The Cerulean (Untitled Duology, #1)(25)

“I honestly don’t see how it makes a difference.”

“Credit should be given where credit is due. The creatures are Pelagan.”

“Don’t tell me you have developed a sudden pride in your heritage?” Xavier sneered, and Leo felt there was an insult in the words that he did not quite understand. “Besides, the creatures are dead, if what you have told me about them is correct.”

“Then why search for them at all?”

Leo pressed himself against a bookshelf, his heart pounding.

“Because I do not give up until I have exhausted all options,” Xavier replied. “If there is the slightest chance of reclaiming them, we have to try. Unless you have another idea, or a magic compass or map that will tell us where the island is.”

Kiernan muttered something too low for Leo to hear. But when Xavier laughed, it felt like an ice cube had slipped into Leo’s stomach—it was a laugh that held all the darkness of a threat and not a shred of good humor.

“Did you think I was joking when I told you not to mention that name, Ezra? Did you think I was putting on a show for the sake of my children? You’re lucky I got you out of Pelago when I did. Ambrosine Byrne could snuff out this operation before you can say ‘mertag.’ I’ll not dangle my family as bait.”

That didn’t make sense at all—Xavier had had no contact with the Byrne family, much less Leo’s own grandmother, since his mother had died. But he was talking about her as if he knew her.

Kiernan’s reply was muffled, but Leo caught the words, “could be useful, is all.”

“I’m fully aware of what he looks like, thank you very much. But it would be Agnes she’d want, and I will never let that happen,” Xavier said with a tone that declared the matter finished. “Forget the sprites. Branson will find them or he won’t, and that will be the end of it. What we really need is another Arboreal, a bigger one, a stronger one. The droughts and heat waves are getting worse. The timing is ripe for the show to get on the road, so to speak.”

“We are trying but—”

“Try harder. They’re your sacred trees. Shouldn’t they be easy to find?”

“Not all naifa trees are Arboreals, Xavier. And we cannot go back to Culinnon.”

Leo knew from his father’s plays that naifa trees were sacred in Talmanism, and they only grew in Pelago. He had no idea what Culinnon was—another island, perhaps? Leo found himself wishing he had just gone up to bed when his sister had.

“Besides,” Kiernan continued, “many Pelagans will not accept the job we are offering, no matter what price.”

“Use my men then. They aren’t squeamish about some goddamn trees.”

“You really are the coldhearted bastard they say, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Xavier said. “I am.”

Leo kept stone-still as he heard the front door open.

“The island, Ezra. That’s all that matters.”

Kiernan sighed. “Xavier,” he said, “you are quite, quite sure this was not just some story she told you? To impress or—”

“It was not a story. It is real.” His father’s voice was brittle as new frost. “And she never sought to impress me.”

The silence that followed lasted so long, Leo wondered if they had simply parted ways without saying good night.

“We will speak again tomorrow,” Kiernan said, and Leo jumped. Once the Pelagan was gone, his father called for Swansea.

“Yes, sir?”

“Have that man followed,” Xavier said. “I want to know his every movement. Get Roth on it. He knows enough seedy characters and he damn well owes me.”

Roth? Leo thought. James Roth?

“I take it you don’t trust this Pelagan then, sir?” Swansea said.

“I don’t trust anyone, Swansea.” There was a pause. “Why are the lights in the drawing room on?”

“I’m not sure, sir. I was in the kitchen, I thought Janderson—”

Leo was intimately familiar with the sound of someone being silenced by his father. Quick as a flash, he sank into the nearest armchair and closed his eyes, his head lolling to one side to feign sleep. He heard footsteps approach and tried to keep his breathing steady. If his father knew he had been listening in on private conversations . . .

“Leo.”

He opened his eyes and rubbed them for effect.

“Oh, sorry, Father. I must have dozed off.”

“Mm.” Xavier frowned. “Get to bed. You have a big day ahead of you.”

“Yes, of course.” Leo got up and stretched. “Good night.”

But Xavier was already walking toward his study. Swansea disappeared after him and Leo was left alone, his heart pounding, wondering what exactly his father was up to.





10

Agnes

AGNES SAT IN HER LAB, A CANDLE BURNING DOWN ALMOST to the nub as she scribbled in her journal, trying to put down on paper as much as she could remember about the Arboreal and the mertag and her guesses as to what her father was planning to do with them.

There was no place in Old Port where Agnes felt more comfortable than in her lab. She had painted the walls a light green, but they were spattered with specks of blood, smeared guts, scorch marks, and various scratchings from when her notepad had been too far away. She didn’t have as much equipment as she’d like—just a lone microscope, a Bunsen burner, a few beakers in various shapes and sizes, some graduated cylinders, and a set of scalpels. She had bottles of chemicals too: hydrochloric acid, ethanol, xylene, paraffin . . . she’d been working up the courage to see if her father would allow her some potassium hydroxide.