Coralline looked at the buildings rising from the seabed all around her, the tallest among them more than twenty stories. Apartments, a novelty to her, were rather like shelves, she thought, except that instead of books, they housed people. Another intriguing aspect of Blue Bottle was its luciferin lampposts, which Coralline had never seen before. Luciferin lampposts were just like luciferin lanterns, except that their rods were long—at least twice her own length—and several large orbs dangled in clusters from each rod. Luciferin lampposts rendered the city bright despite the late hour.
Coralline swerved around a building called Needle-to-the-Sky, shaped like a column of beads, and she swam into the clearing where she had left Izar, Pavonis, Altair, and Nacre. Izar lay unconscious on the seabed, his face gray and his jaw taut, suggesting that he continued to suffer within even while he remained still without. His scales were neither indigo nor bleached, but, strangely, a shade in between—lilac—as though he was lingering mercilessly between life and death. Coralline pressed two fingers to the side of his throat; his pulse was so low, she had to close her eyes to hear it.
“Do you think he’s going to die?” Pavonis asked in an exuberant voice.
“Yes,” Coralline said, with a twinge of sadness. “I actually can’t understand why he’s not already dead, given that I accidentally gave him desmarestia.”
When she had risen from her faint, she had buried his platinum chip among the pebbles. Pavonis had suggested burying Izar with his chip, but Coralline had grasped Izar’s hand and dragged him to Blue Bottle with her. She didn’t want him to die alone.
“There’s no vacancy in any hotel,” Coralline told Pavonis now. “I’ll have to sleep here with all of you.”
“You’re reduced to homelessness!” Altair gasped, from somewhere in Pavonis’s shadow. His voice shrinking to a moan, he continued, “How I will ever face your father again, I can’t imagine.”
“Don’t worry,” Pavonis said. “I’ll remain awake all night.”
Coralline had disliked Bristled Bed and Breakfast, but at least it had provided a roof over her head. Now she felt a little like a lobster as she tried to settle among the rocks. She found solace in the luciferin lamppost directly above her, yet it also seemed to be spotlighting her homeless condition. In Blue Bottle, there were few loiterers—in contrast to the many she’d seen in Hog’s Bristle—but there seemed an abundance of constables. They were easily recognizable, wearing deep-purple waistcoats with the circular black seal of the Under-Ministry of Crime and Murder. She’d passed three constables already.
Turning her face away, she had rushed past each of them. The Constables Department of Blue Bottle might already have her details, including her portrait, from the Constables Department of Hog’s Bristle. They might already be on high alert for her.
Coralline could not afford to sleep; no, she’d better be prepared to dash away at a moment’s notice. She would remain awake all night, vigilant, alongside Pavonis, she decided. She fixed her attention on the luciferin lamppost above her, with its half-dozen immense orbs. Her gaze swung from one orb to the other, then back again, as over stars in a constellation. As long as she stared at them, she could stay awake. She tried to recall passages from Venant Veritate’s The Universe Demystified; that would help her remain awake. . . .
“Coralline!”
Her eyes snapped open. The voice was Pavonis’s. She followed the direction of his eye.
A merman hovered at the outskirts of the clearing. He had a gray tail, towering shape, and bulbous nose. His waistcoat was a deep-purple color. He was a constable, here to capture her! Coralline bolted upright, her hands over her heart. But as she continued to look at him, she saw that his waistcoat was not deep purple but a glistening navy blue—the kind of waistcoat a merman might wear to supper at a nice restaurant.
An aquamarine-tailed mermaid hovered next to him. She was dressed like Coralline had been at her engagement party—in a high-necked bodice shimmering with sequins, except that hers were red and green rather than the orange and purple Coralline had worn. Abalone had said she’d designed the bodice after the latest fashion in Blue Bottle—it seemed true.
“My name is Limpet Laminaria,” began the merman, “and this is my wife, Linatella.” His voice was aloof, formal, a voice of obligation rather than warmth. “We live just here.” His hand beckoned to the building Needle-to-the-Sky. “Are you in need of a place to stay the night?”
“Yes.”
“You’re welcome to stay with us, in that case,” said Linatella.
“Thank you!” Coralline beamed.
Deneb Delphinus read the press release yet again, but he still could not make sense of it.
Izar Eridan, co-president of Ocean Dominion, has died. Saiph Eridan will be the sole president of Ocean Dominion from this date forward.
“I am more saddened by my brother’s loss than anyone can ever know,” Saiph Eridan has stated. “We are still uncovering the details of Izar’s death. They will be shared as soon as they are available. . . .”
Deneb himself had saved Izar twice—yanking him out of the path of the falling derrick on Dominion Drill I and grabbing his arms the next day to prevent him from plummeting through the borehole. How could Izar have died?
Shaking his head, Deneb dropped the press release into the bulletproof tank of water below the platform under his feet, as though drowning the announcement would make it disappear. The paper floated away from Castor.
Deneb found the robot terrifying—the most lethal thing he had ever laid eyes on. His hands were clammy to even stand above Castor, for he had the sense that he was standing above a time bomb. No one had told Deneb this Invention Chamber belonged to Izar, but he had known it from the scar along Castor’s jaw, matching Izar’s own.
Why me? Deneb asked himself. Why do I have to be here?
He had not been given a reason. He had been summoned to a manager’s office, handed a new identification card, and told to guard the contents of the room on the floor B2. As soon as he’d entered the room, he’d understood why it needed guarding—not just because of Castor but because the room was highly flammable, with hundreds of flasks of combustible chemicals lining the walls. The place was an underground explosive device, a dynamite bomb of sorts. If it fell into the wrong hands, Ocean Dominion could burn to the ground.
And so Deneb found it ironic that he’d been told to guard it, for his were the wrong hands.
He traced a finger over the mermaid tattoo across his forearm. He had gotten the tattoo because he thought mermaids were beautiful. And he’d joined Ocean Dominion because he wanted to see a mermaid. But, despite all his trips on the waters, despite perching like a gull on the rails for long hours, he hadn’t yet seen a single mermaid in his two months at the company. They dove down at the sight of ships—they considered humans the enemy. And his fellow crewmen considered him a fool, mocking him for his tattoo.
Deneb descended the ladder to the side of the tank of water. Earlier, it had been difficult for him to even walk in this Invention Chamber, with all the landmine-like tripping hazards everywhere—rounds of bullets, ores of iron, sheets of magnesium. He had tidied the place up, feeling rather like a laboratory assistant. Now, in the cleared space, he strode to the shelves of combustible chemicals.