The Cerulean (Untitled Duology, #1)(103)

She heard footsteps down the hall, and her brother said, “Yes, sir?”

“I am bringing a reporter from the Old Port Telegraph to the theater tomorrow to get a sneak peek at my new venture. You will accompany me. Bring a syringe for the girl’s blood. We will leave at two o’clock sharp.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. If you will excuse me, Kiernan, I have some letters to attend to. Go to the Seaport and check on the status of my ships. And pay Roth a visit—I know he has been talking to Wilson Everett at the Lugsworth. Remind him where his focus needs to lie.”

“Very good,” Kiernan said, but he sounded weary. Agnes heard the door open and close, and then Leo was trudging up the stairs.

“Did you hear that?” he whispered.

“Look on the bright side,” she said. “This may be our last chance to know if she’s come up with a solution to the ceiling problem. You’ve got to find some way to speak to her alone.”

“I know,” Leo said.

Dinner that night was a quiet affair, each of the three McLellans lost in their own thoughts. Xavier excused himself early and Leo went to bed soon after, still fretting over his day tomorrow. Agnes would have given anything to be able to take his place. She hated this sense of powerlessness.

She was about to go upstairs herself when she heard the sound of a hoot owl. It hooted twice, paused, then hooted again.

Eneas.

She rushed to the dining room window, and he was there by the motorcar waving at her to come out. She went out through the kitchen and met him behind a large rhododendron bush.

“I received a notice from the post office,” he said. For one shocking second Agnes thought the university was responding to her essay, before she remembered it had only just been mailed. Eneas’s hands trembled as he held out a thin silver envelope stamped with wax. The seal had a flowering tree with a snake slithering at its roots. “The crest of the Byrnes,” he said, and his voice shook as much as his hands.

“What?” Agnes ran her fingers over the dark red wax.

“Take it inside, quickly. Don’t let anyone see. Go!”

She tucked it into her pocket, whirled, and ran back into the kitchen, startling Hattie as she was washing the dishes. Once she was safely in her room, she took the letter out. Her name was written in a very handsome script in black ink. There was no return address.

She broke the wax and slid the letter out.

My dearest Agnes,

I hope this letter reaches you. I have friends at the University of Ithilia and received surprising (and welcome) news. Come find me when you arrive. I will say no more here except that I have longed to meet you.

Your loving grandmother,

Ambrosine Byrne

Agnes read the letter three times and by the fourth, tears were obscuring her vision. She sat down at her desk and smoothed the paper out, running her fingers over the words, each one as precious as if they had been spoken aloud.

Her grandmother knew she was coming. Her grandmother wanted to meet her.





36

Sera

AFTER LEO LEFT HER, SERA HAD EXPLAINED THE SITUATION to Errol and Boris and they had talked late into the night. They’d had to stop when day came and the performers returned, but picked up their planning again when the next night fell. By the following morning, she felt they had come up with a solid plan.

Errol would serve as a navigator, not only to direct the ship to Braxos but also to get Sera to the Seaport—she would not know where she was going once she got to the roof. Errol did not relish the thought of leading humans to his sacred island.

“They will take and take from it,” he muttered. “They will steal its beauty and its riches.”

“Not these humans, Errol,” she had said. “They aren’t like that.”

He had snorted. “All humans are the same, Sera Lighthaven. Lusting for land, greedy for power, no thought for any creatures but themselves.”

She felt awful leaving Boris behind, but there was simply no way to take the Arboreal with them. The tree was only too happy to help and insisted in her windy voice that her sprites would perform however she instructed them, and that the humans would not be able to look away from the glory of their light.

“Do not be sad for me, little sapling,” she had crooned. “I have lived a long life, a good life. And you have given me the greatest gift of all. You have given me seeds of light and love.”

They’d worked out a solution to break the ceiling—Errol had a defense mechanism hidden in his scales and skin. His lights were not just for show or for communication.

“We mertags have lightning in us,” he told her proudly when she had presented the problem of the glass. “If we are attacked, we run a current over our skin. Shocks the enemy, it does. Burns them. Very nasty, very effective.”

“Then how did the humans catch you?” Sera asked. “Why did you not use this power against them?”

Errol had frowned at her. “I did. Lightning cannot be used more than once at a time. It must be replenished.” Then he croaked out a laugh. “But I got one, oh yes I got one good. He won’t be touching a mertag again anytime soon. Now they only touch Errol with wood or nets, never skin or metal.”

“And you think if you touch the glass and run the lightning over your skin, it will break?”