Coco saluted.
But Serafina protested. “I can’t do that, Magistro. I have to get through these conchs as fast as I can. I’m going to work through the night, the day, and the next night too, if I have to.”
Fossegrim shook his head. “Too dangerous,” he said. “For you and us.”
“I have no choice. I need to find some very important information before Traho does.”
Fossegrim thought about this, then said, “Take two baskets with you. Put as many conchs as you can carry in them and bring them back here. It won’t be as quiet, but it will be safer.”
Coco grabbed a couple of baskets that were on the floor, then swam up to the trapdoor. Serafina picked up two lava torches and followed her, desperately hoping that First Minister Baltazaar could tell her what she needed to know.
“HE SUFFERS. A LOT,” Coco said as she and Serafina swam to Level Three. Both mermaids carried a basket in one hand and a lava torch in the other.
“Who?”
“Fossegrim. He hardly sleeps. Barely eats. He blames himself for everything that’s happened. For the destruction of the Ostrokon. For the theft of the conchs. Niccolo tells him there was nothing he could have done, but Fossegrim doesn’t listen.”
“Poor Fossegrim,” Serafina said. “My grandmother once told me how protective he was of the Ostrokon and its collections, even as a young ostroko. She said it was always clear that he would become a liber magus.”
Fossegrim had described Traho’s attack on the Ostrokon to Sera after he’d led her to the bunker. Several ostroki had been killed trying to fight him off.
“I bet Fossegrim didn’t tell you how hard he fought. Or what they did to him,” Coco said. “Traho’s soldiers beat him so badly, he lost consciousness. Then they left him for dead. Luckily, Niccolo and the others were hiding in the stacks. They waited until Traho left, then they dragged Fossegrim to the sub-basement. They saved his life. We’ve all been down there ever since. Teaching ourselves how to fight back. We named ourselves Black Fins in honor of Fossegrim. We enchanted our fins to match his. Outside, of course. You know how he is about casting in the Ostrokon.” She held up her tail fins. They were a deep, glossy black. “We’re doing pretty well,” she added, smiling proudly. “Cutting off the lava supply really screwed things up at the palace. Finding enough food is the hardest thing for us. I’m better than anyone else at it. I find a lot of stuff in the wrecked houses.” Her smile faded. “I find the owners sometimes too. But I’m getting used to dead people.”
“Why are you in the Ostrokon, Coco? Where’s your family?” asked Serafina.
“Gone.”
Serafina heard a catch in the merl’s voice. She glanced at her—in time to see her brush at her eyes.
“What happened?”
Coco shook her head. The gray sand shark who’d been following in their wake circled worriedly around her.
“Please tell me,” Serafina said, putting an arm around her.
“They came into the palace,” she said. “The death riders. They were rounding everyone up. My parents heard them coming and tried to protect us. My mother cast a transparensea pearl for me and told me to swim up to the ceiling. She was casting one for Ellie when the death riders broke the door down. Ellie was screaming. My mom, too. My dad tried to fight them off, but they beat him up. I watched it all happen. Then they took them.”
Coco was looking ahead into the dark waters as she spoke, but Serafina knew she wasn’t seeing anything nearby. She was seeing her family being brutalized.
“I was so scared,” Coco said. “As soon as the soldiers left, I swam out of the palace. I went straight to the Ostrokon, because it was the safest place I could think of. I hid on Level Four for days. I ate the food at the TideSide. Alessandra and Domenico found me.”
“I’m so sorry, Coco,” Serafina said, her heart aching for the child.
Coco nodded. “Come on, we should keep going,” she said, swimming off.
She doesn’t want me to see her cry, Serafina thought. Rage burned constantly in her heart these days, but once in a while—like now—it flared high. What had happened to Fossegrim and Coco were two more crimes to add to Traho’s tally. She would tell her uncle of them when he swam home with his goblin armies. Traho would pay for his crimes. Vallerio would make sure of it.
“We’re here. Level Three,” Coco said a few minutes later, shining her globe on the writing over the doorway. “We’ll need a sentry,” she added. “Abby, go keep an eye out up top, will you?” The little sand shark nodded. “Abelard’s the best lookout ever. He senses movement way before I do. If the death riders show up, he’ll be down here in two seconds flat.”