“Poor Lady Thalia,” Sera had said. “You must’ve been so lonely all this time with no one else to talk to.”
“Hardly! I have myself to talk to, my dear, and there’s no one more charming, or lovelier, more graceful, or wittier, or more captivating in every possible way than me.”
Like all vitrina, Thalia was a ghost. She had been in love with her own reflection while alive and now her soul was trapped inside the glass forever. She’d been haughty and silent when the mermaids first found her, but Serafina had flattered her so much that she’d finally deigned to speak with them. As long as the topic of conversation was her.
Serafina smiled at the mirror. “So, Lady Thalia…” she said.
“Mmm?” Talia said, fastening an earring.
“We need your help.”
“I thought you’d never ask!”
“Really? You’ll help us?” Serafina said excitedly.
“Yes. First, my dear, do something about that hair,” Thalia said. “Get a wig. Cast a spell. Anything. But fix it. Second, the black eye shadow has to go. And that outfit—simply unspeakable!”
“Um, that’s not the kind of help we had in mind,” said Ling.
“And you”—she pointed to Ling—“get rid of the sword. It’s unfeminine. Pluck those eyebrows. Put on some lipstick. And smile. Smiling makes you pretty.”
Ling glowered.
“Lady Thalia, thank you for all the wonderful advice. We’re very grateful for it. But we need a different kind of help,” Serafina said.
“We need to know about Orfeo,” Ling added.
“I don’t wish to talk anymore. Good-bye,” Thalia said, abruptly turning away.
“Lady Thalia, don’t go. Please,” Serafina pleaded. “If you don’t help us, many will die.”
Thalia slowly turned back to the mermaids. Her vapid expression had been replaced by one of fear. “I can’t! What if he hears me?” she whispered.
“He’s dead. Merrow killed him a long time ago,” said Ling.
“Are you sure?” Thalia asked, looking as if she didn’t believe them.
“Yes. But his monster—Abbadon—is alive. And it’s going to attack again. It’s going to do to others what it did to the people of Atlantis,” Sera explained.
Thalia shuddered. “It doesn’t feel like Orfeo’s dead. It feels like he’s still here, moving through the streets of Elysia like an ill wind. We locked our doors, shuttered our windows, but it did no good.”
“Tell us what happened,” Serafina said. She squeezed Ling’s hand, certain that they were on the verge of getting the answers they needed.
Thalia shook her head sadly. “He was so beautiful. You don’t call men beautiful, I know. But Orfeo was. He was tall and strong. Bronzed from the sun. Blond and blue-eyed. He had a smile that melted hearts. Every woman in Elysia was in love with him, but he loved only one: Alma, my friend. She was good and kind, as Orfeo himself was then, and he loved her more than anything in this world, or the next. They married and were very happy, but then Alma grew gravely ill and everything changed. Orfeo couldn’t accept that she would die. He was a healer and he used all his powers to save her, but it was no use. She suffered so terribly that she begged for death, saying it would be a relief….”
Thalia stopped to dab at her eyes, and Serafina saw that the memory of her friend’s death was still very painful, even after four thousand years.
“When Alma was near the end, a priest placed a white pearl under her tongue, as was the custom, to catch her soul as it left her body,” Thalia continued. “After she passed, her body was placed on a bamboo bier and floated out to sea where Horok—the ancient coelacanth, the Keeper of Souls—would take the pearl from her mouth and carry it to the underworld. But as the bier floated away, Orfeo, insane with grief, cried out to Horok, begging him not to take Alma. Horok told Orfeo such things cannot be. That’s when Orfeo went mad. He vowed to get Alma back if it took him a thousand lifetimes. He returned to his home and destroyed all his medicines. His frightened children ran to an aunt’s house. He hardly spoke to anyone in the months that followed, and barely ate or slept. All his energies went to building a temple for Morsa. When it was finished, he locked himself inside it.”
“Why?” Ling asked.
