Sera moved to Neela and took her hands. Neela’s bioluminescent skin had turned sky blue. “Our shining star. Our moon and sun,” she said to her best friend. “You kept me going when I’d lost everything. You keep us going now. You lift our spirits and our hopes. We’re about to swim into the heart of darkness. Daughter of Navi, keep the light before us. Please.”
And then there was only Astrid. Sera looked into her eyes and was silent for a moment. When she finally spoke, Sera’s voice was full of feeling. “You were my enemy when we first met back in the Iele’s caves. Now you’re my friend. We were both afraid—of each other, of ourselves. Now we’ve learned to make fear our ally, to listen to it. I’m listening now, Astrid, and it’s telling me that the greatest mage who ever lived created Abbadon and that it’s so powerful, that one of us, or all of us, might not come back out of the Carceron. But it’s also telling me that we’ve got the daughter of Orfeo at our side. If anyone can understand his creation, it’s you. And if you can understand it, you might be able to defeat it.”
Sera held her hands out. Everyone else did, too. As soon as the last hands had been clasped and the circle closed, Sera felt it—a rush of power as strong and unstoppable as a tidal wave. She looked at her friends, at the brave, stubborn, hopeful mermaids beside her. She remembered Mahdi and Desiderio back home in Miromara, and her heart swelled with love.
She let her eyes linger on each of their faces. Then she took a deep breath and said, “It’s time.”
The six mermaids released one another’s hands and swam to the gate.
Yazeed was there, his tail bandaged. Styg and R?k were with him. “Let us come with you,” he said.
Sera shook her head. “No, Yaz. It started with us; it finishes with us.”
Steeling herself for the biggest battle of her life, she swam inside the prison.
A SCHOOL OF ICEFISH, scaleless and silvery, drifted by the six mermaids as they made their way across the open corridor behind the prison’s high exterior wall.
“This was called the Death Run,” Sera said, gesturing to the passage. “According to the conchs I listened to about Atlantis, there were guards with crossbows patrolling on top of the walls. If a prisoner escaped from his cell, he still had to make it across the Death Run. But no one ever did.”
“I wonder if we’ll make it across the Death Run,” said Astrid.
“The cellblocks are behind that,” Sera continued, pointing to the prison’s inner wall “They were built like a labyrinth to confuse any escapees. Guards used a series of levers to shift the hallways and staircases every day.”
“Abbadon could be anywhere in there,” said Becca.
“There’s a courtyard in the center of the cellblocks where the prisoners could exercise. It has a domed ceiling made of thick panels of glass set into metal frames. If I were an enraged homicidal monster, I’d try to lure us there,” Sera said.
“Why?” Ava asked.
“Easier to kill us. More room,” Becca said.
Sera nodded.
“So, I guess that’s where we’re headed,” Neela said with a sigh. “Because why stop swimming straight into the jaws of death now?”
“Any idea how to get inside?” Ling asked.
“The entrance is there,” Sera said, pointing at an arched doorway. “We’ll have to figure out the way to the courtyard once we’re inside.”
The six friends all cast illuminatas as they swam through the doorway. Becca hooked arms with Ava.
“If we’re going to defeat Abbadon, we have to find its weak spot,” Sera said, leading the way down a dark, narrow hall. “Astrid, did Orfeo tell you anything about Abbadon while you were with him?”
“Like how to kill it?” Astrid asked, sardonically. “No. He kept me busy practicing songspells pretty much nonstop.”
“While I was Lucia’s prisoner—” Sera began.
“Wait…what?” Astrid said.
“I’ll give you the details later, but I spent some time in Alítheia’s den—”
“Miromara’s big scary bronze spider?” Astrid asked. “The same who I saw clanking through the camp?”
“That’s her,” Sera said. “She told me that Abbadon’s made of immortal souls.”
“Immortal souls. As in, can’t die. Ever. Which means there is no weak spot,” Astrid said. She sighed. “Is it too late to change my mind about this?”
“Abbadon is so powerful. If only we knew where its strength comes from, we might be able to block it,” Becca said.
The mermaids fell quiet as the cells loomed into view. Their doors were made of iron bars sunk deep into the stone walls. Large padlocks secured them. The illuminatas did little to dispel the gloom.
“Maybe the souls give Abbadon its power,” Ava said, resuming the conversation.
“And a talisman,” Ling added.
“But it doesn’t have a talisman. There are only six,” Neela countered. “The black pearl’s still on Orfeo, and Coco has the other five.”
“No, there was one more,” Ling reminded them. “Orfeo had a talisman before he had the black pearl.”