“Is everything all right, Cora?” he asked, his hands caressing her hair.
She told him about her firing from The Irregular Remedy, then about Rhodomela’s diagnosis for Naiadum. Her voice was dispassionate, the voice of a journalist stating facts, but tears trickled down her cheeks in contradiction.
“I’m so sorry,” he said softly. “But what are you doing here in the middle of the night, my love?”
“We’re embarking on a quest for the elixir to save Naiadum.”
“What? Am I dreaming?”
“You’re not, unfortunately,” Altair said. “I’m glad your stance seems to parallel mine. I only hope your influence exceeds mine.”
Ecklon looked about for the voice, bewildered. Coralline pointed out the seahorse, his head sticking out of her satchel. Altair looked somewhat embarrassed at his presence in the midst of their embrace.
“Cora, you’re forgetting who you are in the wake of the black poison spill,” Ecklon said, his gaze returning to her. “You’ve never left Urchin Grove before. You’re delicate—like the algae after which you were named—”
“I’m not delicate.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it in an offensive way. What I mean is that you’re fragile, feminine. You don’t know how to wield a dagger—”
“Tell me about it,” Pavonis commented dryly.
Ecklon looked toward the whale shark’s face in the window, then, turning back to Coralline, continued, “You can’t honestly believe the elixir exists. You have a scientific mind, Cora. The whole concept of the elixir is ridiculous—the magician, the starlight. Doesn’t it sound absurd even as I say it? I mean, The Legend of the Elixir is a children’s story—that’s because adults shouldn’t believe in such things. But for the sake of argument, let’s say that the elixir does exist. Even if so, no one has found it in our lifetime. What are the chances that you will find it, in the short time frame that you have? And if The Legend of the Elixir is true, that means the elixir comes accompanied by a curse—which is hardly something to be excited about. Finally, those who do try to find the elixir often die over the course of their quest. My point is: Don’t chase a legend. It’ll be equivalent to chasing your own tail—except imagine that your tail is equipped with a stinger, like a stingray’s. Please, I beg you, don’t venture out into the unknown and risk your life, all for nothing.”
“It’s not for nothing,” Coralline said, her voice as pleading as his expression. “It’s for Naiadum. I can’t just let him die. My only question is: Will you accompany me on the Elixir Expedition or not?”
Ecklon clasped her hands and held them to his heart. “I would like to accompany you on your quest, if only to keep you safe. But my mother has fallen sick in the aftermath of the black poison spill. I cannot abandon her.”
“How can you side with your mother over me!”
Coralline’s face flushed at her words. She was acting like a haranguing wife before she was even a wife. She had not told Ecklon what his mother, Epaulette, had said to her and Abalone during the engagement party. She found herself bristling at Epaulette’s words even at this moment, but this was not a time for pettiness, she told herself. Either way, Ecklon didn’t deserve to be punished for that unpleasant exchange.
“I’m sorry,” Coralline said. “I should thank you, not blame you. It was you who waded first into the black poison; it was you who located Naiadum. Of course, I understand completely that you want to stay here and care for your mother.”
Ecklon nodded and pulled her close. She fingered the rose petal tellin shell at her collarbone, the symbol of her engagement to him. It would serve as a memento of him during her quest, but it wouldn’t be enough. “Give me a portrait of you so I can look at it every time I miss you during the Elixir Expedition.”
He rummaged through a dresser drawer and returned with a miniature portrait. His face was somber in the little black-and-white sketch, his hard jaw softened by a vertical cleft in the chin. He formed just the image of a dashing detective, Coralline thought, as she tucked the portrait carefully in her satchel.
“I promise I’ll return as soon as I can,” she said, clasping hands with him again. “Can you do me a favor while I’m gone?”
“Anything.”
“Try to stay clear of Rosette. With me gone, she’ll be stalking you day and night, thinking this is her once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get you to pick her over me.”
He threw his head back and laughed.
“I’m only partially joking,” Coralline said, smiling.
“I must say, on the verge of marriage,” interjected Altair, “the two of you separating—I don’t like it.”
“I can’t wait to marry you, Ecklon,” Coralline said, trying to pretend they were alone.
“I love you, Cora.”
“I love you, too.”
He bent his head and kissed her, but she found the taste of his mouth disconcerting—it was the taste of finality.
Izar’s head throbbed, and his eyes opened groggily. Fog circled him in spectral gray wisps, and he shuddered in its grasp. The rail behind his shoulders was cold; he was half-sitting, half-leaning against it, every pore of his body soaking wet.
He tried to place his hands to either side of him and jump to his feet, but he couldn’t summon his hands. They were tied behind his back, he realized drowsily. But how was he even alive? When Alshain had pointed the gun at him, Izar had thought the giant would shoot him, but, instead, Alshain had knocked the butt of the gun against Izar’s temple. Where was the giant now?
A beard erupted through the fog, high above him, then dropped down to his eye level.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Izar sputtered.
“Yer tin is in this satchel.” Alshain held out a bag weaved of a stiff, murky-green fabric—an ocean variation of a duffel bag, it seemed. “The Ocean Dominion identification card I found in your pants pocket is also in here.”
Alshain dropped the satchel diagonally over Izar’s chest, such that the top of the strap rested on his right shoulder and the bag itself lay on his left hip. The giant tightened the strap over Izar’s torso. Only then did Izar look down to find that he was naked.
“I took yer clothes off because they’d get in the way,” Alshain explained.
“In the way of what? Drowning? You don’t want to waste a bullet on me, so you’re throwing me overboard to the sharks. Is that it?”
“The privates of merpeople are sheathed in their scales, ya know,” Alshain continued calmly, as though Izar hadn’t spoken.
“Why would I care to know that? Have you lost your mind?”
The hairy hands reached forward. Izar retreated into the rail behind him, despising the powerlessness of his position. But Alshain gripped Izar’s biceps and pulled him up to his feet as easily as though Izar were a sack of cotton. Then, with a single push, he shoved him out over the rails.
The moment of contact with water made Izar gasp and convulse from head to toe. Waves lashed him like cold whips, freezing the blood in his veins. He tasted salt on his lips, in his mouth, in his nostrils—harsh and tangy. It pricked his eyes like dozens of pins. He was facedown in the water, he realized belatedly. He knew how to swim, and his arms fought to loosen his hands from their binds, but couldn’t. Using the power of his shoulders, he managed to turn over onto his back.
He coughed out the salt water he’d swallowed, then inhaled cautiously. But just as his lungs began to inflate, a wave smashed over him. Waves crashed over him one after another in quick succession, pounding him mercilessly, like hammers over a nail.