“Why does Deepness have so many saboteurs?”
The gladiators exchanged glances. Peter said, “It’s a bit of a point of pride for Deepness. Soremni build, we destroy.”
“Well, that’s stupid.”
He laughed and patted my head with an enormous clawed hand. “It’s the only way we’ve kept the Kingdom from spreading over our waters like a plague. We’ve already been displaced to the furthest reaches. There isn’t anywhere else for us to go.”
I sighed. “That sucks. I didn’t know.”
Peter shrugged. “Why should you know about my people?”
I don’t know, maybe so I didn’t send an army of saboteurs to Terramore on accident. We watched the feed for a long time, watching those crustacean monsters work with wiring and welders with surprising dexterity.
Later on, after everyone was leaving, I pulled Peter’s arm, holding him back. He looked at me, his eyestalks rising like they did when he was getting prepared for something.
“Can I talk to you?”
He glanced around at the empty room, at Owen who took the longest to leave. “Of course, princess.”
I winced. “I’m not a princess. Look, I was, um, wondering about these Deepness monsters. Why would they help rebuild Terramore? I mean, do you think it’s the Siren? And why would they listen to her? Other than she’s really destructive and they’re really into that?”
He put a claw up and smoothed it through my hair. “The Siren is our mother.”
I stared at him, the way he was playing with my hair. Was this flirting? “And you always obey your mother?”
He smiled. “Of course. Don’t you?”
I laughed. “No. My mother’s crazy.”
“But you aren’t.” He said it seriously as he looked at me and I knew he knew. He nodded and I knew that he knew that I knew that he knew.
“How did you know?” I whispered.
He laughed, this rough, garbling sound before he leaned closer. “Crazy people don’t understand people who are unlike them. You have appreciation for the Soremni and the Crustique.”
“I’m still working on the Vashni. Peter, you won’t mention my, um, sanity to anyone else, will you?”
“Of course not. It’s a privilege to see such sanity.”
Later, I was coming out of the shower in my apartment, so glad I didn’t have a car wash, when Sean grabbed me around the waist and started kissing me.
I stood there frozen, gripping the top of my towel while my gorgeous fake Vashni husband acted like Junie might not come in at any second, or my towel might not fall off, or both.
He pulled back, his hands on either side of my face while he gazed at me intently. His pale eyes grew darker while his pupils expanded. “Do you want to tell me what’s going on with Terramore?”
“You’re rebuilding, right?”
He shook my head with his enormous hands. “Genevieve, what did you do while I was gone from Siren’s rock?”
“You’re so suspicious. Can I put on some clothes?”
He glanced down and then back up, one eyebrow raised. “You’re trying to distract me. It won’t work.” He kissed me again, his lips soft and persuasive while his hands slid down to my bare shoulders then around my back. He picked me up and carried me into my room. He kissed me the entire way there. Once there, he closed the door and kissed me, only breaking away to pull a shirt over my head. It was a bit odd, the frantic dressing while kissing. It made me giggle.
He pulled away to frown at me. I took the opportunity to put my arms through my sleeves. “What’s funny?”
“Most people make out and get naked. It’s just sweet that you’re so good at dressing me.”
“It is? Oh.” He kissed me again, pulling me over to the bed. We didn’t kiss in bed a lot. Because something about something I couldn’t remember because Sean’s hands were in my hair while his mouth slid against mine over and over, deeper and deeper until he pulled away, leaving me gasping. His own chest rose and fell while he studied me, his pupils enormous enough that he could see me perfectly well in the shadowy room.
“Sean, I don’t really want to tell you about Terramore. Is that a problem?”
“Why not?” He bent and nipped my throat before pulling away again to study me.
I licked my lips while I kneaded his shoulders, tugging him closer. “I don’t remember. Oh, right. They think I’m some kind of mother to them. So, I need to protect them.”
“A mother?”
