“Yes, Vallerio, how?” Portia asked, her voice a cool contrast to her husband’s angry one. “Serafina’s dead. She fled the palace after Cerulea was invaded and hasn’t been seen since. There’s no way she could have survived in the open waters for this long.”
“Of course she’s dead,” Vallerio said quickly. “I misspoke in my anger. Traho, follow me to the vaults. Portia, Lucia, Mahdi…stay here. Smile. Dance. Act as if nothing’s happened. I don’t want the guests to find out about this. If word spreads, the Black Fins will use it to their advantage.”
Lucia barely heard her father’s instructions. Doubt had crept into her mind, as chilling as a sea fog. Her parents always maintained that Serafina was killed in the attack on Cerulea. Neither had ever publicly voiced any suspicion that she might still be alive. Had they been lying to her? The mere thought made her furious.
If it were true, if Sera was alive and leading the resistance, she was a threat. The mer had loved her. They would fight to the death for her. Lucia had everything she ever wanted now, but Serafina could take it all—Mahdi, her crown, her life.
It can’t be true, she quickly told herself. Sera had to be dead. There had been no word of her for months. She was weak. She had no survival skills—not a guppy like her, always swimming around with a conch glued to her ear, listening to some dull account of this battle or that treaty.
Lucia took a deep breath. She tried to calm down. Instinctively, she glanced at Mahdi for reassurance.
But Mahdi didn’t offer any. He wasn’t even looking at her. His eyes followed Vallerio and Traho as they disappeared through a stone archway. There was a look in them that Lucia had never seen before. Raw, naked fear.
Then Bianca called Mahdi’s name and started fawning over him, and he was laughing and the look was gone.
But Lucia knew she would always remember it.
Who is he afraid for? she wondered. Is it me?
Or Serafina?
THE STEEL SPEAR hit the wall only inches above Yazeed’s head.
Shrapnel sprayed through the water. One piece tore a gash in Yaz’s cheek; another clipped a Black Fin named Sophia, carving a stripe across her forearm.
“Time to make wake, Sera!” Yaz yelled. “Can’t hold them much longer!”
He and Sophia were still inside the Traitors’ Gate tunnel. They were shooting at the death riders who were trying to storm through it as Sera attached a huge sailcloth sack filled with treasure to a giant manta ray.
“Sargo’s Canyon,” she told the manta in RaySay, as she cinched the sack. “Hurry!”
This was the last load. The sack was heavy with gold and jewels, but the ray was young and strong. Sera was thankful for that. He would have to swim fast to avoid capture. The creature flapped his huge wings, picked up speed, and veered north. He swam low, blending in with the seafloor, invisible to anything swimming above him. Fifty more of his kind were already on their way. Neela was leading them.
“Get out of here,” Sera ordered the six remaining Black Fins fanned out above her. “Cast your pebbles and haul tail.”
The transparensea pebbles she’d issued to her fighters were poor quality—weak and unreliable—but they were better than nothing. The fighters cast them, shimmered, and disappeared. They would follow the ray to Sargo’s Canyon, where the treasure would be safely stashed in an abandoned farm house. Sera prayed to the gods that they’d make it.
The heist had been a success. The Black Fins had hauled out twice as much treasure as they’d expected. But they’d been discovered just as the last loads were being carried out through the lava chamber.
A battle had ensued, and three Black Fins had died, including Luca and Franco, along with at least ten enemies. Yaz and Sophia had been able to hold the death riders back at a bend in the tunnel, about ten yards from the Traitors’ Gate, while the rest of the Black Fins escaped. Sera didn’t allow herself to think about the fighters they’d lost. She would mourn them later, when the mission was over.
“You ready, Sera?” Yaz shouted now.
“All set!” Sera yelled back.
A few seconds later she heard an explosion, and she knew that Yaz and Sophia had set off an ink bomb—a large conch shell packed with squid ink and explosives. It would turn the water in the tunnel as black as night and keep it that way for a good thirty seconds.
“I’ll cover you both. Go!” Yazeed shouted at Serafina as he and Sophia came hurtling toward her.
As Yaz flattened himself on the seafloor, Sera grabbed her crossbow and streaked away, with Sophia hot on her tail. She put distance between herself and the Traitors’ Gate, then pulled her transparensea pebble out of her pocket, ready to cast it. But as she did, a pain—white and blinding—tore through her body. She screamed as she went tumbling through the water. She dropped her bow. The pebble fell out of her hand.
Sera slammed into the seafloor face-first. She righted herself, dazed, and spit out silt. Blood swirled around her. She frantically searched to see where she’d been hit.
Her eyes widened when they found the wound.
“No!” she cried.
A spear was buried in her tail.