I saw Cal, the son of the Celestrusean governor, among the mourners. He was taller and slimmer than I remembered. As I watched, he tapped Lyssia on the arm and whispered something to her. She registered who he was and then flung her arms around him and wept. He hugged her back, both of them like drowning people clinging to each other. The people continued to stream around them, murmuring quietly. I saw Alin Vial, looking thinly pleased, and beside him, some of the senators and representatives of the cities who had fled to Verdus from Primus.
I touched Nol’s arm.
“We should get back to the house.”
“You don’t want to hear what people have to say?” he whispered.
I shook my head. “I’ve seen enough.”
“Wait,” he said. “First come to another one of the garden spheres with me.”
“Why?”
This was hardly the time for romantic interactions.
“We should go separately, so we don’t attract attention,” was all he said.
The sound of the mourners faded as I slipped away a few minutes after Nol. I entered the Arctusean garden sphere and scanned the first clearing, where silvery supports held a dome-shaped sculpture of pale blue glass and climbing vines aloft.
The sea had deepened into indigo outside the walls of glass as night had fallen. Shadows coated the paths of the garden sphere, bathing them in black. I chose the left one, unease crawling through me as I tread noiselessly between a bank of ferns and a row of arches wrapped in more vines, these heavy with pale white flowers that smelled sweet and tangy like fruit.
A tall figure stepped from the ferns, and I halted with a gasp caught between my teeth as the memory of assassins in my mother’s house filled my mind.
“It’s me,” Nol said as the light fell over his face and revealed him, but my heart still beat too fast in my chest.
I was believed dead, I reminded myself. I’d just come from my memorial service. Tempest wasn’t looking to kill me anymore.
“This way,” Nol said.
I fell into step beside him, and we walked in silence for a moment. Above us, the ceiling of glass glittered like the waters of a dark, frozen lake. The path meandered through slender grasses that pressed around us, brushing our arms and faces. I scanned every shadow for danger, the back of my neck prickling. The path was lined in pale glowing stones, and they made weird shapes of the darkness that hung over the garden. The scent of the flowers made me dizzy. My lungs felt too tight, as if I couldn’t get a breath.
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” I said to Nol.
He glanced over his shoulder. “I’m going to show you.”
When we reached the center of the garden sphere, a circle of stones lit by blue-tinged lanterns in the shape of people who were half human, half fish, Nol halted.
“Now,” he said softly, “we wait.”
He tipped his head back to look at the top of the sphere. “Whenever I’m in one of these, I remember...” He stopped, but I knew what he referred to. In a flash I saw it again, the panic that scrambled across his face as the water rushed in, the way he’d thrown himself over me to shield me from the wave when the glass broke. The kiss he’d given me, the exhale of air into my lungs that allowed me to reach the surface alive.
Now here we stood, together again in an underwater city, only a breath and a heartbeat apart. Every line in his body was alert as he turned a circle, watchful of the shadows, yet I knew he was aware of my every movement.
The scuff of a footstep caught my attention. Nol heard it too, and he straightened, drawing his shoulders back and reaching for his hip, and I realized he was carrying Dron weapons beneath his coat.
I started in surprise at the man who moved into the blue light of the lanterns.
Representative Jak of Arctus.
He regarded us both with a curled lip, his gaze lingering on me. “I’ve just been to your memorial service,” he said. “Odd how jovial some of the mourners looked.”
“Representative,” I said in greeting, ignoring his barb. “You’re looking... jovial.”
“It’s senator now,” he said.
“I didn’t know there’d been an election.”
Jak scoffed. “We need leaders in this time of turmoil, not elections.” He looked behind us. “You came alone?”
“But not unarmed,” Nol said, moving his coat with one hand to show his weapon. “So don’t think of trying anything.”
I gazed at the weapon, startled. Nol must have planned this all along.
“Calm yourself,” Jak said. “You Dron are so suspicious. My interest lies in keeping this meeting secret.”
“It will be,” Nol said firmly.
