by Sonia Faruqi
“At a biological level, hummers have both gills and lungs, the gills from the merperson parent and the lungs from the human parent. It’s a little-known fact that, because they belong equally to both land and water, hummers transform automatically based on their environment. When they are in the water, hummers have a merperson form; when they are on land, they have a human form. When they move from one environment to the other—land to water, or water to land—their body dies and then returns to life in its new form. At an intellectual level, because hummers belong to all of the earth, they are capable of forming connections between things that others cannot even conceive of. As such, they are particularly inventive people, the most inventive on earth.
“One day, the mermaid noticed a new merman in her Legend and Lore class. He approached her after the class and asked her to help him find the elixir. She gave him a slip of parchment with the name of someone who could assist him in his quest. But he had a mistaken impression about the elixir; he thought that it could make him immortal. She told him that it could save his life, or someone else’s, were death imminent, but it did not have the power to bestow immortality—nothing did. The elixir saved life once, and that was it. The mermaid also asked the merman why he would wish to be immortal. He said it was because there was something he wanted to invent, and he worried he wouldn’t find a way to invent it in his lifetime. On the topic of invention, she told him about hummers and their inventive qualities. He seemed enthralled by the idea of hummers.
“There was something very different about this merman, and the mermaid found herself falling headlong in love with him, just as he seemed to be falling headlong in love with her. One day, she told him she was expecting. Clasping her hands, he promised her they would marry soon. She broke in half a large shell—a lion’s paw scallop. She retained half and handed him the other half—symbolizing that they each now carried the heart of the other and the power to break it.
“But after that day, the merman vanished without a trace. She assumed he’d died on his quest for the elixir, and she blamed herself for having played a role in his quest. Nine months later, their child was born. The mermaid’s parents helped raise him, as did her younger sister. The child was precocious: Before he turned three, he could speak, read, and write.
“One day, when the mermaid was out on an errand with him, an orca dived down and asked her, How old is your hummer? The whale could detect his lungs through echolocation, a process of sending out sound beams and using the echoes from those sounds to identify objects; echolocation gives whales the ability to see through things. The mermaid was shocked. She realized then that the father of her son was not a merman but a human. He had transformed somehow from a human to a merman, perhaps through some magic potion. He had deceived her by letting her believe him to be a merman. He had used her in order to create a hummer who would invent what he wished. He had likely not died on an elixir quest, as she had first assumed; instead, he must have left the ocean and transformed back to a human.
“Now at least the mermaid understood their child’s precociousness—it was because he was a hummer. She guarded him vigilantly, worried that his father would return to kidnap him. Her nightmare soon materialized. The villain burst through the door of her home on the night of the child’s third birthday. The ruckus awoke the mermaid’s parents in the next room, and they emerged into the living room. The villain clubbed them to death. Then, grabbing the child, he rushed to the surface. The mermaid followed him up to the waves and managed to wrest the child back. The villain tried to slash her throat with the half-shell she’d given him, wielding it as a dagger. But his aim was inaccurate in the dark. He ended up slashing the child’s cheek, starting at his earlobe, and a part of her face, culminating at the lip. Then he knocked her unconscious and escaped with the child.”
Osmundea slipped out of the living room, and Izar was glad, for it was all too much—he keeled over, his head in his hands. His scar prickled as though an electric wire were sparking to life beneath it. Osmundea returned soon with a large half-shell with long, flaunting beige ridges and dark-pink fan-like ribs. Izar’s fingers quivered as he extracted the half-shell from his own satchel and held it against hers. The two halves fit perfectly, crease against crease, forming two parts of a broken heart.
“Tang Tarpon found the elixir thirty years ago,” Osmundea said quietly. “I interviewed him as part of my research on the elixir. Then, twenty-nine years ago, Antares Eridan approached me after my Legend and Lore class, requesting assistance in finding the elixir. To help him, I wrote on a piece of parchment: Find Tang Tarpon. He will guide you to the elixir. Soon after, upon finding myself expecting, I gave Antares the half-shell you are now holding in your hands. I’ve waited twenty-five years for you to find me, son, for you to return home to me.”
