“Hummers are often unable to have children,” she said. “Have you thought of that?”
“I haven’t, Mother, because I’m not planning to have children.”
“What’s the point of marriage without children?”
“I’m not planning on marrying.”
“So you’re planning to be a Bitter Spinster?”
“Not bitter, no.”
“Go back to Ecklon, I beg of you. Tell him you made a huge mistake and want to marry him.”
“As you know, Mother, Ecklon is now with Rosette.”
“He would leave her in a heartbeat for you.”
“I don’t want him to. I’m happy for them.”
From the corner of her eye, Coralline detected a movement through her bedroom window. Turning her head, she saw that it was an oyster thief—a wispy brown algae—floating about, studded with shells. That was its mechanism: It inflated with gas, shells got attached to it, then it drifted about with the currents, carefree. Coralline admired its loose freedom, its ability to go anywhere unrestricted—that level of freedom was what she envisioned for her own future.
“I don’t expect you to understand me, Mother,” she said gently, “but I hope you can still accept me.”
“I hope so, too!” Abalone said, amber-gold eyes ablaze.
She swung Coralline’s bedroom door open, and she and Coralline returned to their seats on the settees. “If only you’d been right, Trochid,” she stated, “in what you’d said that day, when Ecklon proposed, and the ship passed above.”
“What did I say?”
“That fire and water can never truly meet.”
The waters were dull gray. Even without looking at a sand-clock, Izar was by now familiar enough with the ocean to know that the time would be about half past six in the evening.
“I’ll go do some exploring,” Pavonis said, “and I’ll see the two of you in the morning.”
Izar smiled at the whale shark and, along with Coralline, stroked his yellow-spotted back. With a swing of his tail, Pavonis swam away, and Izar continued swimming through Blue Bottle hand in hand with Coralline.
A long shadow fell over them, even longer than Pavonis.
Izar whirled over onto his back and looked up, his heart racing. Could it be a ship, here to hunt him? No, from its splash and immense, bumpy gray shape, he identified it as a humpback whale. The whale angled up, rose straight into the air, its path straight as a dart, then crashed onto its back on the waves. The resulting swell of water pushed Izar and Coralline several feet down. Continuing to swim on his back, Izar admired the whale’s sleek length, its muscular strength.
“Note that the whale’s tail does not swish right and left like ours but slaps up and down,” Coralline said, swimming on her back alongside Izar. “The whale tail is different from the fish tail because, although whales entered the oceans many millions of years ago, they’re still outsiders. Fish have vertical tails, as merpeople do, because the slicing motion fights water resistance; whales did not evolve from fish, but from mammals who left land for water, and so their tail continues to carry the up-and-down motion of their ancestral legs. Whales look like fish, but they’re not fish, just as you look like a merman, but you’re not fully a merman.”
Perhaps he would have a whale as a muse one day, Izar thought, for they straddled two worlds, as he did. The more time he spent with Pavonis, the more he found himself liking the idea of a muse.
Izar and Coralline drifted upon the balcony to their fifth-floor apartment. Izar opened the door and smiled as he entered the living room. It was small and shabby—furnished with little more than a pair of scratched stone settees and a low-lying bed—but all that mattered was that it was their own place.
At present, though, it looked more like a makeshift clinic than anyone’s home, for all surfaces were littered with urns of algae, the size of vases. The urns were from Coralline’s former workplace, The Irregular Remedy, and she would take them to her future workplace, The Irregular Remedy, as soon as she found a place to rent as a clinic. (Coralline had bundled all the urns carefully in fabric, loaded them in immense sacks, and strapped the cargo all to Pavonis, who had not complained once as he’d led Coralline and Izar south from Urchin Grove to Blue Bottle.)
Izar cleared some space on one settee, and nestled there with Coralline, her head coming to rest on his shoulder. Their first day living together had been busy but enjoyable.
They’d visited four homes, belonging to: Izar’s mother in Velvet Horn (they’d all reminisced about Rhodomela); Venant Veritate, who had recovered fully from his flu; Limpet and Linatella Laminaria, who had apologized for having chased them away and had invited them for supper tomorrow evening (an invitation Coralline and Izar had gladly accepted); and Sage Dahlia Delaisi. Coralline had not spoken a word, but Sage Dahlia had taken one look at Izar and pronounced, as though in response to an unasked question, “Yes, he is your love.” Izar had not understood the remark, but Coralline had giggled.
“You know, although we’ve just arrived in Blue Bottle,” Coralline said, “I feel as though we already belong here. Don’t you?”
“I do.”
Izar’s gaze fell on Coralline’s tray of vials and flasks in one corner of the living room. It reminded him of the flasks of combustible chemicals in his own Invention Chamber. He wished he hadn’t shied away from burning Ocean Dominion to the ground when he’d had the chance. He’d come to regret the decision every day since he’d returned to the ocean; at this very moment, Saiph was likely constructing an army of Castors.
“What’s the matter?” Coralline asked.
“Nothing.”
Izar had not told her about Saiph, and he did not plan to tell her. He had invented his way into his particular problems, and he would have to invent ways out.
Acknowledgments
When people ask me about writing, I tell them it’s a labor of love. But it’s not just the author’s love—the people who love you most often end up laboring a lot along the way as well.
My husband, Aamer Hasham, encouraged me to write and accompanied me to book events. My twin sister, Sofia Faruqi, listened to me talk about The Oyster Thief for hours on end. Her patient questions helped me untangle plot intricacies, and her thoughts helped me devise new angles. My brother, Salman Faruqi, contributed tremendous big-picture thinking. An avid reader of fiction, he provided ideas to create more characters and enhance conflict.
Beta readers played a crucial role in the development of The Oyster Thief. In addition to my husband, brother, and sister, the team included: Stacey Gordon Sterling, who paid thorough attention to detail, Kristyn Nanlal Khetia, who delved into pace and emotion, and Lauren Friedwald, who focused on clarity and feeling. Without the commitment of the team of beta readers, The Oyster Thief would not be the same.
Sarah Krejci, Celia Kujala, Lucas Melbye, and Monisha Rahemtulla also provided feedback on early chapters, and Autumn Ladouceur and Ashley Ryan read very early iterations of the book.
My editor, Jessica Case, at Pegasus Books provided perceptive edits, contagious enthusiasm, and ambitious thinking. She was a delight to work with. Maria Fernandez provided interior design and typesetting, and Charles Brock from Faceout Studio designed a lovely cover.
Randall Abate, Jonathan Balcombe, Louisa Gilder, Lorraine Johnson, Rob Laidlaw, Nina Munteanu, and Misagh Parsa mentored and guided me in my writing career.