I rolled him over because he wasn’t kissing me. He couldn’t just stop kissing me in the middle of a conversation. Who did he think he was? He didn’t protest. His hand slid down my back, over the t-shirt and damp towel I still had on. I groaned as I rolled off the bed and pulled on a pair of sweats yanked off the towel then leapt back on him.
He laughed when I hit, laughing in a way that made it impossible for him to kiss me. Eventually I gave up trying, just listening to him laugh until he got it out of his system.
He poked my chin. “You’re ridiculous.”
“I am. What’s your excuse?”
“You’re beautiful.”
I snuggled against him. “And you are the best pillow in the world.”
“You heard me talking about the trouble finding help working on Terramore. I thought maybe it was the Deepness Master who sent them, but what would he get out of it? No, it had to be my Siren.” He sounded so proud as he squeezed me tight.
I sighed happily and adjusted the blanket over my shoulder. “You still have the sling on. Owen doesn’t wear a sling.”
He had to shift to take it off. He was still dressed, but didn’t seem to want to let me go long enough to change. There were definitely worse things in the world.
So, that was the good reaction. The not-so-good happened the next morning when Spyguy was late to do my makeup for my Soremni intern gig. I’d started on it, but he came into the bathroom, took the brush away and washed my face, starting over.
“You look like a victim of a severe plague, which you should be for sending monsters to Terramore without asking anyone if it was an incredibly stupid idea. Which it was.” He scowled while he listed all the horrible things that could have happened.
“But they didn’t.”
“But they could have.”
By the time he was finished making me up, and I did look pasty and sickly but not quite sick, my stomach felt tight from the ulcer he apparently needed to share with me. Why was he so freaked out? It’s not like that put me in danger, did it?
“You should relax. Sean acted like it was a good thing.”
“Really? He thinks that you getting involved with a personal agenda in a very public act of goodwill wasn’t the best way to make sure people link the Cleaver Queen with the Siren? He’s just happy that you didn’t send them to war on accident.”
I winced. “How do you know it wasn’t the Deepness Master? He’s probably up to his eyebrows in the saboteur’s business.”
He gave me a snarl that made me smile for some reason. I put my hand on his shoulder.
“Spyguy, it’s almost like you care. Be careful or people will think you’ve gone soft.”
He sighed. “Genevieve, everything you do has consequences. You giving the Deepness monsters orders, them obeying, that’s going to begin a pattern of rulership that I don’t think you’re prepared for.”
I stared at him. “What?”
“Exactly. After they finish rebuilding Terramore, they’ll expect you to lead them in rebuilding the Deepness, leading them to great victories over their enemies. Their enemies are the Soremni and Vashni. Humans are completely expendable. They’ll want you to destroy for them.”
My heart pounded fiercely in my chest. “Well, I won’t.”
He put his hands on my shoulders, gripping tightly. “I know that you don’t want to, but you’ll have to do something. They could take you, bend you into someone new.”
I shivered and pulled away from his painful hold. “That’s what you’re fo
r, keeping me safe, right?”
He studied me for a long time before he nodded. Why did he hesitate so long? “You need to train again. Tomorrow morning, as soon as Takeo gets up, you get up. Your legs are getting too soft.”
I went to my internship feeling sick and anxious, but as soon as I reached the auditorium inside the dome, I forgot about it.
Gerveeg floated in the center, eyes closed, hands outstretched like he was feeling the water. He opened his eyes and we all snapped to attention.
“I need assistance for the upcoming concert. Five. Feel free to volunteer.”
My hand shot up. No one else raised their hand. Everyone stared at me while I slowly lowered it. Soremni didn’t really raise hands. Oops.
“I volunteer.”
“What makes you think you’re worthy?” Gerveeg asked, swimming up until he was in my face, dark eyes bright and angry, mouth twisted. Was he mad? Was raising hands like flipping people off?
“I’m the best composer here.” Why did I say that? So many other interns were far more competent at music theory than I was.
He laughed, and got even closer, eyeing me up and down. “You are the best composer here?”
