Zaurak was leaning against the wall, the foot of his injured leg resting lightly on the floor. Sweat was streaming down the sides of his face—the mere act of standing seemed to be draining him. His cheeks were flushed; he’d awoken with a fever, as a result of his leg infection. Flies were circling the gash across his shin, droning steadily like a fan. A trickle of pus ran down to his ankle.
“You swallowed the elixir last night before you slept, right?” Izar asked.
“Yes.”
After everything he and Coralline had done to get the elixir, how could it not have worked? Izar thought. How could Zaurak’s leg not be fully healed? Izar had felt certain that upon taking the elixir, not only would Zaurak’s injury be cured, but his limp itself would disappear. He had imagined Zaurak leaping and skipping like a ballerina on the leg that he was currently dragging.
“Will you be able to run?” Izar whispered.
“How many times do you want me to say it?” Zaurak hissed. “Yes.”
There was a rattling just outside the door, and a jingle—one lackey was probably trying to balance the breakfast tray in his hands, while the other was inserting the key to unlock the door. “Shh!” Izar said, standing as straight as a soldier at attention.
The door opened. Izar was slightly off to the side, and he could not see the two lackeys, but he could see their shadows on the floor, one shadow a little more squat than the other. He saw Zaurak’s lumpy shadow as well, and he heard the clang of Zaurak’s pen as it hit the floor. The squat shadow jumped as the pen rolled between his feet—then there was an ear-splitting crack: The breakfast tray fell, the dishes broke. The pen was not a weapon, of course, but it was intended to alarm, and had served his purpose. The crash of dishes was Izar’s cue: He leapt out of the shadows and came face-to-face with the two lackeys.
The more squat lackey stepped into the room and pointed his gun at Izar. Behind him, Zaurak collected the fallen tray and slammed it over the lackey’s head, so forcefully that the tray shattered. As Izar watched, the man’s eyes rolled up in his head. Starting with his feet, then knees, then hips, he collapsed in slow motion, as though a rug had been tugged out from underneath him.
Zaurak sagged down to the floor himself, shaking, huffing, exhausted.
Izar tackled the other lackey, but not before the man drew his gun. Izar expected the lackey to point the gun at him, but he pointed it at Zaurak. Before Izar could blink, a shot tore through the air. From over the lackey’s shoulder, Izar saw blood diffusing out of Zaurak’s chest and dripping over his sides like paint.
Izar leapt upon the lackey, and they fell together to the floor. Izar pummeled him until the lackey’s nose broke twice and his jaw cracked once, and his face was so bloodied, it could no longer be recognized.
He then knelt on the floor next to Zaurak and pulled the large head onto his lap. Zaurak’s lips parted—he was trying to tell Izar something—and Izar bent his head, but he heard nothing more than the rasp of Zaurak’s breath against his ear. Izar prayed for the elixir to come into action now, for it to save Zaurak’s life, but, before he could draw his next breath, the light vanished from Zaurak’s eyes. His irises became as luminous but empty as gray pearls.
“The greatest day of your life has finally arrived! In a matter of hours, you will transform from Coralline Costaria to Coralline Elnath, hanging on the arm of the most eligible merman in Urchin Grove. Out of bed, Coralline, before he changes his mind and decides to marry Rosette instead!”
Coralline opened one eye, then the other, as though the delay could help put off her wedding. Hitting rock-bottom—that was an expression she’d heard Izar use once—and she did feel as though she’d hit her head against the bottom of a rock. Her heartache was, by now, persistent and amorphous, like general bodily pain, a complaint she’d always found difficult to treat as an apothecary. She’d hoped to die overnight, passing seamlessly, gracefully, from life to death, but here she was, her blanket being yanked off her. She turned onto her side and curled her tail up to her arms, but Abalone pulled her arms until she was in an upright position, her tailfin over the side of the bed.
“Enough with that pinched expression, darling! No one likes a bleached coralline. Now, I have a gift for you sure to create marital bliss.”
Her mother handed her a book with a glossy fuchsia cover, The Beatific Bride: Tips for a Happy Home & Husband. Coralline skimmed the table of contents: Clean, don’t be mean. Prepare good foods to avoid bad moods. Adorn yourself and your home. Be domestic, not demanding.
“You can pore over the book later, Coralline. For now, I’ve made you a most scrumptious breakfast as a reward for your having nibbled on nothing but ulva all week!”
Her mother handed her a bowl brimming with bushy burgundy fronds—pepper dulse, also called the truffle of the sea, an expensive treat saved for special occasions. Coralline placed the bowl on her bedside table, untouched.
“I understand, darling. On my own wedding day, I was so excited, I couldn’t eat a bite either!”
Her mother was already dressed for the wedding, Coralline saw. She wore a gilded bodice with a collar that climbed up her neck and left her shoulders bare, showcasing their broad, elegant lines. Her golden hair formed a glistening sheet over one shoulder.
“Here is your wedding bodice,” Abalone said.
The bodice was in the pale-pink and ochre shades of a wisp of dawn—the colors symbolic for the commencement of her new life, Coralline supposed. Thin, twirling tendrils of gauzy lace formed off-the-shoulder straps, and the neckline was low, scooped, and embroidered. Despite herself, Coralline found her hand fingering the hem of the bodice and reveling in its smoothness. She looked at her mother gratefully—the bodice was her mother’s finest creation and would have taken weeks of strained eyes and stiff fingers.
Slipping into the garment, Coralline shifted with her mother to the full-length mirror behind her door. Hovering behind Coralline, Abalone laced the silky strings. Coralline found it fortunate that her mother had chosen strings as the tightening mechanism rather than buttons, for the former offered more flexibility; with buttons, the corset would have sagged loosely around her, given how little she’d eaten all week.
Abalone swung in front of Coralline and scrutinized her face, looking at her as an artist might look at a blank canvas before starting to paint. She dabbed rouge on Coralline’s cheeks, until they were as pink as the tips of jewel anemones in the coral reef outside the window. Then she combed, untangled, separated, and folded Coralline’s hair into a multi-tiered bun atop her head. Coralline saw why her mother had wished for her to be a waif on her wedding day—with her newly pronounced collarbone, thin shoulders, and starvation-brightened eyes, she looked as dainty and fragile as the rose petal tellin above her beating heart. She had never felt worse but never looked better.
“Now, for the final touch.” Into Coralline’s updo, Abalone carefully inserted a tiara, a little crown studded with shards of spirula shells that glinted silver.
“I don’t need a tiara, Mother.”
“But you do. Every bride wears one. It’s symbolic.”
“Of what?”
“Its shape, resembling a seahorse’s coronet, speaks of monogamy.”
Coralline flinched at the word. “I cannot marry Ecklon.” She’d said the words to herself so many times that she didn’t realize she’d spoken them out loud until her mother’s eyes met hers in the mirror, as still as a pool of settled lava. Turning Coralline about by her shoulders, Abalone plopped her down on the corner of her bed. She perched in the desk chair herself, then, leaning forward, staring at Coralline intently, asked, “What was he like, darling?”