“I see two guards,” Manon said quietly. “Louis, Antoine, you take the one in the front. Rene, Gervais, you’ve got the back. Quick and quiet now, and don’t swallow the keys. You hear me?”
Four enormous bull alligators nodded in unison; then, with thrusts of their powerful tails, they swam off.
As Manon watched them go, a shiver ran through her. She pulled her shawl up around her neck. “I hope those boys listened. Gods help us if they make a racket.”
“The gods help those who help themselves,” Esmé said primly, waving away silt that the alligators had raised.
Manon snorted. “Says who? The gods, that’s who. I do all the work, and they take all the credit. Laziest bunch of good-for-nothings I ever came across.”
“This’ll never work,” said Jean Lafitte, wringing his hands. “The guards will shout for help. We’ll be caught and thrown in a cage ourselves. And then they’ll hang us from the gallows.”
Manon rolled her eyes. “What do you care if you hang? You’re a ghost!”
“Why’d we come here? This is such a bad idea!” Lafitte fretted.
“You want to leave that poor mermaid to the tender mercies of Captain Traho?” Manon asked.
“Yes, I do. Absolutely,” said Lafitte.
“Shh!” Sally scolded. “They’re almost at the cage.”
Manon and the three ghosts watched as the alligators moved into place. Louis crawled up to the guard in front and growled. The guard, who’d been dozing, jerked awake. His eyes grew as round as moon jellies.
“Holy silt! Vincenzo, there’s a giant gator here!” he whisper-shouted. “How the—”
“There’s one here, too!” the other guard whispered back, as Rene advanced. “Don’t make it mad. Just reach for your speargun…nice and slow, then—”
But before the guards even got their hands on their holsters, Antoine and Gervais struck. Two headless bodies sank to the swamp floor. As the alligators proceeded to feast, Manon moved in. The ghosts trailed her.
“Be careful, Manon! Those gators are feeding! Don’t get in between them!” Lafitte cautioned.
Manon paid him no heed. She tugged one body away from the alligators, then the other, turning them over in the water, searching for the keys to the mermaid’s cage. But they were nowhere to be found.
“How did I miss them?” she whispered.
“Maybe they fell on the ground,” Sally ventured.
Manon flipped her tail fins over the swamp floor, clearing away the silt, but she still didn’t find the keys.
Lafitte bit his nails. “This is taking too long! You haven’t even opened the cage yet. What if someone comes?”
Then one of the alligators burped. It sounded like thunder.
Manon straightened. She put her hands on her hips and gave the creature a look. “Gervais, don’t tell me…you did, didn’t you?”
The alligator started coughing like a cat with a hairball. After a few seconds of heaving, he brought up an iron ring with several skeleton keys on it. Manon wrinkled her nose as she picked it up, shook off the gator spit, then tried one key after another until she found the one that opened the cage’s lock.
All this time, the mermaid inside remained motionless. The only sign that she was alive was the way her rib cage expanded ever so slightly as she breathed.
The swamp queen bent down to her. “Ava? Child, it’s me, Manon. I’ve got Sally, Jean, and Esmé with me. We’ve come to get you out of here.”
“What’s the use?” Ava asked in a small voice.
“Did you get the ruby ring?”
“Yes, but Traho took it from me. I failed.”
Manon gently moved a few of Ava’s braids out of her face. “Oh, Ava, failing’s just failing. It’s not a reason to quit,” she said. “I fail all the time. Why, I failed a hundred times since yesterday. I failed to pack enough food for this trip, I failed in my choice of traveling attire—”
“Manon, we should go. I hear something!” Lafitte whimpered.
“—and I’m failing to keep this whiny pirate quiet,” Manon finished, glaring at him.
She turned back to Ava and took her face in her hands. “Just because you failed today doesn’t mean you’ve failed forever. Falling down doesn’t mean anything. It’s the staying down that does you in.”
Ava rolled onto her back. “It’s over for me. Please, Manon, just go.”
Manon rose. She took a deep breath. “Child, are you dead?”
Ava shook her head.
