Saiph sat in Antares’s black leather chair, behind Antares’s grand mahogany desk, in Antares’s office. Izar’s hands balled into fists—he had a mind to grab Saiph by the collar and hurl him out of the chair—but it was not Saiph’s fault, he reminded himself. It was Izar who had forced Antares out of his own office and put Saiph in.
Izar didn’t feel his legs stride across the cream carpet—they were silent wheels, conveying him to his hanging. He collapsed in the chair across from Saiph’s desk.
Saiph slid a glass of whisky toward him. Izar shook his head. He wouldn’t engage in the weekly ritual they’d both shared with Antares; he wouldn’t pretend things were as they had been, when they never would be again. “Any update on Zaurak or Serpens?” he asked hoarsely.
“I spoke with the Secret Search team just minutes ago. They have nothing.”
Izar nodded, then swallowed hard before blurting out the hardest words he’d ever uttered: “Did you call me here to request my resignation?”
“I wouldn’t accept your resignation, even were you to offer it.”
So, Saiph wished to humiliate Izar by firing him.
“I’ve always envied you,” Saiph said.
“What for?” Izar asked, his eyes widening with astonishment.
“Your mind. I’ve envied you ever since that day we met, when you built a precise replica of our family home, and I couldn’t.”
Izar’s ear caught on “our family home.” Saiph had never before indicated he considered it their shared home; he had always made Izar feel like an unwanted guest, especially after Maia’s death.
“I’m sorry,” Saiph said. The word seemed to have cost him something, for he tilted his head back and gulped down his full glass of whisky. He then looked Izar unflinchingly in the eye. “I’m sorry I made your life miserable. I’m sorry I never accepted you. I’m sorry for everything. Will you ever forgive me, brother?”
“Yes,” Izar said at length, though he continued to gape at Saiph. Then he found himself grinning from ear to ear. A brother. After twenty-five years of intersecting with a stranger, he would finally have a brother. He’d never even thought he wanted a brother until now.
“Good,” Saiph said. He leaned forward until his elbows rested on the desk, his navy-blue suit jacket taut over his shoulders. His hair, gelled back, glistened like a dune of sand. “I want you to join me in the role of president. I would like for us to be co-presidents of Ocean Dominion.”
Izar had always recognized that it was at his adoptive father’s company where he worked, and he’d always known that Antares watched over him as an invisible, omniscient god even through the many floors that separated them—but he’d deserved each of his previous promotions, for they’d followed on the heels of specific accomplishments. There was no reason for him to be promoted from vice president to co-president today. “I almost drowned the company,” he reminded Saiph.
“But you didn’t. And we both know it wasn’t your fault. It was an attack on your life, for goodness’s sake. I might well unintentionally drown the company, however, if I work alone. Our skill sets complement one another. I have the soft skills; you have the hard skills. I build connections; you build machines. You’re the motor of Ocean Dominion; I’m the grease. The company needs you. I need you. I know I’ll fail as president without you. I beg you to join me as co-president. Will you?”
“Yes!” Izar beamed. Whatever he’d expected in this meeting, it was not this. He’d been wrong about Saiph. He’d judged Saiph as an adult on the basis of his actions as a child.
“Good.” Relief swept over Saiph’s chiseled cheekbones.
Izar gulped down the whisky Saiph had poured for him, relishing the trail it burned from his throat to his belly. His only regret was that Antares was not here, with him and Saiph, at this moment.
“In a few months,” Izar said, “when the oil spill is old news, when reporters are chewing the bones of some other carcass, let’s find a way to bring Father back.”
Izar realized only belatedly that he’d referred to Antares as his father. When they were boys, Saiph had punched him every time he’d used the word, threatening also, “I’ll cut your tongue out if you ever call him Father again.” The word had assumed a ponderous, prophet-like quality for Izar since then; it had meant too much to actually pronounce.
Saiph sat back in his chair and smiled at Izar; he must have noticed Izar’s use of the word. “It’s a good idea to bring Father back,” he said agreeably. “We can be the Trio of Tyrants again!”
They chuckled.
“Let’s you and I reconvene here first thing in the morning to devise a strategy,” Saiph said. “Also, I’ve gotten your office cleaned for you.”
He was referring to the office Antares had had built for Izar two years earlier on this very floor—the office Izar had rejected in favor of remaining Zaurak’s neighbor in the basement, like a mole rat. Izar had foregone sunshine and status for the man who’d tried to kill him. His windowless underground office had been so dilapidated that he’d never thought to show it to Ascella. He would show her his new office next week, he decided.
“How’s Ascella?” Saiph asked.
“Well. We went to Yacht two days ago for her birthday. I got her a bracelet.”
“Are you planning on a ring as well?”
“How did you guess?”
“You’re more predictable than you think, Izar.” Saiph grinned. “I’m afraid I’ve taken after Father myself in the fidelity department!”
“Will you be my best man?” Izar heard himself ask.
“I’d be honored.”
Saiph stepped out from behind his desk and hugged Izar. They’d had a fragmented childhood, but they’d have a companionable remainder of their adulthood, Izar thought to himself. Side by side, they would conquer any challenges Ocean Dominion faced.
Coralline stared at the luciferin orbs traveling the ceiling, imparting a white-blue glow to her room. Just the day before yesterday, she’d explained to Naiadum how luciferin orbs worked. There were so many more things she wished to explain to him over the years, so many more bedtime stories she wished to read to him.
A sob broke out of her, and she pressed the palms of her hands into her cheeks to squelch its sound. But the stink of black poison was strong in her fingernails. Disgusted, she moved her hands away and pressed her face into the pillow.
She could not shake the images from her mind: her father crying after Rhodomela’s diagnosis, his shoulders quaking—not even when he’d lost his hand had he cried, yet he’d wept inconsolably at the thought of losing his son; her mother yelling, “It’s all your fault, Coralline! You promised you’d find him, then you forgot all about him!”
Coralline had become an apothecary so that she could save the lives of those she loved, but she was now no longer an apothecary, nor, even had she been, could she have done anything to save Naiadum—his was a fatal case. Prevention is always better than cure—that was the primary precept of apothecaries—but Coralline had neglected it. She alone had had the power to prevent everything that had happened. If only she’d found Naiadum instead of edging away upon Rhodomela’s arrival—like a coward. If only she’d screamed when she’d seen the band of blackness, instead of remaining silent—like a coward.
A thump sounded at her window. She turned to the shutters, her eyes round with alarm. Who could be visiting her after midnight, when all of the village lay in a perturbed sleep? The thump was pursued by another, then another, hard and insistent. She saw no choice but to answer the visitor, otherwise her parents, who’d fallen asleep only with difficulty, would wake up, their room adjoining her own. With a tremulous hand, Coralline pushed back her blanket and crept out of bed. Unfastening the shutters, she blinked through the horizontal slits.