Rogue Wave (Waterfire Saga #2)(41)
“AND HOW WAS your stay with us, Miss Singh?”
“Invincible. If I could get the bill? I’m, like, way in a rush, you know?” Neela said, snapping her chewing sponge.
“Right away,” the clerk said, totaling her charges. “One room for one night, room service twice…”
As he continued, Neela glanced nervously at the shiny mica-covered wall behind him. In it she could see a group of Matalin guards. They were still in the street outside. How much longer before they came into the hotel?
“Here we are! It comes to six trocii, five drupes.”
Neela paid him. As she did, the guards came in. One was holding a piece of parchment. She knew her picture was on it. There was no time to swim to an upper floor or cast a transparensea pebble. She would have to front her way out of here. Praying the illusio spell she’d cast would hold, she turned around and sashayed toward the door. She’d changed her messenger bag into a flashy designer bag, her black hair blond again, her blue skin pink, and her nails a sparkly silver. Her black swashbuckler’s outfit was now a long, neon-blue, boyfriend-size caballabong jersey with GO GOA! across the front and the number 2 on the back. A pair of enormous round glasses was perched on her nose. Shiny gold hoops dangled from her ears. The guards were looking for a princess disguised as a swashbuckler. They wouldn’t look twice at a caballabong merl.
As the guards approached, she pretended to talk into a small message conch. “This is, like, totally woeful!” she said. “Could this thing maybe actually work for once in its shabby little life? Hello? Hel-lo? Okay, I think it’s recording now. Hey, merl! Hope you can hear this. Meet me in an hour at the Skinny Manatee for a bubble tea, yah? If you get there first, get me a water apple. Fat free. See you soon. Mwah!”
She swam out of the hotel in a leisurely fashion, as if she had all day. As soon as she turned the corner, though, she spat out her chewing sponge and tore down the current like a marlin. Twenty minutes later she was out of town and in the open water.
“Wow, that was close,” she said, stopping to open her bag and let Ooda out. “Scary. We’re only about half a day from Nzuri Bonde now. Let’s swim the backcurrent all the way. It’s a little bit longer, but safer, I think. We’ll have to push hard. You ready?”
Ooda nodded and they set off. Neela and her pet had spent four days on the currents, staying overnight in hotels, paying her bills with currensea she’d packed. So far, she’d avoided three separate search parties of palace guards, all of whom were sent—she was certain—by her parents to fetch her home.
It was hard staying one stroke ahead of the guards, but oddly, Neela found she was able to think on her fins like never before. She could see what was coming, like Ava could, and then see how to deal with it, like Sera. She remembered what Sera had said about the bloodbind in the conch she’d sent. Sera was certain the vow had given them all bits of each other’s magical abilities.
She must be right, Neela thought. It’s the only thing that explains how I’ve managed to not get myself captured.
She knew she couldn’t afford to get caught. She had to find Navi’s talisman. A few more leagues’ hard swimming and she’d be in Nzuri Bonde, Kandina’s royal village, and that much closer to the moonstone.
Or so she thought.
Eight hours later, the backcurrent they’d taken had weakened to nothing, and she and Ooda were totally lost in the middle of a flat, gray wasteland with scrubby vegetation and no signposts, only warning signs about dragons.
She knew that the Razormouths’ breeding grounds were near Nzuri Bonde, and she was certain she and Ooda had to be close to the village, but high above the water’s surface, the sun’s rays were already lengthening; it would be dark in only a few hours. Dragons hunted at night. If she and Ooda didn’t find the village soon, they’d be sleeping out here—lost, alone, and very visible.
Neela consulted a map she’d bought. As she did, she noticed that her hands were glowing. The soft, pale-blue light she often gave off had brightened.
“That’s weird,” she said.
Neela only lit up brightly when she was emotional or when other bioluminescents were around. Bios could sense each other, and when they did, their photocytes kicked in, causing them to glow.
She turned her attention back to the map. She was sure it showed the way to Nzuri Bonde from where they were, but she didn’t know where they were, and she wasn’t terribly good at reading maps anyway. She’d never had to. There had always been officials for that. She turned the map this way and that, and finally decided to head in the direction she thought was west.
She and Ooda swam for another fifteen minutes without coming across any sign whatsoever of the village. Just as she was getting really worried, Ooda nipped her arm and pointed ahead of them with her fin. As Neela rubbed the bite, she noticed that her skin had darkened to cobalt. “What is going on with me?”
Ooda nipped her again. “Ow! Stop it!” she scolded. “What is with you?” She looked ahead, squinting at the dusky water. And then she saw it—a large silt cloud rising in the distance. “Good girl!” she said. “Let’s go!”
Neela knew a cloud of that size was a sign of life. Many things could be stirring up the silt—caballabong players, a factory, farmers plowing. Maybe it was a sea-cow ranch. At this time of day, the ranchers would be herding their animals into barns to be milked, then bedding them down.