Deep Blue (Waterfire Saga, #1)(17)

“Yaz is a total party boy. Always the one with the lampfish on his head. My parents are at their wits’ end and Aunt Ahadi is furious. She says he’s led Mahdi astray. The two of them are out all the time. It started about a year ago. That’s when they got their ears pierced. Aunt Ahadi went through the roof. She and my mother threatened to beach them for life.”

“That doesn’t sound like the Mahdi I remember,” Serafina said, nervously fiddling with some trim on her dress. “Neels, I have to ask you something else. Lucia said that—”

Neela unwrapped another sweet and bit into it. She made a face. “Yuck. Fermented sea urchin.” She fed it to a passing damselfish.

“—she said that Mahdi has a merlfriend. She said he—” Serafina suddenly stopped speaking.

Neela, busy wiping her fingers on a frond of Caulerpa weed, looked up. That’s when she saw them. Bodies. Of two young mermen. They were stretched out under a huge coral at the back of the courtyard, motionless.

Serafina panicked. “I—I can’t tell if they’re breathing or not. Neela, we have to get help. I think they’re dead!” she said, swimming closer.

Neela panicked too, but for a totally different reason. “No, they’re not dead,” she said under her breath. “But if Aunt Ahadi hears about this, they’re going to wish they were.”





NEELA CAUGHT UP to Serafina and grabbed her arm. “Come on!” she said, trying to pull her away from the mermen. “This is dangerous. We should get the palace guards.”

“But what if they’re hurt or bleeding? We can’t just leave them!”

“Yes, we can. We totally can.”

Serafina broke free of Neela’s grip and swam back to the bodies. “They’re not dead! They’re breathing and…oh. Wow. Didn’t expect that.”

Neela closed her eyes. She pinched the bridge of her nose. How could they be so stupid? she wondered. How?

“Um, Neela? It’s Mahdi…”

“…and Yazeed,” Neela said.

She looked down at them. The two merboys were lying on their backs. Mahdi had a purple scarf tied around his head and smudged lipstick kisses on his cheek. A gold hoop dangled from one ear. His black hair was pulled back in a hippokamp’s tail. Yaz was wearing a pair of sparkly earrings. Someone had drawn a smiley face on his chest with lipstick. He had a streak of pink in his cropped black hair, a heavy gold chain around his neck, and a tattoo on his arm. As she continued to stare at them, a large, homely humphead wrasse swam up to Yaz. It nudged his chin. Yaz flung an arm around it, pulled it close, and kissed it. As Mahdi snored on, Yazeed murmured compliments to the fish about her beautiful blond hair.

Neela, livid, gave each boy a hard slap with her tail.

“Ow!” Mahdi cried.

“Dang, merl!” Yaz yelped, letting go of the fish. “All I said was…Neela?” He blinked at his sister.

Mahdi, wincing at the light, said, “Yaz, you squid! Where were you? I was waiting for you. I decided to hang here until you caught up. I must’ve fallen asleep. Why are you always the slowest common denominator?”

“Yazeed, take those stupid earrings off! And sit up, both of you!” Neela scolded. “Serafina’s here.”

Mahdi paled. “What?” he said. “Oh, no.” He sat up. “Serafina? Is that you?”

“Nice to see you, too, Mahdi,” Serafina said.

Her voice was cool, but Neela could see the confusion in her eyes. She’d hoped to keep her cousin’s foolishness a secret from Sera. She’d hoped he could behave during his stay. Apparently, that was too much to ask.

“Look, Serafina, I need to explain,” he started to say, getting up.

“Um, Mahdi? Are you shimmering?” Serafina asked.

“Hold on a minute…he’s shimmering?” Neela said. She swam up to Mahdi and looked him over, and then Yazeed. Parts of them were shimmering, other parts were completely see-through. She grabbed her brother’s gold chain and pulled it over his head. A small whelk shell dangled from it. As she turned it over, two pink pearls fell out.

“Transparensea pearls,” she said. “Let me guess…you two cast pearls last night, then snuck out of the palace. When you tried to sneak back in, all the doors were locked. The windows, too. So you spent the night here, passed out under a coral. The only question is: Where did you go?”

“Nowhere,” Yazeed said innocently. “Just out for a swim.”

“Oh, please. I bet you went to the Lagoon. You did, didn’t you?” said Neela, crossing her arms over her chest.

Yazeed looked around, suddenly interested in the architecture.

Neela glanced at Sera again. Her friend’s eyes were on the lipstick kisses on Mahdi’s cheek. They traveled to the scarf on his head. It had an L embroidered on it. L for Lucia, Neela thought. Her heart clenched as she saw the hurt on Sera’s face.

“You’re really something, Mahdi,” she said angrily. “We are guests of the Merrovingia—invited here for your betrothal, I might add—and you go shoaling?”

“We weren’t shoaling. We were, um, attending a concert. Broadening our cultural horizons,” Yaz said.

Neela held up her hands. “Just. Stop,” she said. She turned to her cousin, thumbed a smudge of lipstick off his cheek, and showed it to him. “Broadening your horizons?”