Izar’s jaw clenched. How dare Osmundea accuse Antares? Yes, she knew both Antares’s name and Tang’s; yes, her name started with O, as did that of the author of the elixir note in his satchel; yes, the single line on the parchment precisely matched the words she’d just spoken; yes, the two halves of the shell fit together like the two halves of a coin; yes, her scar was a direct extension of his own; yes, Izar’s being a hummer would explain his transformation from a human to a merman; yes, Izar’s resemblance to her was uncanny, with the indigo eyes and tail; yes, the dates she mentioned aligned with his own, but she could not possibly be his mother, for the man she described—a murderer, an abductor—could not possibly be his father.
Izar rose abruptly and started to shift to the door, but he found himself so disoriented by the conversation that he stopped to lean against the mantel. A pretty piece of ivory parchment with cursive gold writing caught his eye. He read it absentmindedly:
The Elnaths and the Costarias request the pleasure of your presence,
along with your family,
at the engagement party of Ecklon Elnath and Coralline Costaria,
at noon on the fifteenth of July in the garden of the Elnath Mansion;
and, pursuant, their wedding two weeks after,
at noon on the twenty-ninth of July at Kelp Cove;
please confirm your attendance as soon as possible,
by scroll to either the Elnath or Costaria home in Urchin Grove.
Coralline Costaria, in Urchin Grove; it could not be his Coralline, could it? He tried to ask Osmundea, but he could not speak: His tongue flopped helplessly against the roof of his mouth, as loose as jelly.
“My sister, Rhodomela, invited me to Coralline’s engagement party and wedding,” Osmundea explained.
Rhodomela, Coralline’s former boss. That meant this wedding invitation was for his Coralline. Izar’s hands shook so violently that it took him long minutes to extract the merman’s portrait from within Coralline’s notepad. He handed it to Osmundea without a word.
“Yes, this is the merman she will wed—Ecklon,” she said, startled. “But how do you have this?”
The twenty-ninth of July was a week away. Coralline was going to marry Ecklon then. His Coralline was going to marry someone else.
A small sand-clock stood on the mantel, white sand trickling from its upper to lower ampoule through a narrow neck. Izar bent his head to read the horizontal lines engraved into the hourglass. His eyes widened. The time was almost two; he’d promised Coralline he’d return to her before noon. He bolted out the door.
When her sobs dwindled to hiccups, when her face became squashed in her pillow—only then did Coralline turn over onto her back. She stared unseeingly at the ceiling.
The men on the ship the day of the black poison spill—Izar must have been one of them. And she hadn’t stopped to think about it before now, but Izar had blanched when she’d shown him the pen engraved with the name Zaurak Alphard—he must know the man.
As a human, Izar was the enemy generally; what the card in her hand showed was that he was also the enemy specifically. It was because of him that her father’s hand was severed, and her brother lay on his deathbed.
All along, Izar had played a game with her in order to trick her for the elixir. Everything he’d done—rescuing her from the two brothers in Bristled Bed and Breakfast, dancing with her at the Ball, accompanying her into the darkness of the deep sea—was so that he could obtain the elixir. Last night, when he’d told her that he wanted her to have the elixir, it was so that she would loosen her guard about it, perhaps also so that she would sleep with him—as she had. He had probably planned to steal the elixir from her this morning, but he hadn’t needed to—she had placed it in the palm of his hand.
Coralline glanced at the sand-clock. The time was half past two in the afternoon. He would not return.
She turned to Pavonis, Altair, and Nacre, lingering together at the window, watching her. “I’m sorry to have let you down,” she said, “especially after all of you risked your lives to accompany me on this Elixir Expedition.”
“It’s not your fault you have no sense,” Nacre said with a sigh.
