Deep Blue (Waterfire Saga, #1)(18)

Mahdi had the good grace to blush.

“Neela,” Serafina said in a small voice. “I have to get back.”

But Neela didn’t hear her. She was scolding her brother again.

As they continued to argue, Mahdi swam up to Serafina. “Hey, Sera…” he said haltingly.

“Sorry, Mahdi. I have to go,” Serafina said.

“No, wait. Please. I’m sorry about this. Really. This is not how I thought we would meet again. I know how it looks, but things aren’t what they seem,” he said.

Serafina smiled ruefully. “I guess mermen aren’t either.”

Mahdi flinched at that. “Serafina,” he said, “you don’t know—”

“—you,” Serafina said. “I don’t know you, Mahdi. Not anymore.”

“Serafina!” Yaz shouted. “Help me out, merl! Tell Sue Nami here to cut me a break. All we did was hang out at the Corsair. The Dead Reckoners were playing. They’re my favorite band. Mahdi’s, too. We had to go. Otherwise, total FOMO.”

“FOMO?” Serafina echoed.

“Fear of Missing Out,” Yaz said.

“Don’t encourage him, Sera. He thinks he’s a badwrasse with his stupid gogg slang,” Neela said.

“We started dancing and some silly merls recognized Mahdi and went crazy and drew all over us with lipstick. Then some swashbucklers told us there was an all-night wave going on in Cerulea, so we swam back,” Yaz said. “That’s all that happened. I swear!”

“An all-night wave in the ruins of the reggia?” Neela said. “Do you really expect us to believe that? It’s a national monument!”

“Is that where we are? We’re supposed to be in the Kolegio,” Yaz said. He gave Mahdi a look. “Navigate much?”

Yaz was fibbing. Wildly. Neela was sure of it. He was trying to cover up whatever they’d really been doing.

“Look, I really do have to go,” Serafina said. She was good at hiding her feelings, but this time even she couldn’t pretend.

“Wait, Sera,” Mahdi said, looking desperate. “I’m sorry. You’re hurt, I know you are—”

“Oh, no. I’m perfectly fine, Your Grace,” Serafina said, blinking back tears.

Mahdi shook his head. “Your Grace? Whoa, Sera, it’s me.”

“Yes it is. I guess Lucia was right,” Sera said softly. She shook her head. “Don’t worry about it, Mahdi. I’m fine. I would be hurt…if I cared.”





“GOOD MORNING, Your Grace!”

“Good morning, Principessa!”

“All good things to you on this happy day, Your Highness!”

In the Grand Hall, courtiers bowed and smiled. Serafina thanked them, accepting their good wishes graciously, but all the while, her tears were threatening to spill over. Her heart was broken. She’d given it to Mahdi, and he’d shattered it. He was not who she thought he was. He was careless and cruel and she never wanted to see him again.

Sera was swimming fast to her mother’s stateroom, where the business of the realm was conducted, to tell her what had happened. She knew her betrothal was a matter of state, but surely, in this day and age, no one would expect her to pledge herself to someone like Mahdi.

As she arrived at the stateroom, her mother’s guards bowed and pulled the huge doors open for her. Three of the room’s four walls were covered floor to ceiling in shimmering mother-of-pearl. Adorning them were tall pietra dura panels—ornately pieced insets of amber, quartz, lapis, and malachite depicting the realm’s reginas. Twenty massive blown-glass chandeliers hung from the ceiling. Each was eight feet in diameter and contained thousands of tiny lava globes. At the far end, a single throne, fashioned in the shape of a sea fan and made of gold, towered on an amethyst dais. The wall behind it was covered in costly mirror glass.

The stateroom was empty, which meant Isabella was probably in her presence chamber, working. Serafina was glad of that. She might actually be able to have her mother to herself for five minutes.

The presence chamber was a much smaller room. Spare and utilitarian, it was furnished with a large desk, several chairs, and had shelves stuffed with conchs containing everything from petitions to minutes of Parliament. Only Isabella’s family and her closest advisers were allowed inside it. As Serafina approached the door, she could see that it was slightly ajar. She was just about to rush in, sobs already rising in her throat, when the sound of voices stopped her.

Her mother wasn’t alone. Sera peeked through the crack and saw her uncle Vallerio and a handful of high-ranking ministers. Conte Orsino, the minister of defense, was staring at a map on the wall. It showed Miromara, an empire that swept from the Straits of Gibraltar in the west, across the Mediterranean Sea, to the Black Sea in the East.

“I don’t know if this has anything to do with the recent raids, Your Grace, but a trawler was sighted in the Venetian Gulf just this morning. One of Mfeme’s,” said Orsino. He looked haggard and bleary-eyed, as if he hadn’t slept.

Vallerio, who was staring out of a window, his hands clasped behind his back, swore at the mention of the name Mfeme.

Serafina knew it; everyone in Miromara did. Rafe Iaoro Mfeme was a terragogg. He ran a fleet of fishing boats. Some were bottom trawlers—vessels that dragged huge heavy nets over the seafloor. They caught great quantities of fish and destroyed everything in their paths, including coral reefs that were hundreds of years old. Others were long-line vessels. They cast out lines fitted with hooks that ran through the water for miles. The lines killed more than fish. They hooked thousands of turtles, albatrosses, and seals. Mfeme didn’t care. His crew hauled the lines in and tossed the drowned creatures overboard like garbage.