A thump sounded at the window.
She turned her head sharply, her heart in her throat. But then she remembered: Pavonis had said he would visit. She moved toward the central of the three tiny windows, extended a hand through, and felt soothed when her fingers found his snout. Luciferin orbs needed oxygen to glow; she needed him.
“The nefarious human’s windows are closed, but I’ll speak softly in case he overhears.” In a voice just above a whisper, Pavonis continued, “Do you have Tang Tarpon’s invitation to the Ball of Blue Bottle, or does he?”
“I do.”
“Good. It’s the guiding clue we have on our elixir quest at this stage. Izar has served his purpose by getting you through Tang’s door, just as we’d planned. We don’t need him anymore. In the morning, I’ll tap on your window to wake you up, and we’ll leave Hog’s Bristle without him. When he wakes up, he’ll find all of us gone.”
“But it doesn’t feel right to abandon him,” Coralline said hesitantly.
“Doesn’t it? Not only is he a human, but he’s a human competing with you for the elixir. Do you think Mintaka has a shop full of elixirs, one for each visitor? I think not. And you must get the elixir instead of Izar. Our only goal at this stage is to save Naiadum—not to worry about whether Izar will get his hideous legs back. But that’s not the only reason I want to be rid of him.”
“What else?”
“As I told you when we met him, I wouldn’t take my eye off him. And I didn’t. I kept one eye trained on him practically continuously throughout the day. There’s something he’s not being honest about; I feel it in my bones. He’s keeping a secret from us, one that would change everything.”
“If you say so.” Coralline yawned.
“Fine, don’t believe me. Who do you think killed Tang?”
“I can’t imagine. But it related to his elixir curse: Beware of the serpent. Oh, Pavonis! When I was trying to save Tang, I was worried about being in defiance of the Medical Malpractice Act; I never once thought there might be a murder charge against me.”
“Has Ecklon told you the investigative process for murder cases?”
“Yes,” Coralline said, picturing Ecklon as she spoke. “If that loiterer truly suspects me of murder, he’s required by law to visit his local Constables Department within twenty-four hours and fill out a form with my colors—black hair, blue-green eyes, bronze scales. With the form in hand, the constables of Hog’s Bristle would visit the local branch of the Under-Ministry of Residential Affairs and sift through the Register of Residents of Hog’s Bristle. They would make a list of all mermaids in Hog’s Bristle with my colors. Only upon ruling out each of them would they move on to mermaids from other settlements.”
“Phew. That means we have time on our side. Constables may take a few days to even start investigating the mermaids of Hog’s Bristle, let alone finish.”
“Yes, but if they were to somehow come in possession of my name, that would change the nature of the investigation. With my name in hand, they would find my details in the Register of Residents of Meristem, including my home address and portrait. They would share my information with all Constables Departments across Meristem. In that case, I would be safe nowhere—because they would have my portrait, constables would be able to recognize me from one look at my face.”
“That won’t happen,” Pavonis said quietly. “But, for the sake of argument, let’s say it does. Let’s assume the worst-case scenario: that you’re found guilty of Tang’s murder. What then?”
“Then I’ll spend the rest of my life in the Wrongdoers’ Refinery.” Coralline shuddered.
She’d never been inside the Wrongdoers’ Refinery but had heard plenty about it from Ecklon. The prison windows were tiny, he had said, and there were five bars across every window, like gill slits across the neck, to make escape all but impossible.
“Can we pin Tang’s murder on Izar?” Pavonis suggested.
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Coralline said, both impressed and perturbed by his thinking. “But I was seen holding the dagger, so I can’t see how we’d pin it on him. At worst, because he was with me, he would be considered an accomplice. But even if constables were to catch him, they wouldn’t be able to find any information about him in the Register of Residents of Meristem. If unable to identify him, they would have to release him within twenty-four hours. It’s a law of the Under-Ministry of Crime and Murder, Ecklon told me, called the Identification and Anti-Detention Act.”
“What a tragic law. Anyhow, enough of crime and murder for one night. What do you think you’ll learn at the Ball of Blue Bottle?”
“I don’t know. Tang was stabbed mid-sentence, just as he was about to utter the name of the merman we should meet at the Ball.”
“That’s too bad, but I hope you’ll be able to identify the merman once you get to the Ball.”
“I hope so, too.”
“Regardless, our mission now is to get to the Ball. Blue Bottle is a long distance south, and the Ball is in only three days. Be prepared to swim energetically tomorrow.”
With that, Pavonis departed, and Coralline fastened the shutters across all three windows.
15
A Dagger
A thump sounded. Again and again.
Coralline sat up in bed. The blanket around her was not the lush, black-and-white one of her bedroom but a scratchy, stuffy, mildly odorous thing—she was not at home but at Bristled Bed and Breakfast. She darted to the shutters of the central window and tugged the pane open.
“Took you long enough!” Pavonis hissed. The waters behind him, the little of them that Coralline could discern behind his girth, were not yet bright—the time of day was early morning. “There’s a problem,” he pronounced. “A big problem.”
“What?”
“Constables. They’re here, looking for you.”
Coralline’s heart skipped a beat then resumed at a frantic pace. “What do you mean—”
“Who saw the constables first?” said Nacre, crawling onto the windowsill from the exterior wall.
“Nacre was the first to see the constables,” Pavonis acknowledged impatiently, “and she alerted me. The constables swam into the lobby of Bristled Bed and Breakfast and spoke to the concierge, a different merman than the one last night—a fortunate thing, otherwise he might have directed them straight to your room. I can’t fit anywhere, but I asked the Minions to enter the lobby through a window and eavesdrop on the constables—”
“Asked? More like ordered!” a voice protested. Coralline couldn’t see him, but Altair’s voice was coming from somewhere in Pavonis’s shadow, at the level of the seabed. “I eavesdropped not because I enjoy stooping to the level of snoop,” the seahorse continued, “but as a sacrifice for the good of the team.”
“Stop pretending you’re above everyone and everything, Pole Dancer!” Nacre scoffed. “I, for one, am loud and proud about my two interests in life: snooping and snoozing.”