“What’s going on?” I demanded, since they’d ignored me completely.
Jak’s gaze slid to me. He looked at me like a cook looks at a fish he is going to buy—appraisingly, as if he could see every flaw and weakness. His lips twitched.
“I’m going to arrange for you both to have everything you need to leave this place forever.”
“Leave Verdus?”
“Itlantis,” he said.
I turned to Nol, and his expression confirmed that this was not a surprise to him. A tightness squeezed my skin, as if ropes had appeared around me.
“Let’s skip the formalities,” Jak said briskly. “I can have a ship and a man to pilot it for you tomorrow, something fast enough to get across the seven seas in three days, stocked with provisions for a year.”
“A ship?” I didn’t understand.
“Does she do anything other than stupidly repeat things?” Jak asked. He glanced at the path. “We agreed this would be quick. Do you have the names?”
“What names?” I demanded. “What is this?”
Nol shook his head. “No names until we have a deal,” he said to Jak, and then to me, “Aemi?”
He was waiting for a reply. A yes.
Realization was beginning to crystallize. The words spilled out of me. “You want me to run.”
Jak sighed. “Don’t be dramatic. You’ll simply be choosing not to pursue this ridiculous fantasy of a truce between us and one of our most vicious enemies, a fantasy that could cost us the war with Nautilus, and subsequently our civilization.” He smiled thinly. “Without the key, they can’t find this lost city. They’ll have to mind the war instead.”
Peace is our future, Annah had said, and for peace, we need Perilous.
Was Jak like Nautilus, determined for a war?
“You’re delusional. I won’t continue this conversation,” I said, turning for the path.
Nol grabbed my sleeve. “Aemi, wait. Wait!”
Jak watched us, his face impassive, but the twist of his lips betrayed his irritation. His fingers flexed where they dangled at his sides, half hidden in the sleeves of his robe.
I swung around to face Nol. “What are you doing?” I whispered, searching his eyes with mine. “Why are you trusting this man? He doesn’t like us. He doesn’t want good things for us.”
“You saw that attack, those monsters from Azure.”
“Everyone thinks I’m dead, Nol.”
“Too many people know you aren’t.” He drew in a deep breath. “Please. We have no loyalty to these people. This isn’t our war. Right now we’re in the middle of a circle of enemies, and we’re both going to get killed.”
“I thought you were a true Dron now. What about them?”
“I...” He shook his head. “I’m not Dron. I’m a surfacer, the same as you.”
He was wrong. I was more than that. I was both of sea and of stone. They were both parts of my bone and marrow, my heart and soul. Couldn’t he understand? But I couldn’t speak it. I couldn’t find the words to tell him how Itlantis was the name of an ache I’d carried my entire life, and the Village of the Rocks and the blue sky was my childhood, and Perilous... Perilous was the thing that haunted my dreams, my memories.
It was the question still unanswered.
I looked at him and the earne
stness in his eyes was the Nol I’d known who fought against our captors until they threw him against a wall after we were dragged from the Village of the Rocks. Despite my silken Itlantean clothing and his short Dron haircut, we were still that wistful girl and foolishly brash boy that we’d been when we lived in the sun-soaked surface.
“It’ll be just like last time,” he breathed, bringing a hand up to cup my face. “You and me, making it for the surface. We’ll find an island and make a new life. We’ll both be free. We’ll both be happy—and we’ll both be alive.”
“Last time we didn’t even make it as far as the ship,” I said. “Last time, the city was destroyed.”
“All right,” he said, a smile tugging at one corner of his mouth. “It won’t be just like last time.”
“I can’t.” The words forced their way from my lips, breathless and taut.
His smile splintered.
Behind us, Jak cleared his throat.
“I don’t have infinite time,” he snapped. “I need an answer, Dron.”
Nol turned his head. “We’re going to have to discuss it more.”
Jak scowled. “I thought you said the girl would agree. I’m not playing games with you.”