“To summon the goddess. To beseech her to teach him her secrets. He gave her everything he had—his wealth, his possessions, Alma’s stunning jewels, even his precious talisman, a flawless emerald given to him by Eveksion, the god of healing. I saw that emerald. It was beyond compare, a gift from a god, yet Orfeo destroyed it. It was said he ground it up and stirred it into the wine he gave to those he sacrificed. To tempt Morsa. Its powers made them healthy and strong, you see, and that’s how she liked her victims.”
“Lady Thalia, did you say sacrificed?” Serafina asked, feeling sick at the very thought. She remembered the bloodstain on Morsa’s altar. And the bloodsong. The voices she and Ling had heard—they were voices of human beings whose lives had been offered to the dark goddess.
“Yes, I did. He started with sailors and travelers,” Thalia said. “Those without families in Atlantis, those who wouldn’t be missed. Then he came for us. He came at night. No one knew he was doing it until it was too late. Until he was so powerful, no one could stop him.”
“But how could he have had such powers without his emerald?” Ling asked.
Thalia laughed. “Morsa gave him another talisman ten times more powerful—a flawless black pearl. It was her symbol, a mockery of the white pearls Horok used to hold souls. Morsa’s pearl held souls, too—the souls of those sacrificed to her. Orfeo gave her death, and in return she gave him her forbidden knowledge. It made him so powerful that he created Abbadon and declared he would use the monster to march on the underworld and take Alma back.”
Sera’s pulse was racing. She and Ling had just learned why Orfeo had created Abbadon. Even the Iele had not known that. The vitrina had also told them what one of the talismans was.
“Lady Thalia,” she asked excitedly, “did you ever see any of the other mages’ talismans?”
“Oh, yes,” said Thalia. “I saw all of them.”
“Can you tell us what they were?” Sera asked.
But Thalia didn’t reply. She was holding up a necklace and frowning at it.
Sera panicked. She knew how vitrina were—quite a few of them had lived in her own looking glass—and she knew they had short attention spans for any topic that wasn’t them. If Thalia grew bored with the conversation, she might simply drift deeper into the mirror. Sera didn’t want to have to dive in after her and risk coming across Rorrim Drol again.
“That necklace is gorgeous. It’ll bring out the golden flecks in your lovely eyes,” Sera quickly said, hoping to ply Thalia with more compliments.
Thalia gave her a preening smile. “Yes, it will. You’re so right, you know. About the necklace and my eyes.”
“I imagine the talismans were beautiful, too. You would recognize beauty, of course, being so beautiful yourself,” said Sera, desperate to keep her talking.
“Oh, they were!” Thalia said. “Merrow’s was called the Pétra tou Néria—Neria’s Stone. Merrow once saved the life of Neria’s youngest son, Kyr, you see. He’d taken the form of a seal pup and was attacked by a shark. She was wading in the waves at the time and saw the attack. She snatched him from the water and carried him to safety. Neria was so grateful, she bestowed a magnificent blue diamond on her. It was shaped like a teardrop. I saw it. It was dazzling. As was Navi’s talisman, a moonstone.”
“What did that look like?” Ling asked.
“It was silvery blue and about the size of an albatross’s egg. It glowed from within like the moon.”
“Just like your complexion, Lady Thalia,” Sera said.
She couldn’t believe their luck. Thalia knew what the talismans were—every one of them. Now all Sera had to do was listen to conchs on Merrow’s Progress, and she’d find out where they were. With so much information, they’d be way ahea
d of Traho.
“What was Sycorax’s talisman?” Ling asked.
But Thalia didn’t answer. She was no longer looking at the mermaids. She was looking past them, her eyes filled with terror.
“Go! Get out of here! Hurry!” she hissed.
The mermaids turned around. In the doorway stood six creatures. They were tall and humanlike, with strong limbs, humped backs, and thick necks. Their bodies were covered with scales like those of a komodo dragon. Red eyes stared out from under thick, bony brows. Tusks curved down from either side of their noses, the better to spear their prey. Black lips parted to reveal rows of sharp, spiky teeth.
“Dinnertime,” Ling said grimly. “And we’re on the menu.”
