by Sonia Faruqi
But with the murder charge looming over Coralline, the question remains: Will the remainder of her healing occur at the Wrongdoers’ Refinery?
“I don’t understand,” Coralline stammered, gawking at Rhodomela. “You fired me during my probationary review.”
“Yes, but I realized soon after that I should not have. That’s why I never mailed your badge to the Association of Apothecaries, as I was legally required to do. And that’s why I never disposed of your urns of remedies. With your desmarestia solution, you have now proven that you do know how to think irregularly.”
“You lied to the Constables Department to save me,” Coralline said incredulously. “Am I really a master apothecary now?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t believe it. It’s a dream come true. . . . Thank you for getting the medical malpractice charge against me dismissed; thank you for convincing the Association of Apothecaries to award me the title of master. And I never thought I’d say it, but thank you also for firing me. Otherwise, I might have relied on my textbooks for the rest of my life, without bothering to think for myself.”
“Think nothing of it,” Rhodomela said. From her pinched expression, she seemed slightly embarrassed at Coralline’s gratitude. “And here’s your new badge.”
She handed Coralline a sand-dollar shell. Coralline Costaria, Master Apothecary stated its smooth, round surface. Coralline read the words over and over, as though repetition would help with comprehension.
“Your remedy has the potential to change the future of healing. I am here today to invite you to join me at The Irregular Remedy not as an employee but as a partner. I would like for us to be two master apothecaries working side by side, together saving lives.”
Rhodomela’s tone was as flat as ever, but she’d just paid Coralline the greatest compliment of her career. Even in her most farfetched dreams, Coralline had never imagined she’d be a partner at The Irregular Remedy—an equal to Rhodomela! That meant more to Coralline than the title of master apothecary, for Rhodomela’s approval was more difficult to achieve than that of the Decision-Making Panel. She envisioned a placard with the words Coralline’s Cures dangling above her unit of shelves at The Irregular Remedy. She would not have her own clinic, but she would have her own practice at this clinic. Her logo would be a pink burst of coralline algae.
“Will you be my partner, Coralline?” The black eyes pierced Coralline, narrow but bright.
“I would love to,” Coralline heard herself say, “but I can never heal again.” She meant it for herself—if she could not heal herself, she could not heal others. And that was what Rhodomela had said to her during her probationary review: “In order to heal others, you have to first heal yourself.” Even were Coralline not to die soon, she did not want to heal herself. There was an addictive element to her heartache for Izar, a beauty to her bitterness.
It hurt, but, with quivering fingers, Coralline handed the sand-dollar badge back to Rhodomela.
“Don’t do this, Coralline,” Rhodomela said, her face as stiff as a cloth wrung tightly through the hands. “You have too much talent and skill to waste.”
“I’m sorry.” Rhodomela had smelled Coralline’s surroundings for herself, but Coralline did not want to explicitly tell Rhodomela that she lay on the verge of death; Rhodomela would see for herself soon enough. “You were right,” Coralline said.
“What about?”
“Love. That it’s a farce.”
Coralline was about to blurt out more, to wail, to share her burden with someone—but, her eyes glittering, Rhodomela whirled around and departed. Coralline could not help but wonder whether Rhodomela was fleeing her own pain or Coralline’s.
A knock sounded at the door.
“Come in,” Coralline called.
Ecklon entered. His pebbled hair was swept off his forehead, and his broad frame was attired in a dark-ash waistcoat with buttercup lucine shells for buttons. His face, with the narrow line of his nose and the smooth set of his lips, was unbearably handsome, so much more so than Izar’s, but Coralline felt as though she was regarding not the merman with whom she was supposed to spend the rest of her life but a beautiful stranger.
Ecklon squeezed into the desk chair at Coralline’s bedside, but his frame was too tall and wide for it, such that his tailfin grazed the floor. Coralline herself sat not propped up against her pillows but with her tailfin over the side of the bed, next to his. At her mother’s insistence, she had changed out of the mourning-black bodice she’d been wearing all week into a sun-orange corset with incongruously puffed sleeves. She found the bright color irritating—it seemed to be mocking her mood. She tried to keep her unsupported back straight, but her vertebrae could not stop from slumping.