“If I ever see that despicable specimen again,” Pavonis growled, “no force on earth will prevent me from crushing him against the seabed!”
“I’m just glad we’re going home,” Altair said. “I can’t wait to return to my Kuda.”
How wonderfully simple it was between Altair and Kuda, Coralline thought. They would remain a pair until the day they died. Not for a moment before would either falter. And if one of them died before the other, the survivor would not seek a new mate. The word betrayal did not exist for seahorses.
A knock sounded at the front door, to the other side of the Telescope Tower.
“I’ll see who’s at the door,” Pavonis said. “If it’s constables, I’ll make a lot of noise, both to alert you and distract them. Once you hear me, escape out the window with Altair and Nacre, and I’ll come find you later. Understand?”
Coralline nodded, and Pavonis left. She crept out of bed and shifted to the window, her fingers grasping the windowsill nervously. “Coralline!” Pavonis called, from the front of the Telescope Tower. “You’ll never guess who it is.”
Her eyes widened. Izar, it had to be. He was late, but he had returned to her—with the elixir she’d given him for safe-keeping! She darted out her window, in through the living room window two stories below, and pulled the front door open.
The merman at the door had a silver tail, and his hair was the shade of pebbled sand. Dimples carved sudden triangles into his cheeks. Ecklon.
She did not know who moved first, but before she could draw her next breath, they were in each other’s arms, and he was twirling her in circle upon circle. They held each other so tightly that she thought her ribs might crack, but she didn’t care—Ecklon had come for her; halfway across Meristem, he had found her.
When they stopped twirling, Coralline peered into his silver-gray eyes. She had been upset with him about something in the last few days; what was it? . . . It came to her with such force that her voice turned harsh: “Are you betraying me with Rosette?”
“Of course not. What would give you such a ridiculous idea?”
He was telling the truth, Coralline knew, because he was looking directly in her eyes. Her stomach dropped to the level of her tailfin, and she suddenly felt as sick as though she’d caught Venant’s flu. She sagged against his chest, in part from weakness and in part so that he could not see her face.
Sage Dahlia Delaisi had been wrong. Ecklon was not betraying her. But Coralline had betrayed him.
Her head lifted cautiously from his chest. His silver-gray eyes were not looking at her, but were staring past her into the living room of the Telescope Tower, through the door Coralline had left open. “Where is he?” Ecklon demanded, a hard rim to his pupils.
“Who?” Coralline asked in a small voice.
“Venant Veritate,” he said, his gaze returning to her. “This is his home, is it not? I’d like to meet him.”
Of course. Ecklon admired Venant’s work just as much as she, having memorized whole passages from The Universe Demystified.
“He’s ill,” Coralline said, “and contagious.” It was true, at least, she consoled herself, but the real reason she did not want Ecklon to meet Venant was that Venant had assumed she and Izar were a couple. He would be surprised to see her in Ecklon’s arms and may ask where Izar was. “I know you’d like to meet Venant, but he’s . . . napping.” Venant was likely napping, she thought, for he would otherwise have emerged from his bedroom at the commotion outside his home. One of the three algae in the Virus Vanquisher solution she’d prepared for him this morning had happened to be sleep inducing. Coralline had never before been so grateful for someone’s sleep. “We should speak softly for the sake of his recovery,” she suggested, in a voice just above a whisper. “How did you know to find me here?”
“It was a hunch. I thought that if you were in the Blue Bottle area, you might try to meet our favorite author before leaving. And I already knew his address, because I’d gotten it from the Under-Ministry of Residential Affairs before your birthday, in order to send him a copy of The Universe Demystified to autograph for you.”
It hadn’t been quite how Coralline had come across Venant, but it could just as well have been. Touched by Ecklon’s explanation, she tousled his hair, finding the strands to be just as sleek as she remembered. “How did you know I was in the Blue Bottle area?” she asked.
“I’ve been following your movements. I’m the detective on Tang Tarpon’s murder case.”
“What? How?”
