While Izar had waited in the living room, Linatella, a hair dresser by profession, had helped Coralline get ready for the Ball, twirling her hair elaborately over one shoulder and embedding little pewter shells throughout its length like stardust.
Izar straightened the lapel of his own waistcoat, which, come to think of it, looked like a spaceship tuxedo. He’d never dressed to match a date before and would generally have laughed at such foppishness, but he’d gotten himself a waistcoat with a silver-sequined lapel to match Coralline’s corset.
He had pondered it all afternoon, but he’d been unable to figure out what to make of the past between him and Coralline—the oil spill and reef blast—and the future—which would feature Castor. Giving up, he’d decided to think about it another time.
Next to him in The Cupola, Coralline absentmindedly fingered the pale-pink shell at her throat. “Why do you always wear that shell?” Izar asked.
“Oh, this?” Her hand dropped to her side. “It was a present.”
“Anyone special?”
Coralline was silent.
The corner of Izar’s tailfin knocked a decanter out of a merman’s hand. Izar stopped to apologize, then he and Coralline continued to flit about The Cupola side by side. About equidistant between the floor and ceiling, they formed part of a middle layer of minglers. On land, people moved in a single layer about the floor, like ants; in the water, people moved above, they moved below, they formed numerous layers—which meant that any part of one’s body could bump into any part of anyone else’s at any time. In thronged spaces like The Cupola, people moved slowly, vertically, in order to avoid collisions, their tailfins generating no more than the gentlest of currents. But despite his deliberate slowness, Izar found himself having trouble not bumping into others. Mingling underwater seemed a sort of delicate dance.
Izar picked up two decanters of parasol wine from the tray of a passing waiter and handed one to Coralline. He liked the dark-green wine more this second time he drank it—it stung his throat less and tasted sweeter.
Music started abruptly, emanating from a pod carved into the wall, where half a dozen musicians clutched instruments resembling violas, their fingers pressing into the strings until their nails whitened. Izar did not know how to dance on land, let alone in the water, but the wine started singing through his veins, making his tailfin flick automatically.
The first song was called “The Undulating Jellyfish,” Coralline told him. She and he began fluttering up and down along with everyone else, their arms rising and falling like the tentacles of a jellyfish—but Izar’s hand smacked someone in the chin. After “The Undulating Jellyfish” came “The Anemone Dance,” which involved swaying loosely side to side, arms swinging right and left. The motions resembled those of a homeless man on drugs Izar had once seen, but he enjoyed performing the dance with Coralline. The third song was tender and tragic, of longing and separation, of love that would remain unrequited. Unlike the previous two numbers, this dance, “The Seahorse Sprance,” was a precise duo—Izar and Coralline twirled tautly up and down, arm in arm, as around an invisible pole.
Then, before Izar could stop himself, he leaned forward and kissed Coralline.
The lips that pressed themselves against hers were tender but insistent, pleading but punishing. Fingers rested like a whisper along her tailbone, then skipped up to the nape of her neck, creating pockets of tingles along the line of her spine. She leaned into the kiss. If Ecklon was betraying her, why should she not betray him?
“Cora,” Izar said softly.
“Coralline—” she corrected emphatically, pulling away. Only Ecklon ever called her Cora.
Her hand curled around the rose petal tellin at her throat. The shell’s smoothness, its gentle ridges, felt foreign under her fingers. Ecklon was betraying her—not for one moment had she stopped thinking about it since Sage Dahlia Delaisi had told her—but, still, that did not justify her betraying him.
What was she even doing here, at this Ball? Meet me at the center of The Cupola when the music ends, the back of the invitation to the Ball had stated. The Cupola was dome-shaped, and so its center was easy to pinpoint—and the floor was anyhow marked with a cross at the center—but who were they to meet at the center? Also, whoever it was, he would be looking for Tang Tarpon, not them. He would have no way of identifying Coralline and Izar, just as they had no way of identifying him. In fact, perhaps he’d heard of Tang’s death and decided to skip the Ball altogether.
“What’s wrong?” Izar asked her.
Coralline was too distraught to reply. She, who’d never had a tantrum before, felt like shouting with frustration. But then the music ended, and she busied herself with casting a frantic glance about The Cupola—for whom, she did not know. A face close to the ceiling caught her eye, belonging to a gangly, topaz-tailed merman wearing an off-white waistcoat. The merman’s hair formed disheveled, white-gray streaks, and his eyes looked feverish and brooding. His complexion made Coralline think of a green moray eel. She recognized him—she’d never met him, but, somehow, felt certain she knew him.
His eyes were scanning the crowds, just like hers. Appearing to not have found the person he was looking for, he turned on his tail and started cutting a path toward the doors of The Cupola.
“Let’s follow him!” Coralline called to Izar.
Colliding into heads and tails, Coralline and Izar hurtled upward diagonally through The Cupola in the merman’s direction. But he was almost at the doors, just about to disappear into the darkness outside—in which case he would be practically impossible to find. Swerving around people, apologizing over her shoulder for knocking decanters out of hands, Coralline reached the merman just in time. Huffing for breath, she tapped his shoulder from behind. He turned around, but Izar, coming to a sudden stop behind her, collided into her, such that she collided into the merman. The decanter of bell sea wine in the merman’s hand spilled upon his waistcoat, splotching the off-white fabric with green. He contemplated her with ill-concealed irritation from beneath ice-white eyebrows.
At close range, his face was unmistakable: She had seen it in the inside-jacket cover of The Universe Demystified. “Are you Venant Veritate?”
“Yes.”
Beaming, Coralline introduced herself and Izar. She felt aflush with excitement at meeting her favorite author, but she tried to keep the giggle out of her voice and the idolism out of her eyes. “Are you looking for Tang Tarpon?” she asked. “And did you write the note on the back of Tang’s invitation to the Ball, requesting him to meet you when the music ends?”
“Yes,” Venant said, looking from her to Izar in surprise. “Tang is a good friend of mine.”
But of course: The only volume on Tang’s bookshelf other than the books he’d written himself had been The Universe Demystified. And of course Venant would be invited to the Ball of Blue Bottle, given his status as an esteemed stargazer. The murky anxiety that had just moments ago shrouded Coralline vanished—Venant was the most brilliant merman in Meristem, in her opinion. If anyone could help her find the elixir, it was he.
“Where is Tang?” Venant asked.
“Sadly, Tang has died. . . .” Coralline let her voice trail off.
“I didn’t know that,” Venant said, his face turning a dull gray. “How did he die?”
“He was murdered.”
“By whom?”
Coralline glanced at Izar before turning back to Venant and muttering, “We’re not sure.”