“Is there a principal suspect at least?”
“No,” she lied, swallowing her guilt. It would not do to inform Venant that she was the principal suspect in his friend’s murder. In addition to refusing to help her, he might well turn her in to the Constables Department of Blue Bottle. “We’re looking for the elixir,” she said. “Tang suggested that the merman who wrote the note on the invitation—you—might be able to help us find the elixir, just as you helped him, thirty years ago. Would you know where we can find the elixir?”
Venant pointed a long forefinger toward the ceiling. Coralline glanced up at the luciferin orbs roving over it, then turned back to Venant quizzically.
“Eons ago, a star exploded in one of them,” he said.
“One of what?” she asked.
“The constellations, of course.”
“What do the constellations have to do with the elixir?” Izar asked.
“Everything, given that the elixir is made of starlight.”
“Hmm . . .” Coralline said. “But do you know where the elixir can be found?”
“The deep sea.”
But less was known about the deep sea than was known about the moon; was Venant the only person who did not know that? Had his studies of the universe led him to forget the basic tenets of life on earth? “The deep sea lies five thousand feet below the surface,” Coralline said, trying to keep the impatience out of her voice. “It’s a pitch-black abyss considered inaccessible to merpeople. Entering the deep sea is known to be a suicide mission. Wouldn’t we die if we were to go there?”
“It’s possible,” Venant agreed.
A throng was starting to form around them—people were beginning to recognize Venant. He squirmed visibly, wringing his hands.
“If we were to enter the deep sea,” Izar said, “how would we proceed once there?”
“I’ll tell you what I told Tang: Seek the light.”
“But isn’t that an oxymoron,” Coralline countered, “given that not one iota of light penetrates the deep sea?”
“If you require any further assistance,” Venant continued, as though Coralline had not spoken, “you may find me at my Telescope Tower. It’s a solitary place a short distance precisely southwest of Blue Bottle, about a half-hour’s swim from here.”
“Any further assistance!” Coralline cried. “But you haven’t helped us at all. I can’t imagine how I ever admired you!”
Venant’s lips pressed together, and he looked at her grimly. Then, with a swish of his tailfin, he swam out the doors.
“Let’s leave!” Coralline fumed to Izar.
She sliced a path through the throng toward the alcove where they’d deposited their satchels with a guard. They could have left their possessions in the Laminaria apartment, but Coralline’s satchel had been on her person so consistently over the last days that she now considered it almost a part of her—like a turtle shell—and had decided to bring it along with her to the Ball. Izar had done the same.
On their way back to the Laminaria apartment, Coralline and Izar swam just over the seabed, because it was brightly lit by luciferin lampposts. Coralline knew it was farfetched, but she had hoped she would be leaving the Ball of Blue Bottle with the elixir in hand—she had even gone so far as to envision that, early tomorrow morning, she would start on her way home to Urchin Grove. Instead, at present, she did not even possess a reasonable path to the elixir, let alone the elixir itself.
“What’s the matter, Cora?” Izar asked.
“Everything’s the matter,” she snapped. “And how many times do I need to tell you—it’s Coralline!”
He scrutinized her but did not say anything.
Soon, Coralline saw the string-of-beads shape of the building Needle-to-the-Sky. Swinging her tailfin, she ascended from the seabed to the tenth-floor apartment, alongside Izar. But just as she reached the door, the waters above swirled as sharply as though clouds were plopping down into the ocean from the sky. The ripples were so thick and heavy that Coralline could see nothing through them, but she did not need to see to know who it was—Pavonis. The ripples were an alarm signal that something was wrong.
“Don’t!” she whispered to Izar, but it was too late—he knocked on the door.
It flew open immediately. Limpet stood there, accompanied not by Linatella but by two mermen. All three of them wore deep-purple waistcoats with the black seal of the Under-Ministry of Crime and Murder. Limpet was a constable, Coralline realized with a jolt. She’d been pleased about staying with Limpet and Linatella because she’d thought constables would not search for her in a home—she’d never imagined that her host himself might be a constable. No, that was not true—she had imagined it, just briefly; when she’d first seen Limpet at the outskirts of the clearing around the corner, she had thought of a constable.
Now, his nostrils flared, and his brow furrowed dangerously—by sheltering someone beneath the law, he had, even if unintentionally, broken the law, probably for the first time in his life.
“Hands up, Coralline!” he said. “Not a flick of your tailfin!”
Coralline could not move even had she tried. In Limpet’s scowl, she saw the Wrongdoers’ Refinery; in his narrowed eyes, she saw a prison cell, with five bars across the windows, like gill slits. Her own gill slits no longer seemed to be functioning; she could not breathe.
Limpet extended a hand through the doorway to grasp her arm, but his hand was blocked: Pavonis descended vertically in front of the door, a pillar of muscle. His thirty-foot-long body trapped Limpet and the two other constables indoors. The supper-plate-sized windows of the apartment were too small to fit through, and this door formed the only way in and out of the apartment—unlike houses, apartments did not have back doors. In order to get out, Limpet and the two other constables would have to push Pavonis away from the door.
They started to thump his flesh, to push it with all their strength—Coralline could hear their efforts from Pavonis’s other side. “Go, Coralline, go!” Pavonis said, in a voice muffled with pain.
“I’m not leaving without you,” she cried, wrapping her arms around as much of him as she could.
“Stop being a fool, Coralline!” said a shrill voice.
Nacre. Coralline raised her head and looked about, discovering the snail on Pavonis’s head, forming a small, bumpy shape like a wart.
“I’ll follow you, Coralline,” Pavonis muttered. “But I want you to get a head start on the constables.”
“How will you follow me? How will you know where to find me? If we don’t leave here together, we may lose one another.”
“We can meet Pavonis at the Telescope Tower,” Izar suggested hurriedly. “Venant said it’s just a half-hour’s swim precisely southwest of here.”
“I’ll find you there,” Pavonis agreed, but with a grimace, as the wallops on the other side seemed to turn to thuds. “Now, go!”
“I won’t leave you.” Coralline curled around Pavonis such that her tail and torso together formed a C-shape around his length.
“Make yourself useful, human, and take her away!” Pavonis growled.
Izar’s arm wrapped around Coralline’s waist, and, in a single swipe, wrenched her away from Pavonis.
Abalone looked at Naiadum. His face was yellow and waxen, and his hands were folded over his chest as though he was already dead. Abalone wished she could leave his bedside, she wished she could change out of the mourning-black corset she’d been wearing for the last four days, but it would make her a bad mother. A good mother was supposed to sit by her son’s bedside and watch him die.