My mouth opened in an ‘o’ because I realized that I’d included him in that idiotic statement. “Not you. I mean I’m not… That is I just want to…” I stopped talking while he gave me another scathing glance.
He turned away, snapping at five other people, not me. “Madd, Carni, Telia, Jermain, and Urnt. You’ll be backstage at the next concert. The rest of you will shadow a musician for the week. Not you, goggles. You’ll go to the market and buy me a coffee.”
“Coffee?”
“Human drink. Make sure it’s hot. I don’t want to see you until you find some.”
Mad, an apt name for the brown-haired thief swam close to me while I floated, clenching my fists and trying to not feel like I’d been flagellated in front of the entire school.
“I know where you can find—”
I cut him off, swimming rapidly towards the exit. “I don’t need your help.” I wasn’t soft enough, but he was so annoying.
The market in the morning was different, not as busy, and the sellers chatted in different Soremni dialects I liked listening to. I calmed down by the time I found a drinks stall where they sold coffee.
The girl manning the booth smiled broadly and produced the desired elixir in a metal sphere, hot. It took me all day to find the drinks stall and I didn’t really want to go back. I was too stupid. I heard music as I passed a park off one of the ways and followed it to a little grotto where a bunch of teens were jamming. I stayed in the shadows listening to the drums, the pipes and booming bass. Their lines through the water were strung through seaweed. I kind of started arranging them a little better. That’s what I was doing when someone grabbed my shoulder and spun me around.
The guy was probably my age, and he looked fierce, mean, dangerous with his tattooed face and piercings. Dark blue hair cascaded over his forehead as he dragged me towards the musicians.
“Look what I found stealing the threads.”
“I wasn’t stealing them,” I said, pulling away. I couldn’t pull any serious moves that would tag me as the Cleaver Queen. I was supposed to be a soft Soremni. “I’ve got to go. My instructor will kill me.”
“What were you doing? Hm? You had handfuls of them.”
“I was straightening them. They were a mess.”
He narrowed his dark purple eyes at me. “You wander around straightening people’s strands? Are you compulsive?”
I smiled sweetly and widened my eyes. “Yeah. Sorry. I liked the music, but it would be more balanced if the threads were spread taking into consideration the seaweed and kelp.”
He let me go, sending me into the musicians. They were all guys and looked as fierce and colorful as blue hair. “Prove it. Play something.”
I floated there in my pale yellow jumper and goggles, Gerveeg’s coffee in my pocket. “Fine. Give me the stringed zither.”
The green-haired guy took off what was kind of a guitar, kind of a bass, and handed it to me, careful not to disrupt the threads that spilled out one end like glistening spider silk.
“So you had this basic base-line which rocked.” I played it, hitting the chords hard, like they played so the grotto echoed with my sound. Nice. “But then you fall apart when you go in five directions at once. You should go in the same direction driving different ships. So you, green, start low, because your instrument is best, and you rotate following this progression.”
I went through all of their parts, until I nodded and gave them the count. They all played with me, blue hair watching with his arms crossed like he was too cool. The improvement was so vast, but it still had the wild, impetuous, spontaneous energy.
The last chord died out, hung out on the strands in one last long note before blue hair took the stringed zither from me, pushed it at Green-hair and pulled me against his chest.
“What are you doing?” I tried to be soft and sweet, but I shoved against his chest. Dang, he had a good grip. I’d have to go Cleaver Queen on him if he got any closer to my lips. I wasn’t about to become obsessed with some street punk.
“You found my idiot girlfriend. Gerveeg’s coffee is going to be cold.”
Madd came out of the shadows looking kind of scary and tough, tough in a way that made the rainbow band members look like pretenders.
I took that moment of distraction to elbow blue hair in the kidneys and slip out of his grip. I made it to Madd mostly because he moved super fast, grabbing my wrist and pulling me behind him.
“You like ugly girls?” Blue hair asked.
