she called.
The liquid silver stirred. Two long, quivering antennae emerged from it, followed by a head. The creature crawled all the way out of the liquid and Serafina saw that it was huge. Twice as big as a large hippokamp. Silver drops fell from its long, segmented carapace. A pair of enormous black eyes regarded her.
it said.
Serafina said.
The silverfish nodded and Serafina climbed onto its back. The creature folded its long antennae down so she could hold them like reins. Sera found her seat atop the silverfish just as she would if she were riding her own hippokamp, Clio. Her tail hugged its side. Her spine was straight and strong.
“To Atlantis? You’re traveling to your own death!” Rorrim cried.
“I’m going to Atlantis to prevent death. Mine and many more,” Serafina said.
“Idiot merl!” Rorrim bellowed, flailing his arms and legs furiously. “The Opafago will eat you alive! They’ll crack your bones open and lick out the marrow! If you aren’t scared, you should be!”
“I’m not scared, Rorrim…”
“Liar,” Rorrim hissed.
“…I’m terrified.”
Serafina told the silverfish.
The creature stared at her with his big black eyes.
he said.
Serafina looked at the mirror again. The silverfish had taken her a very long way down the endless Hall of Sighs and had deposited her here. The glass in front of her was broken with jagged edges, and attached to its frame on only two sides. If she sucked in her stomach and turned sideways, she might be able to swim through it, but she wasn’t sure and she didn’t want to take any chances.
Every mirror in the Hall of Sighs corresponded to a mirror in the terragogg or mer world. The other side of this mirror was somewhere in Atlantis, in some ruined room, but where?
It was dark inside the glass. She couldn’t see what awaited her. What if she got stuck? What if she found herself half in and half out, unable to move, with Opafago on the other side? She asked the creature to take her to a different mirror.
The silverfish reared, then slammed back down.
he demanded.
Serafina replied.
Maybe there was another way in and maybe there wasn’t, but it was clear that this was as far as the silverfish would go. She slid off his back and held out the beetles she’d promised him. He ate them from her hand, then dove back under the silver. Serafina was alone.
Atlantis had been a large island. In addition to Elysia, the capital, it had boasted many towns and villages—all of which had been destroyed. Sera knew she could spend ages looking for another way in and never find it. She took a deep breath, and then—hands together over her head like a diver—she swam carefully through the mirror, mindful of its sharp edges. She pulled her tail through and found herself on a rubble-strewn floor. She’d swum out of the mirror realm, but wasn’t sure what she’d swum into.
Only a thin ray of light, shining in through a crack above her, penetrated the gloom. She quietly sang an illuminata spell, pulled the ray to her, and expanded it to fill the space. As her eyes adjusted to the brightness, she saw she was in what was once a large and elegant room of a terragogg house. Two walls had collapsed; the other two still stood. Above her, giant wooden beams that had supported an upper floor slanted down from the upright walls. Debris, all of it overgrown, lay heavily across the beams.
Serafina investigated the space, looking for a way out, but found none. She sang a commoveo spell—again in a quiet voice, wary of alerting anyone or anything to her presence. She used the magic to push against large chunks of stone, but it was no use; it would take a dozen songcasters to budge them. She poked and prodded at the bricks and rubble, but only succeeded in dumping silt on her head.
That’s when she felt it—a vibration in the water. A strong one. Whatever was making it was big. She spun around. Three feet away from her was a large, angry moray. The eel drew herself up and hissed, baring her lethal teeth.
“Eel, please, you I trouble no give!” Serafina cried.
The terrible grammar that came out of her mouth shocked her. What shocked her even more was that her words were in Eelish—a language she didn’t speak.
“What are you doing here?” the eel asked, her voice low and threatening.
I understand her! Serafina thought. How is this possible? Ling’s the only mermaid I know who speaks Eelish.
She realized that she’d understood the silverfish, too. She’d spoken Rursus with him.
Then it hit her: the bloodbind.
When the five merls had mixed their blood and made their vow to work together to defeat Abbadon, some of Ling’s magic must have flowed into her. Had she gotten some of Ava’s, Neela’s, and Becca’s, too?
“I asked you a question, mermaid,” the eel snarled, moving closer.
“Now getting out. Trying,” Serafina quickly replied.
“How did you get in?”
“Through the looking grass.”