The Cerulean (Untitled Duology, #1)(104)

“I am sure of it. But be warned—I will be clinging to your back at the time. I will burn you, my friend. By cockles and clams, I will burn you.”

Sera smiled. “It’s all right, Errol. I heal quickly. And I have faced worse dangers.”

Errol had looked dubious, but Sera was confident she could withstand anything she put her mind to at this point. Pain no longer frightened her. She had suffered the agony of losing her home, her best friend, her mothers. And she had survived. She would do anything to get back to the tether. No fate frightened her except one: failure.

The hardest part would be the timing. Sera would be lowered down on the swing, the shackles unlocked. Boris would push her out over the pond, and Errol had to jump at just the right moment to catch hold of her and climb onto her back. Sera would then have to make it to the balcony, and she didn’t know how heavy he would be. There was simply no way to test this beforehand. Getting to the ceiling didn’t worry her at all; in fact, she was eager to be climbing again. She wanted to feel like herself, to remember who she was. She was Sera Lighthaven and she was not meant to be chained.

But for now she had to wait, and she had already been waiting for a full day and night since she last saw Leo. She hoped he would return before the performance tomorrow. Time was running out.

At least Francis had been around during rehearsal, with a reassuring smile and whispered words of encouragement, reminding her there were others on her side. She wished she could thank him properly. He was the first person besides Agnes who had shown her kindness on this planet.

The boom of the door closing startled her out of her thoughts. Her heart leaped as she caught a glimpse of Leo’s face, but he was not alone; his father was with him. Cold fury curled in Sera’s stomach like a fist. There were two others as well, a man in a fedora and tweed jacket with a pen and notebook in hand and another, lumpier man carrying a box with a lens on it.

“In the name of the One True God,” the fedora man said, gazing around in awe. “What have you done to the place, Xavier?”

“I told you this would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” Leo’s father said. “The Arboreal has been producing at a rate that has shocked even my Pelagan scientist. He claims there are several new species of flower up there. Tell him, Leo.”

Leo seemed startled at being addressed. “Er, yes, well, that one will bite you if you get too close—Dragon’s Tooth, that’s what Kiernan calls it. And those change color depending on the time of day. We call those Sunrise Sunset.”

The man didn’t seem interested in flowers. “It’s been said you’re working very closely with this Pelagan . . . ah . . .” He searched through his notes. “Ezra Kiernan. Been quite a while since you attached yourself to a Pelagan, hasn’t it, Xavier?”

“He is necessary to the needs of my new venture, Rudolph. I am not attached to anyone.” Every word Leo’s father spoke was dripping with disdain. “But in order to procure these creatures, I needed men on the ground, men who knew the country and what to look for. Ezra was sufficient for those purposes.”

“There’s a rumor that he’s from Culin—”

“Next question,” Xavier said, and his tone left no room for debate.

Sera did not think she had ever seen someone so rigid and unyielding. The man with the fedora moved to a new subject as they approached the pond.

“This is where we keep the mertag,” Xavier said. “He will clean our lakes and rivers, replenish the Gulf of Windsor, and make our waters rich again. With his help we will not have to rely so heavily on Pelagan imports.”

The man paused in his writing to peer into the water. “I don’t see anything.”

“He’s shy,” Xavier said dryly. “Leo, if you will.”

Leo did not seem happy as he walked up the steps to the stage. He went behind the curtain, but before he disappeared he shot Sera an apologetic look.

There was a creaking sound, like when Francis would unveil the glass ceiling, and a net came down, splitting open like a mouth and dropping into the pond. Seconds later, the net came up with Errol caught in its jaws. Colors flashed over his skin and across his fins and tail, brilliant zips of scarlet and teal and gold.

“Release me!” he cried.

“Let him go!” Sera shouted, forgetting for a moment that she should not speak, that it would only draw attention to herself. They could not understand her and would not heed her even if they could.

“Was that the girl?” the man in the fedora asked eagerly, trying to make her out through the garden. The man with the box had set it up on a tripod and the lens was trained on Errol. There was a flash and a puff of smoke.

“Put him back, Leo,” Xavier called, and Errol was slowly lowered back into the pond. The three men climbed the steps to the stage, and the man with the box focused it on Boris and her flowers. There were more flashes and puffs of smoke.

“The Arboreal may not look like much,” Leo’s father was saying. “But when he was first planted here only a little over a month ago, this was all bare earth. And now look at him.”

Leo skulked back onto the stage to join them as Xavier explained how he was planning to exploit the poor tree.

“And now,” he said, once the fedora man had finished jotting down notes on Boris, “the grand finale.”

They skirted around the garden to where Sera was crouched in the crate.