Madd laughed, a super dangerous sound that he must have practiced for hours. “Some of us can see beneath the surface.” He glanced down the top of my overalls. I elbowed him, but he shifted out of the way. He was fast. His grip was complex, constantly changing. That told me two things. First, that he thought I’d struggle against him, second, he knew how to fight.
“They’re musicians, Madd. Don’t hurt them.” That’s what I said in my sweetest Soremni while I gazed at him adoringly.
He raised an eyebrow and loosened his grip. I wasn’t going to make him drag me out of there. Like I wanted to be with blue hair and his mediocre musicians.
The punks spread out, dropped their instruments and then they attacked. Five of them. Two of us. The odds were terrible. For them.
Spyguy was right, my training was rusty, but muscle memory is a beautiful thing. I fought back to back with Madd, sharp strikes to vulnerable places while he wrestled and twisted with multiple of them, moving so fast while I took out the yellow guy. He was kind of meek, thought he’d just be holding me, but I knocked him out cold before turning to help Madd. It was fun. Oh, I hadn’t really gotten in a fight for ages. Brawling with the rainbow band was an absolute mess with zero technique, wild blows and clumsy chokeholds in the swirling water wrestling and hitting until I was laughing while I punched blue hair in the face.
Madd pulled me off him. “You don’t punch faces. Where were you trained?”
I opened my mouth to say something, but he dragged me away, through the overgrown kelp to the nearest way. He led me through a labyrinth of ways until he finally stopped, let go of me, and gave me a serious frown.
I looked around, but nothing was familiar. Cierdeep was huge. Enormous. Like Chicago or something. I’d never find my way home alone.
“You dropped this.” He shoved the coffee canister into my stomach, making me oomph.
I scowled at him and thought about bashing him in the face with it. A broken nose would look nice on him. But he had kind of helped me out back there. And he already had a swollen eye. I touched my own face delicately. My cheekbone was tender and my lip was split. My jaw, ow. I flexed it a few times. He was in much better shape than I was. Where was Spyguy? Shouldn’t he be tracking me or something? Maybe my device was out of range. Did that put me at Madd’s mercy? It would if I wasn’t a
Siren. Which I wasn’t. Not in Cierdeep.
“Thanks. That wasn’t your fight.”
“Are you trying to get sold into slavery?”
I stared at him. “Slavery?”
He grabbed the straps of my jumper and shook me. “A vulnerable female should not wander the ways unescorted.”
I shoved him off me. “So you think I should be overjoyed to be escorted by a thief? For all I know, you’re worse than them. In fact, I’m sure of it. What do you want, Madd? Who do you work for? I’m betting on the Deepness Master. You fight like a dream, a nightmare turned real.”
He grinned fiercely and backed me against the nearest shadowed wall. Where were all the people? “And you fight like someone meant to be uncaged. Cierdeep isn’t for you. Gerveeg’s dome is dead.”
“You think punk street band is my niche?”
He shook his head and backed away. “Whatever. I’m here to keep an eye on you. I was chosen since I had musical interests.”
“You don’t suck,” I said reluctantly.
“And you are the best composer in there.”
I stared at him. He stared back. I looked away first. “Now I know you’re a liar.”
“I am a liar, but not about that. Usually my marks are ugly old men. When I shadowing a pretty girl, I count myself lucky.”
“The girl behind me was pretty. I noticed her too. I didn’t notice you until you ran into me.”
“What you wear doesn’t make you ugly, not really.”
“Do you seriously think I care what you think about me? Which way to the dome?”
He turned and swam off. I followed and finally Spyguy’s voice came in my ear.
“Genevieve Castle? Answer me before I send the Prince’s officers out looking for you.”
“Hey, Spyguy. Just having a little early training. You’re right; I am out of shape. I’ll talk later.” I spoke low, but Madd turned his head slightly before he swam faster.
Chapter 30
Sooner than I thought possible, we were at the dome. Spyguy was waiting at the door. Madd slipped around me, catching a hard look from Spyguy before he disappeared into the gray interior.
Water Games (Watergirl Book 4) Page 26