“Then it’s not over. But it will be if Traho catches us here. Now get up!” Manon said, hauling Ava off the floor. She led her out of the cage, then stopped. “Where’s that little monster of yours?” she asked, looking around for Baby.
“They killed him,” Ava said, tears welling in her eyes. “They didn’t have to. He was only trying to protect me. H-he was so little.”
Manon’s eyes flashed. Her chin jutted.
“Uh-oh,” Lafitte said ominously. “Swamp queen just got angry.”
Manon gave a low whistle, and twenty more alligators came crawling out of the cypresses.
“Pick ’em off, boys,” she said. “Tent by tent. Just don’t get yourselves shot.”
The alligators grinned, then crawled off into the camp.
“Armand!” Manon called out.
The largest alligator turned back to her.
“Catch up when you’re done, you hear? I still need you boys.”
Armand nodded, then swam to catch up with the others.
“You ready?” Manon asked.
“Where are we going?” Ava asked.
“To your friends in the North,” Manon replied. “We’re taking you there, Ava. Since Baby can’t.”
“Wait a minute…the North?” Lafitte said, a look of horror on his face. “You never said anything about going north, Manon Laveau! I hate the North!”
“It’s cold there. There’s snow and ice!” Sally protested.
“And there aren’t any pickled crayfish, or spiced shrimp, or cups of cattail coffee!” Esmé cried. “I’ll never survive!”
“You don’t have to. You’re dead,” Manon said. Then she put her arm around Ava’s shoulders. “We have to move. Have to make the Gulf by morning, just in case my gators don’t get every last one of those no-good death riders. You ready?”
Ava nodded. Manon was glad to see a little spirit trickling back into her.
“Where there’s life, there’s hope,” Esmé said sagely.
Manon arched an eyebrow. “Like you would know?”
There was a shout, sharp and surprised. It was quickly cut off.
“I told those boys to be quiet,” Manon said, clucking her tongue. “They’re going to get themselves in a world of trouble. Come on, cher,” she said, tugging on Ava’s hand. “We’d best be going.”
And then the two mermaids and three ghosts disappeared into the dark swamp waters.
ASTRID KOLFINNSDOTTIR looked different.
Her fur parka was gone. And so were her braids. The skirts of the beautiful black sea-silk gown Orfeo had given her swirled around her like tidal currents as she swam down the long hallway.
She’d put the gown on earlier that morning—unwillingly, but she’d had no choice. Servants had disposed of her own clothing while she slept off the effects of the painkiller.
As soon as Astrid had finished dressing, a maid had come into her room. She’d made Astrid sit at a vanity table; then she’d fluttered about with a brush and comb, smoothing Astrid’s long hair. The styling session had irritated Astrid, who didn’t like primping. When the maid—Bahar—had started working her silvery blond lengths into braids, Astrid had asked her to stop.
“No, no,” Bahar had insisted. “The master likes his guests to look presentable.”
Without hesitation Astrid had picked up her dagger from atop the vanity, and—to the maid’s horror—sliced her braids right off.
“Too bad for the master,” she’d rasped, her throat still sore.
&
nbsp; Bahar had backed away, a hand pressed to her chest. She gathered her things and made a quick exit. Astrid glanced in the mirror and smiled. Her hair was a jagged bob that just grazed her chin. She liked it.
Another maid had appeared with a tray, and Astrid was much happier to see her. The blood loss she’d experienced had made her feel weak. A meal of soft, bland foods—nothing that would hurt her tender throat—restored her energy, and when a third servant arrived with the message that Orfeo would like to see her in the conservatory, she’d felt up to the long swim through the palace.
Astrid hadn’t seen Orfeo since he’d given her the thick, murky potion that had eased her pain. How long ago had that been? Hours? Days? She had no idea.
Why does he want to see me now? she wondered uneasily. He had helped her, but she still didn’t know why.
The servant who had come to fetch her stopped now in front of a pair of massive doors. He opened them, and Astrid swam through. Shadow Manse was brooding and remote, an immense, sprawling structure, and the conservatory, as she now saw, was its dark heart.
