. Love demanded sacrifices. She’d made many over the last few weeks, and knew she would be called upon to make many more.
As she lay on her back, her palm still pressed against the barnacles, her stomach growled. It sounded insanely loud in the large, empty room. Sera was hungry and had no idea what to do about it. She hadn’t eaten anything more than a handful of reef olives and eel berries in days.
I’ll starve to death under this table, she said to herself. Years from now, someone will find my bones here. They’ll feel so sorry for me.
No, they won’t, a voice said. They’ll think what a total loser you were.
“Ling!” Sera said out loud.
Want a meal with your whine?
“Ha. So funny. Where are you?”
Close to the Abyss. Just thought I’d cast a convoca and check in see how you’re doing. Not so good, I gather.
“That would be the understatement of the century. I was chased by Traho’s soldiers this morning. At least, I think it was this morning. Maybe it was yesterday. Anyway, I also found out that the conchs we need are gone, Cerulea’s been destroyed, and my people—the ones who are left—are suffering badly. And what am I doing? Lying under a table.”
Any good news?
“As a matter of fact, yes. It turns out that I still love the merboy I used to love even though I’m in love with somebody else.”
What?
Sera explained. She told Ling everything that had happened since they had last seen each other.
Wow, Sera. Never a dull moment in Miromara. Seriously, though, the Traho thing sounds scary. You okay?
“I’m fine. It was scary. What about the others? Have you heard from them?”
Becca’s already crossed the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Ava’s in the Ceara Abyssal Plain. They’re fine. Baby is too, you’ll be happy to know.
“How could he not be? That monster-on-a-leash bites anyone who looks at him. What about Neela?”