Rosette arrived at Coralline’s side. She was wearing a sleeveless silver corset, and her long red hair was swaying in a fishtail braid down to her waist. “If Ecklon marries you instead of me,” she pronounced quietly, “I’ll kill myself.”
She and Rosette had something in common after all, Coralline realized: a desire to die. That was part of the hideousness of love—it created desires no reasonable mind could understand. Coralline patted Rosette sympathetically on the shoulder. Shrugging her hand off as though Coralline was mocking her, Rosette dashed away.
As Coralline continued to swim slowly through Kelp Cove, she noticed juvenile red crabs starting to skitter along the seabed, seeking refuge among pebbles. A long, thick gray eel sought shelter under a rocky overhang. A bush altered from green to pale gray, and a large, round eye became visible in the gray. The eye coalesced into a face, and the face bloomed into a body, and the body, with eight winding arms, sprang off upon a spurt of black ink. The octopus, a creature of three hearts and blue blood—blood that pulsed with copper rather than iron—disappeared like an apparition.
Why were animals hiding or leaving? Coralline wondered, craning her neck toward the surface. The waters above were turbulent, ripples cascading downward, but the turmoil was likely caused by the ring of kelp—currents felt more pronounced in circular arenas, just as sound had a way of echoing off curved surfaces. But then, as Coralline watched, the waters swelled measurably, and this was a swell she recognized, one that pushed her away. A white belly materialized, five times her length. Guests tripped over themselves in their rush to get away, but Coralline threw herself at the visitor, Pavonis.
“Don’t you have an appointment with the grave?”
“I guess not,” Coralline admitted sheepishly.
“I forgive you for your theatrics.”
Abalone swam up to them in a flurry of gold, her hands on her hips. “In addition to this Ogre,” she said, her chin jutting toward Pavonis, “another troll of your choosing has just arrived.” Coralline followed her gaze to a reed-thin figure clad in black—Rhodomela.
“I’ll see you soon, Pavonis,” Coralline said, patting his side. She swam down to Rhodomela, finding that she looked at Rhodomela differently now, for she knew the reason for the grooves of grief around her eyes. On an impulse, she hugged the master apothecary. Rhodomela stiffened at first, then wrapped her arms around Coralline.
Only when they separated did Coralline notice Osmundea by Rhodomela’s side. Just as Coralline had, moments ago, stared at Rhodomela with private knowledge, Osmundea seemed to now be staring at Coralline, her indigo eyes glimmering. “Do you know my son?” she asked.
“I doubt it. Who’s your son?”
“Izar.”
The indigo eyes, the indigo scales, the scar along the side of the mouth—an extension of Izar’s own. Could he truly be Osmundea’s son? Did that mean he was partly human and partly merman—a hummer? If so, why had he not told her—or had he not known it himself? Osmundea lived in Velvet Horn, Coralline remembered, and Izar had said he’d had a personal errand to tend in Velvet Horn—perhaps visiting Osmundea had been the errand.
“In your seats, please!” boomed a voice. “The wedding ceremony will commence shortly.”
Rhodomela and Osmundea were ushered toward the chairs by a waiter. A centralizing current was created by the movement of the guests, and Coralline was swept along in its sway, dazed, unresisting, until someone collided into her from behind. “Cora,” he said, and turned her around by the shoulders.
Ecklon.
He wore a smooth, thick, beige waistcoat, its shade matching the embroidery of her bodice. He flashed her a smile, dimples carving wedges into his cheeks. She hadn’t seen such a smile on his face for a long time, she realized now, not since their engagement party. His smile steadied her as nothing could.
“You look beautiful,” he said, with an admiring glance.
“Thank you,” she said, returning his smile shyly.
Clasping her hand, he led her toward the gazebo. Together, they hovered below its white, arched ceiling, facing each other, holding hands. A sizable merman arrived next to them, his paunchy belly almost touching their joined hands, his jowls hanging down to his neck, making Coralline think of a bowhead whale. “I, Kombu Kasmira,” he began in a sonorous voice, looking past Coralline and Ecklon at the guests, “am honored to hover here in the role of Wedded Bliss Bureaucrat of the Department of Marriage Management, part of the Under-Ministry of Birth, Marriage, and Death Events.”
It dawned on Coralline only now, truly dawned on her—not in theory but in the thud of her heart—that she was getting married.
“Do you, Ecklon Elnath, take Coralline Costaria to be your partner in life?” Kombu asked.
Her mother’s idea of love was based on competition: Life was a marriage mart, and a husband from a wealthy, well-regarded family was some sort of prize, like a choice dessert. But marriage should be based on connection, not competition, Coralline thought now. And, for better or worse, one could not quite control whom one connected with.
“I do,” Ecklon pronounced. Sighs sounded among the mermaids in the audience.
Desmarestia and sea oak—that was the sort of potent combination Coralline and Izar were—he the acid, she the base. It was a dangerous, foolhardy blend, but, miraculously, it worked. Coralline herself had proven it.
“Do you, Coralline Costaria, take Ecklon Elnath to be your partner in life?”
Coralline’s fingers tingled in Ecklon’s, and her gills felt as though they were shuttering one by one. She looked out frantically at the guests, hoping they could save her from Kombu’s question. But most of them were staring at her blankly, and her mother was glaring at her. In the front row, Epaulette’s crab-red corset made Coralline think of Sage Dahlia Delaisi, in all her orange-red fortune teller’s glory. He is not your love, she had said, when she’d seen Ecklon through the window.
Kombu cleared his throat loudly.
Coralline looked toward Altair, who formed a spot of orange among the holdfasts of kelp, accompanied by red—his mate, Kuda. The two seahorses bounced ever so slightly with the currents, their tails twirled around a single strand of eel-grass. Altair’s color started to dull steadily, until Coralline could no longer see him. With a start, she recalled their conversation last night, while she’d been flitting between sleep and consciousness: If she spent her life with the wrong partner, she would be living in camouflage rather than glowing.
She did not want to live in camouflage. “We need to talk, Ecklon,” she heard herself say.
A flurry of whispers sprouted among the guests. Kombu’s eyebrows ascended into his hairline. Ecklon’s face paled, but he nodded.
Despite the bright morning sunshine, the shadows of the ships in the harbor remained dense and dark, Izar was relieved to find, for they enabled him to hide in daylight. Crouched in the shadows, he looked upon his fleet of ships. The largest Ocean Dominion ship, Vega, designed by him last year to be virtually unsinkable, was missing from the docks. Saiph must have selected Vega for his Castor mission; it was a good choice—Izar would have selected the same.
To pursue Vega, Izar would require a vessel of speed and stealth, but something small, so it would not be detected by Saiph and his crewmen. His gaze roved over the ships to find the ideal one. His eye caught on one that did not belong, but that he recognized: Alshain Ankaa’s trawler. What was the giant doing here, at Ocean Dominion’s harbor?