“Well, in my eyes, it’s not. Also, I’ve never asked you this, but why have you always hated Coralline?”
“Because she and her family are beneath us.”
“It appears that everyone is beneath you, Mother, and no one beneath me.”
Ecklon had zipped his satchel and swum past her, but, just as he’d reached his bedroom door, she’d said sadly, softly, from behind him, “I’m still ill from the black poison. Don’t leave me, son.”
Trained to detect lies, he had not needed to turn around and look at her face to know she was lying—she was no longer sick; she was fine. “Father is here for you,” he’d said. “And your life and liberty are not at risk, but Coralline’s are.” Speaking to himself, he’d muttered, “I should have left with Coralline on her elixir quest for Naiadum; had I done so, she would not be in this situation.”
He had swept out of his room and to the front door, where he’d bumped into Rosette. She was wearing a lacy, bright-pink corset with a hem that ended at her navel. Batting her eyelashes at him, she’d said, “I made you a casserole set with carrageenan,” and she’d thrust the dish in his hands. Nodding politely, he’d been about to turn around to take the casserole into the kitchen, when she’d leaned forward and kissed him on the lips. He’d drawn back, looking at her with surprise. Then he’d swum into the kitchen, deposited the dish on the counter, and, to avoid bumping into Rosette again, had left his home through the back door rather than the front door. Accompanied by Menziesii, he’d swum straight to Hog’s Bristle, pausing not for a moment along the way.
A knock sounded at Tang’s door. Ecklon pulled it open.
A thickset merman with a square face hovered there. He was the loiterer, Wentle Varice, who’d given a statement to the Constables Department of Hog’s Bristle. It was he who had claimed to have seen Coralline’s hand wrapped around a dagger; it was he who had insisted she’d committed the murder—in other words, it was he who was responsible for the murder charge she was facing. Ecklon tightened his grip around his dagger; it took all his self-restraint to not point the dagger at Wentle. After all, it was he who had summoned Wentle here.
“I’m Ecklon Elnath, the detective on Tang Tarpon’s murder case,” he began coldly. “I read the statement you gave the Constables Department of Hog’s Bristle. Is there anything else you noticed? Anyone else you saw?”
“Yes.” Wentle gulped, eyeing Ecklon’s dagger. “There was another merman here with her. I didn’t get a good look at his face, but he had an indigo tail.”
Ecklon frowned. He could think of no one whom he or Coralline knew with an indigo tail. He would uncover the identity of this merman sooner or later, he knew, as he continued to investigate Tang’s murder. “Anything else?” Ecklon asked.
“No,” Wentle said, and left.
Ecklon closed the door. He saw Coralline’s small, golden drawstring pouch on the floor and picked it up. Holding it to his nose, he sniffed. It did not smell of anything, as he’d expected, but it still helped him remember the sweet fragrance of her.
He found himself thinking back to their first date, at the restaurant Alaria. It was her favorite restaurant, and he pretended it was his favorite as well, simply because it was her favorite. After their main courses—undaria for her, buttonweed for him—they’d shared a custard of devil’s apron, a saccharine kelp that had melted on their tongues. Their stone-sticks had accidentally bumped against one another in the bowl of devil’s apron, and Ecklon had found it to be the most strangely romantic of sounds. They’d lingered at their table long after finishing the agar-gelled dessert, taking their leave of Alaria only when the waitress had said apologetically that the restaurant was closing for the evening.
Ecklon had insisted on escorting Coralline home. They’d swum in a companionable silence, trailed above by Pavonis and below by Menziesii. After Ecklon had dropped Coralline at her door and was swimming back to his own home, Menziesii had told him that his silver tailfin had swayed in exact tandem with her bronze tailfin, as though their swim together had been not an informal amble but a synchronized dance. Ecklon, who’d never danced before, had laughed at the thought.
At their second date, at another restaurant, Lacerata, Coralline had worn a sky-blue bodice with cloud-white ribbons, and Ecklon had found himself unable to look away from her. In murder investigations, there was often an aha! moment; in his relationship with her, the aha! moment had arrived that evening. Asking him to tell her about his day, she had rested her chin on her hands and looked at him with her big blue-green eyes. As a detective, his purpose was to uncover truth in a world that lied constantly, seamlessly. There had been no guile in her gaze, he had found. He had seen the ocean itself in her eyes, and he had seen himself, as part of the ocean, as part of her. He had decided then that he wanted to marry her.
Ecklon touched his lips, hoping to remember his last kiss with Coralline, but the taste on his lips remained Rosette’s.
16
Silk
"Pavonis, can we please swim closer to the seabed?” Coralline asked, turning her head to look at him.
“No,” came the reply.
Izar looked at Coralline to his left and, past her, at Pavonis, to her left.
“But the surface is dangerous,” Coralline wheedled.
“No kidding. Thanks to humans.” Pavonis’s dark orb of an eye, the size of a golf ball, swiveled pointedly to Izar before returning to Coralline. “But we have to remain up here, because constables might be looking for you below. Right now, constables pose a greater danger to us than ships, so we won’t be descending to the seabed until we stop for the night, somewhere far, far away from Hog’s Bristle and on the way to Blue Bottle.”
Listening to Pavonis’s thumps along the walls of Bristled Bed and Breakfast, Coralline and Izar had followed the convoluted corridor to a broken-hinged back door. But the constables had spotted Coralline just as she and Izar were slipping out the door, and they’d given chase. Thanks to Pavonis’s swerving and maneuvering, they’d managed to lose the constables, but it had not been easy.
Izar looked at Coralline from the corner of his eye. Her rolled-up braid looked like an ant mound atop her ear, like a little pincushion, and the effect was not unpleasant, but Izar hated to look at it, for he knew the bruise it concealed. Her wrists were still pale blue from how tightly the carrot had clasped them. They must be sore, Izar thought, but Coralline seemed aware of any pain only subconsciously, when she massaged them at intervals.
He was aware of his shoulder pain much more consciously—he felt as though forks were stabbing the socket. On land, he would not have been aware of his shoulder pain the way he was in the water. When he swam in the water, it was primarily his head and shoulders that combated the force of water resistance for his body, just as, when he’d walked on land, it was primarily his legs that had combated the force of gravity for his body. But water resistance was not easy to combat—water was eight hundred times denser than air. As such, to swim with an injured shoulder was worse than walking with an injured leg.
“Are you a human or a turtle?” Pavonis growled.
Izar saw that he’d fallen slightly behind Coralline and Pavonis, and he swung his tail hard to arrive at their eye level, his hand covering his shoulder to soften the impact of water against it. Coralline looked at him but didn’t say anything.