“THE MIRROR, LING,” Serafina said quietly. “We’ve got to swim into Thalia’s mirror.”
Ling nodded but didn’t answer. She couldn’t. She was singing a spell the Iele had taught them, an apă piatră. An Opafago rushed forward, hit the water wall Ling had created¸ and roared. The others started to batter against it with their large clawed hands.
“Come on!” Serafina shouted.
Ling swam backward to the mirror, keeping an eye on her water wall.
“I’ll go in first,” Serafina said. “Then I’ll pull you in after me.” She started to swim through the glass. As she did, a head popped up on the other side, round and bald.
“Darling merl!”
“Rorrim, please, you’ve got to let us in,” Serafina said.
“Actually, I don’t, but that’s beside the point. I have someone here who’s dying to see you.” He touched a finger to his chin. “Or was it that he wants to see you die?”
He stepped aside and Serafina saw another figure in the silver. Her blood turned to ice. It was the man with no eyes. He started toward her, a murderous expression on his face.
Sera was so frightened she could barely form words. “Ling…trouble,” she rasped.
Ling glanced over her shoulder. “Break the mirror!”
Sera knew that if she did that, the man would not be able to crawl out of the glass, because the pieces would be too small for him to fit through. But she also knew that they would never see Thalia again.
Vadus had few rules. The countess who lived inside Sera’s mirror had told her that some vitrina stayed within the bounds of their own mirrors; others wandered through the realm. Some spoke to the living; others refused to. There was, however, one law all were bound by: when a vitrina’s own mirror was broken, her soul was released from the glass.
“I can’t break it, Ling!” Sera cried. “We need Thalia! We need to find out what the other talismans are!”
“None of it matters if we’re dead! Do it, Sera! Now!”
The man with no eyes was closer. In a few seconds, he’d be through the glass. Sera had no choice. She slapped her tail against the mirror violently, smashing it. The pieces rained down on the floor. A hundred empty eye sockets stared at her from a hundred shards, then disappeared.
“Look for another way out of here!” Ling yelled.
The water wall buckled under the force of the Opafago. Ling sang the spell again to strengthen it. As she did, Serafina looked around the room, hoping to find a hole in the ceiling, or a crack in a wall. But there was nothing.
Then she spotted a narrow doorway half hidden behind a pile of rubble. “This way!” she shouted.
Ling followed, never taking her eyes off the cannibals.
There was a room on the other side, much bigger than the one they’d swum out of. It, too, was built of heavy stones and was intact.
Too late, they discovered that it was also a dead end.
Ling cast yet another apă piatră, concentrating her magic on the doorway. It was easier to block a smaller space, but the Opafago—slamming themselves against the water wall over and over again—were draining her strength.
“I can’t keep this up much longer,” she said.
Serafina sang a commoveo and used it to push against the walls, but the room was so solidly built, nothing happened.
“I’ll let the water wall down. They’ll all rush in. When they do, catch them in a vortex,” Ling said.
“I can’t! Any vortex big enough to catch them will catch us, too.”
“Getting tired here! We’ve got to do something!”
Serafina swam frantically around the room. She saw that she and Ling were in the baths proper now. There were no windows and the only door was the one they’d swum through. A large sunken square, once a pool, filled most of the room and butted up against its back wall. Sera spotted stone carvings on that wall—six ornate dolphin heads. Water had flowed through pipes to their mouths and into the pool.
“Oh, wow!” she said. “Ling, did you know that the Atlanteans were the first to figure out how to build aqueducts and bury pipes inside walls? I almost forgot that!”
“Are you kidding me? This is no time for a history lesson!” Ling shouted.
But it was.
The pipes would have water in them, given that they were currently under a great deal of it. And that water could be used for a vortex spell. It would cause an explosion. Which might blow a hole in the back wall, allowing them to escape—if everything went right. If everything went wrong, it would bring the entire bathhouse down on their heads.
Sera started to sing.
Water, cut off
From the sea,
Held here captive,
Same as me,
Whirl and spin
And heed my call,
Cause these ancient
Stones to fall!