“I just returned from Hog’s Bristle,” Ecklon said.
There was death in his manner, in the quietness of his voice. The case must have been negatively resolved, Coralline thought—he must have been unable to disprove the murder charge against her.
Ecklon reached into his waistcoat pocket and extracted a serpent-encrusted dagger. It hurtled Coralline back in time and space—she was hovering again over Tang Tarpon in Hog’s Bristle, surrounded by his empty decanters of parasol wine, gasping as he bled to death.
“I interviewed a dozen dagger carvers in Hog’s Bristle,” Ecklon said, “and managed to locate the one who carved the serpent-hilt dagger that killed Tang. The dagger carver, an ancient, white-haired merman with weak eyes and steady hands, eventually remembered the purchaser of this dagger: a yellow-tailed merman named Sabre Sandeel. I obtained Sabre’s information and portrait from the Under-Ministry of Residential Affairs. I went to the designated house and found Sabre there, as well as Charonia—Tang Tarpon’s wife. Sabre tried to escape out the back door, but I managed to apprehend and handcuff him. Charonia, meanwhile, swallowed desmarestia, writhed, and died. Crying, Sabre confessed to Tang’s murder and expressed his motive: He loved Charonia, and she loved him, but he feared she might return to her husband again one day, so he killed her husband to eliminate that possibility. Sabre is now awaiting trial at the Wrongdoers’ Refinery for the murder of Tang Tarpon.”
How selfish Charonia had been, Coralline thought. Tang had risked his own life to save hers—finding the elixir to cure her spinal tumor—but she’d fallen in love with someone else. By doing so, she’d ruined not only her own life but also the lives of both her husband and her lover. . . . But by judging Charonia, was Coralline not also judging herself? As Tang had saved Charonia, Ecklon was saving Coralline, risking his career for her. And as Charonia had chosen someone else—Sabre, capable of violence against others—Coralline had also chosen someone else—Izar, capable of violence against others. Charonia had killed herself upon learning her mistake; Coralline was, fortunately, going to die soon, based on Mintaka’s curse.
She hoped death would find her before her wedding—even though only twenty-four hours remained to the event. She wanted to die not only because she could not be with Izar but also because she could not be with Ecklon—her betrayal of him was making her sicker by the day, like a dagger twisting deeper and deeper into her side. If she died before her wedding, she would not explicitly end her relationship with Ecklon—or tell him anything, she’d decided. She would not shatter him by her betrayal, as Izar had shattered her by his betrayal—his allegiance to Ocean Dominion. Coralline had other, more selfish reasons to keep Izar a secret from Ecklon: She did not have the courage to tell him about Izar, and she did not want his final memory of her to be polluted by her mistake.
“There is no more murder charge against you,” Ecklon continued. “Your name is now clear. You are no longer under house arrest.”
Even as he conveyed the good news, the manner of death remained in his voice. Given that it did not relate to the case—the case was positively resolved—could it relate to their relationship? Coralline wondered. Maybe he knew about Izar; maybe he was here to end things with her. She sat up straight and looked at him attenti
vely, pining to hear him say that he no longer wanted to be with her.
“You are free to live,” he said, “free to marry.”
But she did not have long to live, and she did not want to marry.
“Is there anything you’d like to tell me?” he asked.
Was she imagining the emphasis in his voice, the new, rushed quality of it, the sense that he was punishing himself by his question?
“No,” she said.
“Coralline,” called a meek voice from the window.
Coralline felt her brow crinkle, but she couldn’t tell whether she was awake or dreaming. She vacillated constantly between sleep and consciousness, falling as smoothly from one to the other as the trickle of sand in a sand-clock. Whenever she awoke, she doubted she had been asleep; whenever she slept, she doubted she had been awake.
“Coralline!” the voice called again.
She hoped it was Pavonis, but the voice did not have his authoritative tone—it was small and tremulous. She had not seen Pavonis since he’d stormed off after learning of her impending death. Maybe he’d returned now, she thought, maybe he was ready to forgive her for leaving him alone in the world after her death.
