Rogue Wave (Waterfire Saga #2)(35)

“Why are you in the Ostrokon, Coco? Where’s your family?” asked Serafina.

“Gone.”

Serafina heard a catch in the merl’s voice. She glanced at her—in time to see her brush at her eyes.

“What happened?”

Coco shook her head. The gray sand shark who’d been following in their wake circled worriedly around her.

“Please tell me,” Serafina said, putting an arm around her.

“They came into the palace,” she said. “The death riders. They were rounding everyone up. My parents heard them coming and tried to protect us. My mother cast a transparensea pearl for me and told me to swim up to the ceiling. She was casting one for Ellie when the death riders broke the door down. Ellie was screaming. My mom, too. My dad tried to fight them off, but they beat him up. I watched it all happen. Then they took them.”

Coco was looking ahead into the dark waters as she spoke, but Serafina knew she wasn’t seeing anything nearby. She was seeing her family being brutalized.

“I was so scared,” Coco said. “As soon as the soldiers left, I swam out of the palace. I went straight to the Ostrokon, because it was the safest place I could think of. I hid on Level Four for days. I ate the food at the TideSide. Alessandra and Domenico found me.”

“I’m so sorry, Coco,” Serafina said, her heart aching for the child.

Coco nodded. “Come on, we should keep going,” she said, swimming off.

She doesn’t want me to see her cry, Serafina thought. Rage burned constantly in her heart these days, but once in a while—like now—it flared high. What had happened to Fossegrim and Coco were two more crimes to add to Traho’s tally. She would tell her uncle of them when he swam home with his goblin armies. Traho would pay for his crimes. Vallerio would make sure of it.

“We’re here. Level Three,” Coco said a few minutes later, shining her globe on the writing over the doorway. “We’ll need a sentry,” she added. “Abby, go keep an eye out up top, will you?” The little sand shark nodded. “Abelard’s the best lookout ever. He senses movement way before I do. If the death riders show up, he’ll be down here in two seconds flat.”

Abelard took off. Sera watched him go. “You haven’t seen Sylvestre, have you?” she asked wistfully.

“Not since the attack,” Coco replied. “I sneak into the palace as often as I can to look for medicine, food, weapons—anything the resistance can use. He’s not there.”

Sera nodded sadly. She missed Sylvestre and hoped he’d somehow escaped the death riders, but she realized she’d probably never find out what had happened to him.

“Come on, Coco. We’ve got a lot to do,” she said.

The two mermaids entered the listening room. It was as black as the abyss inside. All the lava globes had burned out.

“The government records are shelved by year, and then subject—ouch!” Coco yelped as she whacked her tail against an overturned chair. “I can’t see a thing in here.” She held up her torch, and then swam to the back of the room. “One thirty-six…no, that’s not what we want,” she said, peering at the shelves. She moved to the right. Serafina followed her. “There’s ninety-eight…sixty-seven…twenty-nine…Here we go…ten anno Merrow.”

Coco ran her index finger along the front of the shelves as she spoke. “K…L…We need the Ps…Here they are…Parliamentary Minutes…Prison Budget…Privy Council…Progress, Merrow’s!” She shined her light over the shelf. “Looks like about twenty conchs in all. We’ll be able to fit them into—”

Her words were cut off by the sudden arrival of Abelard. He nipped her shoulder.

“Death riders?”

Abelard nodded.

“Hurry, Principessa,” Coco said, sweeping shells into the basket. Serafina followed her lead.

The mermaids couldn’t carry the heavy baskets and the lava torches, so they put the torches on top of the baskets, then swam out of the listening room as fast as they could.

When they got into the hallway, they heard voices. Sera guessed the death riders were only a level away. She could feel their heavy vibrations.

Go! she mouthed, hoping she and Coco could get far enough down the hallway so that the glow from the torches didn’t give them away.

Coco lurched forward, struggling with the weight of her basket. The jerky motion unbalanced the torch, with its round glass globe. It started rocking from side to side. Coco tried to steady it by moving the basket, but that only made things worse. The torch rolled across the conchs to the side of the basket.

Serafina gasped. If it slipped off and hit the floor, the death riders would hear it.

“Abby!” Coco hissed.

Abelard turned around just as the torch fell. He zipped over to it and managed to catch the globe on the tip of his nose just inches off the floor. He nudged it back up into the basket, did a quick about-face, and shot off down the hallway. Serafina and Coco followed, swimming flat out.

“Hang on a minute…do you feel something?” a voice said. A death rider’s voice.

“No, do you?”

“I thought so. Maybe not.” There was a pause, then, “Tell Fabio to bring the hound sharks down. Better safe than sorry.”

“Fabi-o!”