I pulled away from Nol, stung that he’d answered for me, angry that he had brought me here without explaining, that he’d presumed to speak for me in this matter. That he was treating me like all the rest of them, like a pawn, a thing—just a key to a city, an answer to a riddle.
“I can speak for myself,” I said to Jak. “And I say no.”
Nol thrust a hand at Jak, who was opening his mouth to speak. “That isn’t our final answer!” To me, he hissed, “Stop and think about this!”
“You didn’t even give me the dignity of time to consider how I was going to tell you no,” I replied, the fury in my voice quiet. “I thought you, of all people, understood how much I hate being a pawn in this.”
Nol looked flabbergasted. “I am trying to save your life.”
I started for the path.
“Aemi!”
I didn’t look back.
CHAPTER FIVE
I REACHED ANNAH’S house alone, out of breath, and furious. Trust Senator Jak, the most hateful of them all? Betray my grandmother, leave everyone else without hope as we vanished forever? What was Nol thinking? And to engineer this meeting when I was most vulnerable? The memory of my mother’s tears filled me, gutting me.
I exhaled loudly, trying to get my anger tamped down before I went inside. I was not going to run away, not like that. I stood at the back door, a web of glass and metal to my left making me feel small, the arching wall showing nothing but inky indigo water and the occasional flash of light from a passing ship.
Gathering calm around me like the edges of a robe, I slipped through the servant’s entrance that Nol and I had exited from.
And promptly collided with Tob.
He screeched and flung himself back against the wall. “Ack! Ghost! Ghost!”
“Ghost?” Came an alarmed voice from the dim hall ahead. Lyssia. She popped her head around the corner, and her eyes widened as she saw me. “Aemi!”
Tob remained with his back against the wall. “Why are you here? Are you a vengeful ghost?”
“I’m not a ghost.” I reached for his shoulder, and he flinched and closed his eyes.
Lyssia had no such fears. She launched herself at me, flinging her arms around my waist. I grunted as she half pushed me into the wall with her boisterous embrace, hugging her back.
“You’re real,” she gasped. She pinched my arm, and her forehead wrinkled in confusion. “But— but— we were just at your memorial service.”
“We made it appear that I’d died to keep me safe,” I said through her hair.
Tob opened one eye. “So it was all a Graywater trick?” He sounded uncertain.
“Not Graywater exactly—my mother and sister don’t know. Annah and Tallyn—” Saying his name made my stomach twist “—were the only ones who knew at first.”
Lyssia was still clinging to me, almost shivering in her excitement. Tob joined her, flinging his arms around us both. Lyssia hummed a splinter of a happy tune in her throat.
For a moment, I let them both embrace me. The warmth and solidity of them calmed me, centered me.
Tob’s head lifted. “How long are you going to pretend to be dead?”
“I don’t know,” I said, stepping back. “We...” I stopped. I couldn’t tell them about Perilous, about the key. They weren’t even supposed to know about me. Secrets were already slipping through my fingers. The more that was told, the more dangerous it would be for everyone.
“I don’t know,” I repeated.
Fortunately, they accepted this answer without further questions.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
Tob scratched his head and looked embarrassed. “I wanted to see if your grandmother would hire me. Your mother has interrogated me twice. She seems to think I know something. She frightens me, and with you gone, I didn’t want to stay if I could find other employment.”
“At night?”
He grimaced. “Your house is under a lot of scrutiny. Anyone who comes and goes is watched, questioned. If I wanted an opportunity to sneak away, I knew it would be right after I’d gone to your memorial.” He winced. “Sorry about the timing. I thought maybe I shouldn’t wait.”
My mother was interrogating him? “What kind of questions has she asked?”
“How we met, things we’ve spoken about, that sort of thing. One time, she picked up one of the cooking knives and threw it into the wall beside my head.” He swallowed. “Then she smiled at me as coolly as if she hadn’t done anything at all. She’s terrifying.”
I didn’t disagree.
“I was coming to visit my father,” Lyssia explained.