Her eyes opened slowly. A tiny orange form was suspended in the oval frame of her window—Altair. He was thick and shiny around the middle, due to give birth soon to hundreds of seahorses. The waters behind him held the gray hue of evening.
“I’m here, too!” piped another voice, from much closer, the corner of Coralline’s pillow, in fact—Nacre.
“What’s the matter?” Coralline asked, looking with little interest from the snail to the seahorse.
“Altair has something to tell you,” Nacre said, turning slightly such that one of her tentacles faced him, and the other remained pointed at Coralline.
“I thought it my duty to let you know,” he said, “that I was wrong.”
“About what?” Coralline yawned.
“Before the Elixir Expedition, I believed in black-and-white clarity, in unerring monogamy. But I’ve been thinking about love ever since our return, and I’ve realized that being with the right partner enables one to glow brightly, while being with the wrong partner forces one to hide one’s true self, to live camouflaged, in essence. I’ve been watching you since our return to Urchin Grove. With Izar by your side, you glowed brighter than ever; now, without him, you’ve become a shadow of your former self. You’re so camouflaged, Coralline, you can hardly even see yourself anymore.”
“What Altair is trying to say in his long-winded way,” Nacre contributed, “is that when it comes to love, you should follow your heart, not your head. If you don’t want to marry Ecklon, don’t. But don’t you dare tell your mother I said so!”
Her eyes closing, Coralline started drifting again into sleep. A clammy form arrived on her right shoulder and nestled in the hollow, tentacles patting her ear. Previously, when Coralline had been unaccustomed to Nacre, she’d found any movement of the snail’s tentacles against her ear irritating, tickling, and she’d shrugged instinctively. Now, she found the movement of the tentacles soothing—they were Nacre’s equivalents of pats on the head. “Poor darling,” Nacre whispered.
Coralline nestled deeper in the bed. The bedsheets were Izar’s arms, beckoning her closer and closer, and she sank keenly into their embrace. . . .
Izar stood with Zaurak next to the closed door, in the shadows, awaiting the two lackeys.
Zaurak was leaning against the wall, the foot of his injured leg resting lightly on the floor. Sweat was streaming down the sides of his face—the mere act of standing seemed to be draining him. His cheeks were flushed; he’d awoken with a fever, as a result of his leg infection. Flies were circling the gash across his shin, droning steadily like a fan. A trickle of pus ran down to his ankle.
“You swallowed the elixir last night before you slept, right?” Izar asked.
“Yes.”
After everything he and Coralline had done to get the elixir, how could it not have worked? Izar thought. How could Zaurak’s leg not be fully healed? Izar had felt certain that upon taking the elixir, not only would Zaurak’s injury be cured, but his limp itself would disappear. He had imagined Zaurak leaping and skipping like a ballerina on the leg that he was currently dragging.
“Will you be able to run?” Izar whispered.
“How many times do you want me to say it?” Zaurak hissed. “Yes.”
There was a rattling just outside the door, and a jingle—one lackey was probably trying to balance the breakfast tray in his hands, while the other was inserting the key to unlock the door. “Shh!” Izar said, standing as straight as a soldier at attention.
The door opened. Izar was slightly off to the side, and he could not see the two lackeys, but he could see their shadows on the floor, one shadow a little more squat than the other. He saw Zaurak’s lumpy shadow as well, and he heard the clang of Zaurak’s pen as it hit the floor. The squat shadow jumped as the pen rolled between his feet—then there was an ear-splitting crack: The breakfast tray fell, the dishes broke. The pen was not a weapon, of course, but it was intended to alarm, and had served his purpose. The crash of dishes was Izar’s cue: He leapt out of the shadows and came face-to-face with the two lackeys.
The more squat lackey stepped into the room and pointed his gun at Izar. Behind him, Zaurak collected the fallen tray and slammed it over the lackey’s head, so forcefully that the tray shattered. As Izar watched, the man’s eyes rolled up in his head. Starting with his feet, then knees, then hips, he collapsed in slow motion, as though a rug had been tugged out from underneath him.
Zaurak sagged down to the floor himself, shaking, huffing, exhausted.