Blue waterfire burned in the tall fireplace at the far end of the room. High-backed chairs made from the gnarled roots of mangrove trees flanked it. Lava bubbled in sconces on the walls. A gilt mirror stood in a corner. A massive dome of faceted amethyst capped the conservatory, casting a purple-hued light over the room. But what truly took Astrid’s breath away were the shells. The room was lined with shelves that stretched all the way from the floor to the bottom of the amethyst dome, and every inch of space was taken by shells. In her astonishment, Astrid forgot her anger about Bahar’s attempted makeover.
“There must be a million of them,” she whispered, turning in a slow circle.
Every type of shell she’d ever seen, and many she hadn’t, were on display: conchs, turitellas, whelks, nautiluses, urchins, ceriths, augurs, murexes, tritons. Some were shiny and new, others cracked with age. Long-legged spider crabs scuttled over the shelves, cleaning away silt and debris.
As Astrid drew closer, she saw that each shell was labeled with the name of a songspell. There were the basic spells of invisibility, camouflage, and illusion; spells to control water, wind, and light; and spells Astrid had only heard of that allowed the caster to create dragons from silt, monsters from rock, or reanimate the dead.
“It’s an ostrokon of magic,” she said wonderingly, her voice less raspy now.
“Of mer magic, yes,” said a voice from behind her.
Astrid turned to face Orfeo. He was wearing a jacket with a stand-up collar and his usual dark glasses.
“You collected all these songspells?” she asked.
“Collected them, learned them, mastered them,” he replied.
Astrid’s eyes widened. No wonder he was so powerful.
“I have another such place on land,” he continued. “It’s called a library. That one contains every magic spell ever devised by a human.”
Astrid arched an eyebrow. “I have trouble seeing goggs as magical.”
Orfeo smiled. “So do I. These days, at least. It wasn’t always so.”
Astrid had forgotten that he’d been human once, before he’d become whatever he was now. Her wariness returned. He must’ve healed me for a reason, she thought. And whatever it is, it can’t be good.
“Magic still lives on land, but humans no longer have the eyes to see it,” Orfeo continued. “The first rays of the sun, the cry of a hawk, a whale breaching…these miracles are all around them, and yet they stare into screens and think that is magic.” He shook his head, disgusted. “A useless species. I won’t miss them.”
A shiver ran down Astrid’s spine at his words. His ominous tone and the threat it implied reminded her of why she was here. Her eyes sought his black pearl. It lay against his chest, strung around his neck on a thin piece of leather.
Orfeo noticed her interest. He removed the talisman and held it out. Astrid looked at him questioningly. Was he really handing it to her?
“Go on, Astrid,” he said. “Take it.”
MORSA’S BLACK PEARL.
A gift from a goddess.
Astrid took it from Orfeo, holding the leather string in one hand, cradling the talisman with the other. The pearl was large, easily half an inch in diameter, and flawless. Some pearls glowed as if lit from within; this one burned with dark light. As she held it, Astrid could feel its power flowing into her. She could sense what it was like to be Orfeo. To have his knowledge, his magic. She envisioned the seas rising at her command, the wind obeying her wishes.
The feeling of absolute power terrified her, but it thrilled her, too.
Give it back. Let it go. He wants you to want this, a voice inside her urged. But the talisman had stoked an insatiable hunger in her. Instead of returning the pearl to Orfeo, Astrid started to close her hand around it, craving to hold it even closer.
Orfeo clucked his tongue and took it from her before she could. “Too much, too soon,” he said, refastening it around his neck.
Astrid felt the pearl’s loss keenly. But as the trance of omnipotence faded, her disgust grew. You had it in your hands! she chastised herself. You could have taken it! Isn’t that what you came here to do?
Astrid knew, though, just as she had when she’d first arrived at Shadow Manse, that even if she’d taken the pearl, she couldn’t have escaped with it. She wouldn’t have made it out of the conservatory, never mind the palace.
She’d have to find another way to get it. And another time.
