“I didn’t…cast an enchantment…” Sera murmured. It was so hard to make words come. But it didn’t even matter. Lucia wasn’t listening.
“You tricked him. And then forced him to spy for you and your shabby little resistance. But I’m going to free him by killing you. It’s the only way to truly make him mine.”
“Lucia, no…” The mermaid was as evil as her parents. She was going to murder her in cold blood. “Please…don’t do this…”
“I won’t. I’d just plunge a knife through your heart, and that would be too easy a death. I want you to suffer. A friend of mine’s going to see that you do. Give her my best.”
Sera made one last desperate attempt to escape. She rose from the chair and took a few, faltering strokes, but then, overcome by pain, she collapsed to the floor. As she rolled onto her back, the room started to swirl. She could see the chandelier above her. It seemed to come alive before her eyes. Its bronze arms, green with corrosion, became as fluid as an octopus’s tentacles.
Now Sera knew she was hallucinating.
“It’s over, Serafina,” Lucia said triumphantly. “I win, you lose.”
She barked an order at the maligno, and seconds later, Serafina felt it take hold of her arms and yank her up off the floor. She fought it, clawing at it. Her fingers gouged its cheek. Instead of blood flowing from the wound, silt poured out.
Sera screamed.
“Sicario, do your work,” Lucia said.
The sea scorpion scuttled out from under a table and cruelly stung Serafina again.
There was pain, white and blinding, and then Sera dimly felt the maligno throw her over his shoulder, as if she were nothing more than a sack of garbage. The pain grew. The paralysis took over.
The last thing Sera saw was Lucia’s cruel, mocking smile. The last thing she felt was Lucia tugging at her hand.
And then there was nothing. Nothing at all.
BECCA, A HOOD PULLED up over her red hair, swam up to the door of the ancient palazzo. With a wary glance around, she lifted the heavy iron knocker and let it drop.
Tiny sand smelt, spooked by the sound, darted for cover, their bodies flashes of silver in the murk. Slender pipefish hid in clumps of seaweed. A squid vanished in a cloud of ink. The noise echoed loudly down the current. Becca winced, worried that she’d alerted an enemy to her presence. She waited, nervously flipping her tail fins, but no one answered.
“This must be the place,” she said to herself. Though it was well past midnight, lights from the human city above penetrated the dark water of the Lagoon deeply enough that Becca could see the whole of the palazzo’s ornate front. It matched Neela’s description.
Built of white marble, with a tall, Gothic doorway, the palazzo’s facade also boasted a carved relief of the goddess Neria, and a frieze of sea flowers, fish, and shells.
On either side of the heavy doors were stone faces with blind eyes and open mouths. Neela said the faces had spoken when she and Sera had been taken to the palazzo by the Praedatori. They were silent now.
Had she come all this way for nothing?
Her friends’ voices echoed in her head. They’d tried to talk her out of this.
“It’s too much of a long shot,” Neela had said.
“It’s way too dangerous,” Yazeed added.
“What if you get caught?” Desiderio asked.
And then Ling had spoken. “They’re right, Becs. It’s a pretty desperate plan, but it’s also all we’ve got.”
Becca had left the Darktide Shallows, and her friends, and had swum for days until she reached a goblin village. She’d found a mirror in the vacant home of a wealthy goblin family, and she’d swum through it into Vadus.
Rorrim Drol had spotted her there, but not before she’d gotten directions to a mirror in the Lagoon from one of his vitrina. She managed to escape Rorrim, and only moments ago, she’d swum out of that mirror and into a nearby mer dwelling. Luckily the mirror’s owner was not in the room at the time, and she was able to hurry out of an open window before she was discovered.
Becca had to get inside the palazzo. Rumors had been circulating that the Praedatori were finally regrouping. Some of them had been spotted in the Lagoon. There could only be one reason for that: their leader was back in Venice, and they were returning to his home—their old headquarters.
Marco had told Becca that he’d left his family’s palazzo because it was too dangerous for him to be there. She desperately hoped he’d come back. But even if he wasn’t there, maybe she could leave a message for him with one of the Praedatori, asking him to come to the Kargjord. The Black Fins had only the slimmest chance of rescuing Sera—and Marco was it.
Becca knocked once more now, but again no one answered.