Astrid felt strong arms lifting her body, taking her weight effortlessly. Pillows were plumped behind her, and she was eased back against them. Her head felt so heavy, but she managed to lift it and open her eyes. She saw that she was in her room in Shadow Manse. She was wearing a sea-flax nightgown and lying in a bed filled with soft black anemones.
Orfeo sat on the edge, his brow creased with worry. “Drink this,” he said, handing her a glass containing a heavy, murky green liquid. “I’d advise getting it down all in one go. It tastes terrible.”
Astrid knew she should be wary of the drink; Orfeo was capable of doing great harm. But she was in too much agony to care. She took the glass with trembling hands and swallowed its contents, grimacing as she did. It was terrible, but it was also effective. Her pain quickly receded.
As it did, Astrid found she could think again. Images came back to her. She remembered Orfeo’s hands on her throat, the frightening bloody taste in her mouth, and then agony.
“What happened to me?” she rasped, handing him the empty glass. “What did you do?”
Orfeo didn’t answer her right away. Instead, he brushed some hair out of her face and pressed his palm to her forehead, as tenderly as a fond father. When he’d satisfied himself that she was not feverish, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small dark object. He held it up, pinched between his thumb and forefinger, so she could see it.
Astrid peered at the object. It was a silver drupe. “I don’t understand,” she said, looking from the coin to him.
“You coughed this up,” he explained, placing the drupe on her palm. “It’s from the M?nenkager you ate when you were little. Remember how you told me that no one got the coin? You got it. You swallowed it, and it lodged in your voice box. It was pressed against your vocal cords, preventing them from vibrating in the way that they must for songcasting.”
Astrid was so stunned she couldn’t speak. All these years, all these sad, hard, lonely years, she’d thought that there was something wrong with her. Everyone had thought so. And all along, her inability to sing had been caused by a coin from a cake.
A question formed in her heart. Can I sing again? she wondered, but she tamped the hope down. She ached to know the answer but was terrified it might not be the one she wanted to hear. Instead, she coolly said, “That changes things.”
Orfeo smiled. He closed her hand around the coin. “It changes everything.”
He stood, then walked to a table on the far side of the room. Astrid’s belongings had been unpacked and laid out on top of it. He ran a hand over them—her backpack, her parka, her sword, her dagger…and her whalebone pipe.
As Astrid watched, he picked up the pipe and broke it over his knee.
“Hey!” she croaked, furious. “What are you doing?”
Astrid loved that pipe; it was her most prized possession. Becca had made it for her so she could express her magic even though she couldn’t sing, and now Orfeo had destroyed it.
“A pipe?” he said disdainfully. “For a child of Orfeo?”
Astrid continued to protest. She tried to get out of bed, but as she did, her head began to spin.
“Lie back down,” Orfeo ordered. “Sleep now. Your body needs to heal.”
“Can’t sleep…” she murmured, her eyes fluttering closed. “Have to…I have to…”
What? She had to do something, something very important, but what was it?
The medicine was making her drowsy. She shouldn’t have drunk it. The gods only knew what Orfeo had put in it.
She forced her eyes open. They came to rest on him, and the pearl strung around his neck. Morsa’s pearl—that was it. She was supposed to get the pearl. That’s why she’d come here.
She lurched forward. She would take it right now. She would snatch the pearl, grab her sword off the table, and escape from Shadow Manse.
But before she could even swing her tail out of her bed, exhaustion overpowered her. Her eyes closed. Her head lolled against her shoulder. She felt hands on her again. Orfeo’s hands, gentle and strong. They eased her back against her pillow.
“Rest, Astrid. Sleep.”
Yes, rest. She would rest first. Get her strength back. And then she would take the pearl.
“Soon,” she whispered, as sleep folded its black cloak around her. “I’ll get it, Sera, I promise…soon.”
GULDEMAR, CHIEFTAIN of the Meerteufel, was not amused.
He sat on his throne, which was cast in the image of Hafgufa, the fearsome kraken. Hafgufa’s iron coils supported him; her massive head, poised to strike, canopied his own. Legend had it that Meerteufel chieftains could summon the kraken in times of peril.
Stickstoff, head of the Meerteufel’s military, was doing most of the talking.
“You’ve come to ask us for more troops?” he drawled.
“Yes,” Serafina replied. “Fifty thousand.”