“Astrid, when you arrived, you asked me why I summoned you here. I told you I wanted to heal you, but that was only part of the reason.”
Her fins flared. She was finally going to get her answer. “And the rest?”
“I want to educate you. I want you to start learning the songspells I’ve collected,” Orfeo replied. He nodded at the shelves. “Choose a conch, child; listen to the spell, then sing it.”
“Why, Orfeo?”
Instead of answering, he walked to a large desk in the middle of the room and from a drawer took out the most beautiful piece of jewelry Astrid had ever seen. It was a bib necklace made of row after row of small, perfect white pearls. Too many to count.
“This belonged to Alma, my beloved wife.” He held the necklace out to her. “I gave many pieces of her jewelry to a very helpful…” He hesitated slightly, then said, “…friend.”
Morsa, Astrid thought. A vitrina in the ruins of Atlantis had told Sera that Orfeo had courted the goddess, and Sera had told Astrid.
“But this necklace was not meant for her,” Orfeo continued. “It was meant for you.”
Astrid shook her head. “I can’t take it.”
Alma had lived thousands of years ago. Her necklace was ancient and priceless.
“I want you to have it. I hunted for it for a long time in the ruins of Atlantis. It was a wedding present to Alma from her parents,” Orfeo explained. “According to Atlantean custom, the pearls symbolize the children the bride and groom will have, and the children those children will have, and so on, continuing a family’s line into eternity. I know how happy it would make Alma if you were to accept the necklace. You are our eternity, Astrid…Alma’s and mine.”
Before Astrid could object, he fastened the piece around her neck. “Go look in the glass,” he said, pointing to the mirror standing in the corner.
Astrid swam over and gazed at her reflection, marveling at how gorgeous the necklace was. Shyly, she touched it.
“You resemble her,” Orfeo said wistfully. “And the children we had.”
“What was she like?” Astrid asked, swimming back to him.
“Beautiful, both inside and out. Kind. Good. Gentle.”
“I wish I could have known her.”
As she spoke, Orfeo’s expression grew darker. Although she couldn’t see his eyes behind his glasses, she had the distinct feeling that they were focused on something far away. Something only he could see.
“One day, you will know her. One day Abbadon
will tear down the gates to the underworld and then I’ll take Alma back.”
The name Abbadon hit Astrid like a hard slap. He’s getting to you. He’s winning you over, just as Sera said he would. Fight it!
“The monster must be very powerful to be able to do such a thing,” she said, determined to find out as much as she could about their foe, and not let her friends down.
“The monster is beyond powerful,” said Orfeo.
“And yet he was defeated by your fellow mages,” Astrid ventured, hoping to keep him talking. “He was caged on Atlantis.”
“Defeated?” Orfeo echoed contemptuously. “Hardly. Abbadon went into the Carceron because I told it to.”
“What?” Astrid said, stunned. “I thought Merrow and the other mages drove the monster into the prison.”
“They believed they did. Which is exactly what I wanted.”
“I—I don’t understand.”
“Abbadon was my greatest creation. I used everything I had—my magic, my learning—to conjure it. I needed it to march on the underworld,” Orfeo explained. “I knew the other mages would try to stop me, even if it meant killing me. I didn’t care about my own survival—I’d learned how to cheat death—but I had to ensure Abbadon’s. I had to protect it.”
Astrid’s pulse quickened. Did the monster have a weakness? She had to find out what it was. But she’d have to proceed carefully.
“How?” she asked lightly.
“By creating a refuge for it,” he replied. “A place where it could sleep, but not die, in case my plans failed. When I was nearly ready to unleash it, I changed the Carceron’s lock. It had been created to accommodate my old talisman—Eveksion’s emerald. One night, I altered it to accept my new talisman—the black pearl. But the other mages soon discovered what I’d done, and—”
“They weren’t happy about it,” Astrid cut in.
Orfeo smiled. “You could say that. They’d learned of my other activities as well.”
“You mean your…” Dare she say it? “…sacrifices. The people you offered to the death goddess, Morsa.”
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