Rogue Wave (Waterfire Saga #2)(40)

Ooda, looking worried, started to inflate. Soon she’d risen so high, she bumped the ceiling. Neela was annoyed with her. She had no time for the little fish’s antics right now. She had much bigger problems to worry about.

“Ooda, stop it!” she said. “Come down right now! Don’t make me come up there after you! Oh, Ooda! You are so…”

Neela stopped talking. She stared at the blowfish, then said, “…brilliant!”

She swam up to the ceiling, kissed the fish on her lips, and brought her down.

“I think I just figured out how to get out of here, Ooda,” she said. “And you’re going to help me.”





EARLY THE NEXT MORNING, Neela heard the key turn in the lock of her bedchamber door. She’d barely slept all night.

“Here she comes, Ooda. Get ready!” she whispered.

Ooda darted under the bed.

Suma entered the room, carrying a tray. She put it down on a table, then swam back to the door and locked it. The key was on a silver ribbon. Suma dropped it into the side pocket of the long, flowing jacket she was wearing.

“How are you, darling Princess?” she asked. “Did you sleep well?”

Neela stretched, blinked sleepily and said, “I did, thank you, but I still feel tired. I think I’m coming down with something. Do I feel warm to you?”

Suma hurried to Neela. As she felt her forehead, Ooda swam out from under the bed. The end of the silver ribbon was hanging out of Suma’s pocket. Ooda bit down it and started swimming backward.

“My goodness, child!” she said. “You’re burning up!” She sat down on the bed, yanking the ribbon out of Ooda’s mouth.

Oh, no! Neela thought. “My cheeks are warm, too,” she quickly said. “Don’t you think?”

As Suma felt one, Ooda rooted for the ribbon. The key had slipped deeper into Suma’s pocket and the little fish had to delve for it.

“Feel the other one, too, Suma,” Neela said, stalling.

Ooda finally got hold of the ribbon again and tugged with all her might until she’d pulled it out of Suma’s pocket. She was so pleased with herself that she hovered behind Suma, beaming, the key dangling from her mouth.

“We, um, have to get the fever down,” Neela said, shooting Ooda a look.

Ooda darted under the bed once more, dragging the key with her.

“Could you bring the bottle of nettle elixir from my grotto?” Neela asked. “It’s on one of the shelves in the cabinet.”

“Of course, Princess,” said Suma, hurrying off.

It wasn’t. Neela had hidden the bottle in her closet.

She swam out of her bed, snatched the lava globe from underneath her pillow, and put it back in its holder on the wall. It had heated her pillow and her head—so much so that she’d been able to fool Suma. Next, she ripped off her robe. She was wearing her swashbuckler clothes underneath it. Her messenger bag was packed and under her bed. She reached for it now, just as Ooda swam out with the key.

“Good girl!” she whispered, taking the key. “Let’s go!” She lifted the flap of her messenger bag. The little fish zipped inside.

“I don’t see the nettle elixir!” Suma shouted from the grotto.

“Keep looking. I’m sure it’s there!” Neela called back.

With nervous hands, she pulled one of Vr?ja’s transparensea pebbles out of her pocket and cast it. Almost instantly, she was invisible. She unlocked the door, let herself out, and locked it again. Luckily there were no guards in the hall to see it open and close.

Swimming just below the ceiling, as Ooda had done last night, Neela moved swiftly through the palace. It would have made things easier if she could have swum out of a window, but every one she saw was shuttered in preparation for war. She kept going, down long hallways, through staterooms, and over the heads of courtiers.

“Almost there,” she whispered to Ooda, as a pair of arched doors leading out of the palace came into sight.

And then a cry, loud and urgent, ripped through the water. “Close the doors! The emperor commands it! Princess Neela has escaped from her room!”

“Oh, silt!” Neela said.

She was still a good twenty feet from the exit. It took two guards to push each massive door closed and they were now hurrying to do so. There was a gap of about thirty inches between the doors and it was narrowing every second. Neela put on a burst of speed and aimed straight for it. She brought her hands together over her head, turned sideways in the water, and shot through it. The doors closed with a boom behind her.

She didn’t look back as she raced through the Emperor’s Courtyard toward the open water. She felt bad about locking Suma in, bad about the worry she knew she’d cause her parents, but they didn’t understand what was happening. Hopefully, when they discovered that everything she’d told them was true, they’d forgive her.

As Neela swam, she heard the subassistant’s voice in her head. Khelefu’s, too. Suma’s. And her parents’. They were all saying the same thing: That is the way things are done! That is the way things have always been done!

Neela knew that if she wanted to find Navi’s talisman and defeat the monster, she would have to bypass the way things are done.

She would have to find a new way of doing things.

Her way.