At first, nothing happened, but then Sera heard water and sediment whirling inside the pipes. She sang the spell again, her voice growing louder. The pipes groaned. The old stones of the bathhouse rumbled. The water was spinning faster and faster, trying to spiral outward like winds in a tornado, but it couldn’t, and the ancient pipes screamed with the strain of containing it.
“Come on, Sera!” Ling yelled.
Sera sang the spell once more, with every bit of strength she had. As the last note rose, there was a deafening roar. The pipes exploded, taking most of the back wall with them. The force of the blast knocked Serafina to the floor and sent debris flying through the water, covering her in gravel and silt. She shook it off, got up, and looked for Ling.
Ling was weaving back and forth, dazed. A piece of debris had sliced her cheek. She’d dropped her apă piatră and the Opafago, dazed themselves, staggered through the doorway. Serafina grabbed her friend and pulled her through the gaping hole in the wall.
“Ling, can you swim on your own?” Sera asked. “We’ve got to make wake.”
Ling blinked. She shook her head to clear it. After a few deep breaths, she said, “Head for the surface. I hear a shoal. It’s an easy meal for the Opafago. If we can get above it, we might lose them.”
Serafina and Ling streaked up into the warmer, light-filled waters. Thousands of sardines, their scales flashing, were moving through the current. The two mermaids shot through the shoal, hearts pumping, lungs straining. Sera looked back to see all six of the horrible Opafago snatching fish with their clawed hands and pushing them into their mouths.
“Could’ve been us,” Ling said.
A minute later, both mermaids broke the surface. Ling, panting, shaded her eyes and looked around. “I see a cove over there,” she said, pointing west. “It’ll be evening soon. Maybe we can find a sea cave and hole up for the night.”
They swam silently for nearly half an hour. As they neared the cove, Sera noticed that Ling was cradling her bad arm.
“Are you okay? How are you feeling?” she asked her.
“I’m tired. Really, really tired,” said Ling.
“That was flat-out,” said Sera.
“Yeah, but it’s more than that. I’m tired of swimming for my life. Tired of Traho and cannibals and freaks in mirrors.”
“You forgot rotters, death riders, and rusalka,” Serafina added with a weary laugh.
; “I just want a bubble tea, you know? Coralberry. That’s my favorite flavor. I just want to hang with my friends. Go to a dance. Listen to the latest Dead Reckoners conch. Sleep in a comfy bed.” Ling paused, gazing at the horizon. “It’s not going to happen, though, is it?”
Sera looked at her friend. Blood from the cut on Ling’s cheek was dripping down her jaw. She was still holding her arm. This was their life now—violent encounters and narrow escapes. For a few seconds Sera was gripped by a feeling of unreality so strong, it made her dizzy.
The name of the band Ling had mentioned—the Dead Reckoners—echoed in her head. She remembered when she and Neela had found Mahdi and Yazeed, Neela’s brother, passed out in the ruins of Merrow’s palace after a night of partying. Yazeed, fibbing like mad, said they’d been to the Lagoon to see the Dead Reckoners. Sera couldn’t believe that had happened only a few weeks ago; it felt like a lifetime. Before the attack on her realm, she’d been a pampered princess. Now she was an outlaw with a price on her head, always on the swim, always in danger. The people she’d left behind: Yaz, Mahdi, her mother, her uncle and brother…she had no idea if they’d even survived.
She had no idea if she would.
“No, Ling,” she finally said. “It’s not going to happen.”
Ling sighed. “Guess we’ll have to make do with the cove, then. We should be safe there. I doubt anyone comes to these waters. Not with our hungry little friends in them. Whatever shelter we find probably won’t be much—”
“But it’ll be enough,” Sera said, her voice suddenly passionate. She turned to face her friend. “I don’t need bubble tea or a cushy bed, Ling. I lost everything I had, but I’m finding what I need. Like strength, courage…and most of all, merls who have my back. That’s enough. It’s more than enough. It’s everything.”
Ling smiled at her. “Yeah,” she said softly. “I guess it is.”