Izar tackled the other lackey, but not before the man drew his gun. Izar expected the lackey to point the gun at him, but he pointed it at Zaurak. Before Izar could blink, a shot tore through the air. From over the lackey’s shoulder, Izar saw blood diffusing out of Zaurak’s chest and dripping over his sides like paint.
Izar leapt upon the lackey, and they fell together to the floor. Izar pummeled him until the lackey’s nose broke twice and his jaw cracked once, and his face was so bloodied, it could no longer be recognized.
He then knelt on the floor next to Zaurak and pulled the large head onto his lap. Zaurak’s lips parted—he was trying to tell Izar something—and Izar bent his head, but he heard nothing more than the rasp of Zaurak’s breath against his ear. Izar prayed for the elixir to come into action now, for it to save Zaurak’s life, but, before he could draw his next breath, the light vanished from Zaurak’s eyes. His irises became as luminous but empty as gray pearls.
“The greatest day of your life has finally arrived! In a matter of hours, you will transform from Coralline Costaria to Coralline Elnath, hanging on the arm of the most eligible merman in Urchin Grove. Out of bed, Coralline, before he changes his mind and decides to marry Rosette instead!”
Coralline opened one eye, then the other, as though the delay could help put off her wedding. Hitting rock-bottom—that was an expression she’d heard Izar use once—and she did feel as though she’d hit her head against the bottom of a rock. Her heartache was, by now, persistent and amorphous, like general bodily pain, a complaint she’d always found difficult to treat as an apothecary. She’d hoped to die overnight, passing seamlessly, gracefully, from life to death, but here she was, her blanket being yanked off her. She turned onto her side and curled her tail up to her arms, but Abalone pulled her arms until she was in an upright position, her tailfin over the side of the bed.
“Enough with that pinched expression, darling! No one likes a bleached coralline. Now, I have a gift for you sure to create marital bliss.”
Her mother handed her a book with a glossy fuchsia cover, The Beatific Bride: Tips for a Happy Home & Husband. Coralline skimmed the table of contents: Clean, don’t be mean. Prepare good foods to avoid bad moods. Adorn yourself and your home. Be domestic, not demanding.
“You can pore over the book la
ter, Coralline. For now, I’ve made you a most scrumptious breakfast as a reward for your having nibbled on nothing but ulva all week!”
Her mother handed her a bowl brimming with bushy burgundy fronds—pepper dulse, also called the truffle of the sea, an expensive treat saved for special occasions. Coralline placed the bowl on her bedside table, untouched.
“I understand, darling. On my own wedding day, I was so excited, I couldn’t eat a bite either!”
Her mother was already dressed for the wedding, Coralline saw. She wore a gilded bodice with a collar that climbed up her neck and left her shoulders bare, showcasing their broad, elegant lines. Her golden hair formed a glistening sheet over one shoulder.
“Here is your wedding bodice,” Abalone said.
The bodice was in the pale-pink and ochre shades of a wisp of dawn—the colors symbolic for the commencement of her new life, Coralline supposed. Thin, twirling tendrils of gauzy lace formed off-the-shoulder straps, and the neckline was low, scooped, and embroidered. Despite herself, Coralline found her hand fingering the hem of the bodice and reveling in its smoothness. She looked at her mother gratefully—the bodice was her mother’s finest creation and would have taken weeks of strained eyes and stiff fingers.
Slipping into the garment, Coralline shifted with her mother to the full-length mirror behind her door. Hovering behind Coralline, Abalone laced the silky strings. Coralline found it fortunate that her mother had chosen strings as the tightening mechanism rather than buttons, for the former offered more flexibility; with buttons, the corset would have sagged loosely around her, given how little she’d eaten all week.
Abalone swung in front of Coralline and scrutinized her face, looking at her as an artist might look at a blank canvas before starting to paint. She dabbed rouge on Coralline’s cheeks, until they were as pink as the tips of jewel anemones in the coral reef outside the window. Then she combed, untangled, separated, and folded Coralline’s hair into a multi-tiered bun atop her head. Coralline saw why her mother had wished for her to be a waif on her wedding day—with her newly pronounced collarbone, thin shoulders, and starvation-brightened eyes, she looked as dainty and fragile as the rose petal tellin above her beating heart. She had never felt worse but never looked better.
