“The emerald!” Becca exclaimed.
“Exactly,” Ling said. “When Sera and I were in Atlantis, we talked to a vitrina. She told us that Orfeo destroyed his original talisman—an emerald given to him by Eveksion, the god of healing. He ground it up and put it into the wine of the people he sacrificed to make them healthy and strong.”
“But he didn’t destroy it. He couldn’t have,” Becca said. “The talismans are gifts from the gods and can’t be destroyed. He only changed its form.”
“So, Abbadon’s not only immortal, it’s powered by a talisman?” Astrid said in disbelief. “We’re chum, merls.”
She was at the front of the group, swimming backward as she talked, when suddenly a hand shot through the bars of a cell. Fingers wrapped themselves around her neck.
Astrid’s eyes widened in terror, a gasp escaped her. It felt as if those icy fingers had wrapped themselves around her heart.
“Hey, get away from her!” Neela cried.
She raced to Astrid and pried the fingers off her neck. As she was pulled clear of the cell door, Astrid could see a face pressed to the bars, framed by a mop of shaggy hair, frosted by ice. Dark eyes burned with malevolence. A vicious grin revealed a mouthful of rotten teeth.
“What is that thing?” she rasped, rubbing her neck.
“A ghost,” Sera replied. “The Carceron was in use right up to the destruction of Atlantis. There would have been prisoners in the cells when Merrow and the others herded Abbadon inside.”
“So they…they would’ve—” Ava started to say.
“Drowned,” Sera finished. “When Atlantis sank.”
“Wow. This just gets better and better,” Astrid said.
More faces appeared at cell doors. Astrid drew her sword.
A ghost saw it and chuckled deep in his throat. “What are you going to do, mermaid? Kill me?”
“Stay clear of the cells,” Sera ordered her friends. “Swim in the center of the corridor. Becs, keep a tight grip on Ava.”
As the mermaids swam past cell after cell, the ghosts inside called to them, trying to get them to come close, promising them that they would soon become ghosts, too. Looking up ahead, Astrid could see that the corridor ended in a T. She was relieved when they finally reached the end of it.
“Which way, Sera?” she asked.
“To the left, I think.”
“Um, nope. Not happening,” Astrid said, pointing down the hall.
Three ghostly men stood there. Their chests were bare, and they wore wrap skirts of linen pleated in the front, leather belts, heavy bronze bracelets, and menacing expressions.
“Guards,” Sera said. “This way,” she ordered. She darted to the right, then stopped dead. Another group was blocking the way.
As Astrid tried to figure out what to do, both sets of guards walked toward the mermaids, forcing them back to the center of the T.
“We’ll have to swim back the way we came,” she said.
But before they could, the guards on the left grabbed hold of a massive iron lever jutting from the wall. They threw their weight on it, pulling it down.
There was a deep groaning sound, and then the heavy scrape of stone against stone. The entire prison seemed to shake. Cracks appeared in the floor, and the corridor the mermaids had just swum down rose, forcing the mermaids up with it. The guards disappeared from view. With a booming thunk, the moving corridor slotted into its new position, and instead of staring at a stone wall, the mermaids found themselves looking down a new passageway.
“What happened?” Ava asked.
“The guards shifted the hallway. They’re driving us farther into the labyrinth,” Sera explained.
Astrid peered into the murky waters ahead. There were more cells, with more ghosts inside them, but no free-roaming guards.
“We’ve got to be on the lookout,” Becca said. “Ava, you’re going in the middle. Everyone else form a circle around her.”
The group made its way down the new corridor, and two more, before running into guards again. Just as before, the guards pulled a lever, but this time they lowered the corridor.
“They’re herding us,” Sera said. “Toward the courtyard.”
“Becca was right,” Ling said. “Abbadon wants to get us into an open space. So it’s easier to kill us.”
“And we still have no idea how to kill it,” Sera said.
“We better come up with something fast,” Neela said. She pointed ahead with her sword. A wide doorway yawned ahead of them. Light poured in from it. “There’s the courtyard.”
THE SIX MERMAIDS swam up to the doorway cautiously, weapons raised. When they reached it, everyone but Ava looked around, their eyes scanning the high walls, the remains of a fountain, hills of ice, but they saw nothing.
“It’s got to be here,” Sera whispered. “It led us here.”
Then they heard it: a short, sharp sound, like a shot. It sounded like ice cracking. Or glass.