“No, she’s not,” Des countered. “He wants her dead. She’s a threat to Lucia. Portia was about to order Sophia to kill her.”
“Then where’s the body?” Becca asked. “Why isn’t it here?”
Desiderio didn’t have an answer.
“Why would Vallerio have an assassin kill Sera here, then drag the body back to Cerulea and risk discovery?” Becca continued. “He’s always said he placed his daughter on the throne only because Sera was killed during the invasion of Cerulea. If the Miromarans were to find out differently, there would be protests, maybe uprisings. He doesn’t want that.”
“Okay, say Vallerio didn’t kill Sera,” Yazeed allowed. “Why did he take her?”
“Because our fake-out worked too well,” Becca said ruefully. “Vallerio believes we’re going to attack Cerulea. He wants to stop us.”
“He’s using her as a shield,” Yazeed said.
Becca nodded. “I think so,” she said. “I bet he contacts us soon to tell us he’s got Sera and he’ll kill her if we attack.”
“How do we get her back?” Neela asked.
“By attacking Cerulea,” Becca declared.
“What?” Neela exclaimed. “You just said Vallerio would kill Sera if we did that!”
“Only if he sees us coming. What if we launched a surprise attack?” said Becca.
“Becca, dude, have you, like, lost your mind?” Yazeed asked. “There’s no way to spring a surprise attack on Cerulea. The city’s high up, and we’d be moving thousands of soldiers toward it. Vallerio’s scouts will see us coming days before we get there, and—”
Becca cut him off. “What if the scouts couldn’t see us? Until it’s too late. It happened once before. At the invasion of Cerulea.”
Becca’s words hung in the water. She knew her idea was bold and daring, and almost impossible to pull off. What would the others think? The friends all looked at one another, their eyes asking the same question: Can we actually do this?
“It’s genius, Becs,” Ling said decisively. “We’ll use Vallerio’s own move on him.”
“We could surprise him the same way he surprised my mother—by using terragogg ships,” added Des, his voice eager now, instead of angry.
“Our troops are ready to go to Cerulea,” Ling said, with a mirthless smile. “Sera planned to tell them it was all a fake-out. Guess it’s not anymore.”
“Wait! What about Mahdi?” Neela asked. “If we attack while he’s there, he could get hurt in the fighting.”
“We could get word to him of our plans,” Ling said.
“Can we get a courier there in time?” asked Neela.
“We don’t need to,” Des said. “We’ll attack the day of his wedding. That’s the day he’s supposed to escape from Cerulea. The plan is for him to have a big bull shark party the night before, for all his merman friends. He’s going to pretend to overdo it, and then say he’s really sick the following morning. While everyone thinks he’s sleeping it off, he’ll cast his transparensea pearl and haul tail. We attack later that day, while everyone else is in the palace getting ready for the wedding, and capture the whole rotten bunch.”
“Mer? You’re forgetting one pretty major thing,” Yazeed said. “We don’t have Rafe Mfeme, or Orfeo, or whatever he calls himself, helping us. We don’t have his access to gogg ships.”
Becca had been quiet while the others deliberated her idea. She’d been arguing, too—with herself. She looked at her fellow Black Fins now and said, “Maybe we do.”
“WAKE UP,” a voice commanded.
It was cold, the voice. As cold as a blizzard wind.
Sera forced her eyelids open, groaning in pain. The heat of the sea scorpion’s venom still burned inside her. It was agony to move, to breathe.
She remembered things…Mahdi’s voice, his face…a long journey…the scorpion forcing her to eat…
Little by little, her vision cleared. She realized she was sitting in a chair. In a room. Her room. She recognized the mica panels, the furniture, the anemones on the walls.
I’m hallucinating, she thought. It’s the venom. She closed her eyes again.
“I said, wake up!”
This time the command was followed by a hard, stinging slap.
Sera gasped. Her eyes flew open. Her hand rose tremblingly to her cheek.
Lucia Volnero was right in front of her, leaning on the arms of the chair. Her hair, long and loose, plumed around her head. Her face was only inches away. Sera could see her sapphire eyes gleaming with malice.
Lucia smiled. “That’s better,” she said, straightening. “So, you met my maligno,” she added, pointing at the creature floating motionlessly in a corner. “Isn’t he a perfect likeness? It took him quite a long time to do his job. I was worried you’d die on the way back and spoil my fun, so I cast a velo to speed his return.”
“Why…why are you—” Sera struggled to speak.
Lucia cut her off. “Because you enchanted Mahdi, and I plan to break that enchantment.”