“I took the case to clear your name, of course.”
To clear her name . . . Ecklon was clearing her name. . . . His boss, Sinistrum Scomber, would not have wanted him to take the case, because the personal nature of it would raise questions of credibility. But Ecklon had taken the case regardless in order to defend her. Here he was, far from home, fighting for her freedom, while she was cavorting with someone else—the enemy, no less.
“Is there anything you wish to tell me?” Ecklon asked.
It was a question he’d never asked her before, and in a way he’d never asked her before. Could it be that he’d learned about Izar over the course of following her movements to this Telescope Tower? Could he have spoken with Limpet and Linatella Laminaria, perchance?
No. If he had learned about Izar, Ecklon would not be here.
“There’s nothing I wish to tell you,” Coralline said.
This is the merman she will wed—Ecklon, Osmundea had said. The sentence looped through Izar’s mind in circles, such that even though he was swimming straight, hurtling toward the Telescope Tower at the highest speed he was capable of, he had the impression he was chasing his own tail.
He should give her the benefit of the doubt, he told himself, for he was also guilty of keeping secrets from her. Perhaps she was planning to leave Ecklon for him, just as Izar was planning to leave Ocean Dominion for her. And perhaps she was planning to tell him about Ecklon after ending her relationship with Ecklon, just as Izar was planning to tell her about Ocean Dominion after ending his relationship with Ocean Dominion.
Finally, there it was, farther ahead, the Telescope Tower, looking like a drowned lighthouse on the seabed. A small kelp forest sprouted between Izar and the Tower, and Izar started to cross the long flaps of bright-green leaves, but he stopped suddenly at the sight in front of the Tower.
Her bronze scales shimmering, her long black hair glistening down her back, Coralline hovered in the arms of a merman. Turning her neck up as gracefully as a swan, she kissed him.
Coralline’s fist thudded on the door to the snail-shaped house.
“Use your head, and use the window to the side of the door!” barked a shrill voice.
Coralline burst in through the window and bolted to Sage Dahlia, who was sitting plumply on the settee. With her hands on her hips, she stared down at the sage. Coralline had a murder charge to her name; she might as well earn it. Just as there were multiple ways to save someone, there were multiple ways to murder someone. She could
wrap her hands around the sage’s gills, but the thickness of the neck would make it difficult for the sage to suffocate. She could stab the sage in the heart with a dagger, but the dagger was in Coralline’s satchel, and she had given her satchel to Ecklon to hold.
He was waiting for her in the shadow of a building around the bend, accompanied by Pavonis, Altair, Nacre, and Menziesii. It was risky for Coralline to be in Blue Bottle, Ecklon had repeatedly warned her on the way here—a whole squad of constables must be searching for her—but Coralline’s desire to kill Sage Dahlia had overpowered her sense of reason.
“How may I help you?” Sage Dahlia asked in a polite, placid voice.
Coralline had treated the sage’s statement as a prophecy, but this orange clown did not even remember her. “You were wrong!” Coralline bellowed.
“Was I, now?” she said, in the over-calm tone of addressing a child having a tantrum.
“You told me I was being betrayed by my love!”
Now Sage Dahlia sat up straight, her eyes blinking with recognition.
“I am not being betrayed by my love,” Coralline said hotly. “Far from betraying me, my love is waiting for me outside.”
“Show me.”
The voluminous form pushed past Coralline at surprising speed. Trailing Sage Dahlia to the window, Coralline gestured toward Ecklon with her hand.
“Oh, him,” Sage Dahlia said, turning back to Coralline. Pity reigned in her watery eyes, reminding Coralline of Rhodomela’s gaze whenever Rhodomela was about to impart a tragic diagnosis to a patient. “He is not your love.”
Coralline reeled back. If Ecklon was not her love, it meant Izar was her love. And so the sage’s statement—You are being betrayed by your love—was true after all, for Izar had been betraying her every moment, belonging as he did to Ocean Dominion.