Merelus. My chest squeezed as I remembered my friend, in a coma the last time I’d seen him, and because he’d been defending me from a Tempest attack.
“How is he?”
She shrugged with one shoulder, a carefully careless motion, but her eyes betrayed her pain. Her voice thickened. “His condition is the same.”
Sadness filled me, along with guilt. I’d forgotten to see him until now, even though I’d been back. I reached for her arm as a tear slipped down her cheek. “We will visit him together this time,” I promised.
She nodded.
Tob and Lyssia walked beside me as I climbed the spiraling metal staircase that led to the upper levels. Tob chattered cheerfully, while I tried to decide how I was going to tell Annah that two more people knew our secret.
~ ~ ~
I found Annah in her chambers. She’d changed from her mourning dress to a simple gray shift that left her dark arms and neck bare. She still wore the glowing necklace, and it shone pale light onto her cheeks and chin as she turned to face me.
“Aemiana,” she said, a weary smile brushing her face. “It is good to find you alive and well upon my return home. The service was... taxing. I am glad it is not reality.”
Such an admission amounted to practically an embrace from a family member.
Her left eyebrow arched. “You seem happy about something.”
I paused. I was happy. Seeing Lyssia and Tob, two friends who cared about me, who didn’t have a secret agenda, had lifted my spirits.
“I wanted to ask a favor of you,” I began, and laid out my case to bring both Tob and Lyssia to stay at her home instead of my mother’s. Annah listened attentively, but the line between her brows made me worry about her answer.
“The girl can come without raising suspicions because of her father, and indeed she should be here,” Annah said.
“Good. Thank you.”
“But as for your cook friend... Stealing him from your mother for my household would not escape her attention, certainly, and might provoke her to look into my affairs more closely than we’d like,” Annah continued. “I don’t think we can risk it.”
I wanted t
o protest. She raised a finger.
“I’ve already allowed for your friend to be released. I cannot take in every beggar and vagabond in Itlantis, Aemiana.”
Disappointment hit me like a punch in the gut. “How long,” I asked, “are we going to let my mother think that I’m dead?”
Annah inclined her head, thinking. “I cannot say. When it is safe to do so.”
“And Tob simply must stay there, despite his concerns for his safety?”
“I’m sorry about your friend,” she said, “but I cannot hire him.”
Tob and Lyssia waited in the hall, Lyssia examining a clock while Tob studied a painting that had belonged to my father.
I watched them for a moment before clearing my throat to announce my presence. Tob flashed me a hopeful smile.
“What did she say?”
His smile faltered as he looked at my face.
“I guess I’ll have to interview all the other rich Verduseans I know,” he said, shoving his hands in the pockets of his tunic.
“I won’t let you get lost in the cracks,” I said, my tone surprising me with its fierceness. “As soon as everyone knows I’m alive, I’ll have you in my employ again. I’m going to be going on a trip, but when I’m back—”
“A trip?” Lyssia asked. “Where?”
Perhaps mentioning it was a mistake. “I can’t say,” I replied.
Thankfully, neither of them inquired further.
“Well,” Tob said mournfully. “I should be planning a dinner menu right now. I was going to try firefish with a complimentary kelp stew, but I don’t feel inspired anymore.”
“I’m sorry, Tob,” I said. “Come see me as often as you can safely get away.”
He nodded. “I’ll bring you some of my cream pastries.”
“Come,” I said to Lyssia after he’d gone. “Let’s see your father.”
~ ~ ~
Merelus still slept in his coma, and I left the room after the visit clouded with sadness. Lyssia walked beside me, quiet and thoughtful, and occasionally, she reached out to touch my shoulder as if assuring herself that I was real.
“I’m glad you’re here,” she said when we reached my room. “I’ve been spending a lot of time in your room at your mother’s house. I took several things apart before they began locking the door.” She paused and pulled a handful of objects from her pockets. “That glass city by your window... did you know it came apart?”
In Dawn and Darkness Page 4