Page 46 of Pearls of Salt and Sacrifice

Calix squeaked in her pocket. She tucked the blanket under one arm and fished him out with her free hand. He purred and wrapped his tentacles around her fingers, blinking bulbous eyes as she held him level with her face.

“What am I going to do, Calix?” she whispered. A tear leaked from her eye and ran down her cheek. “There just isn’t enough of me to go around.”

The kraken reached out a tiny arm and pressed it against the tear at the edge of her jaw. But another tear escaped and trailed after the first. It ran over his pink tentacle before dripping to the polished sea-stone floor.

Reva drew a shuddering breath. “I can’t shake the awful feeling, Calix, that no matter what I decide to do…people are going to die.”

Chapter Fourteen

Reva shivered and wrinkled her nose against the dank smell of old socks as Belen escorted her down a waterlogged, dripping tunnel. She wished she had brought the blanket with her as a chill rippled over her skin. The midnight blue dress she’d chosen from the wardrobe didn’t have any sleeves and draped from one shoulder, leaving the other completely bare.

She’d picked it because she knew the scandalous off-shoulder design would have appalled Cassandra. Considering current circumstances, she wasn’t keen on earning her stepmother’s approval or staying in her good graces…

But that was a battle to be fought later.

“I’m sorry about this,” Belen said.

Something crunched unpleasantly beneath the heel of the flimsy sandals she’d also borrowed from the cupboard. She’d better start preparing herself for the more immediate battle on her horizon. “Sorry about what?” She hated how the straps on her new footwear wound up over her ankles without offering any real support at all.

Perfectly useless things.

With her dress hiked about her knees to keep it off the wet floor, Belen stalked around a bend in the tunnel as if she hadn’t heard Reva’s question. “He insisted. He says he knows best. He says you need to see this. Well, I say he’s a love-besotted fool. And a half-brained one, at that.”

Belen skidded to a halt before a closed door flanked by two elvish guards. They dipped their heads to the princess before casting curious looks at Reva. “I don’t suppose the anteroom has flooded and swept my fool brother out into the cold, has it?”

The taller of the two guards scratched behind his ear with the hand not holding his trident. “Ah, no, my lady. Rest assured, it hasn’t.”

“Pity. Oh well.” She turned back to Reva and studied her with a critical eye. “You’ll have to talk sense into him then, I suppose. But be quick about it—this bubble is unstable. You look lovely, by the way. That color will drive him crazy.”

Reva stiffened, her knuckles whitening around the wad of midnight blue fabric she held off the floor. “Why is that?”

Belen’s chilly fingers brushed Reva’s collarbone as she adjusted the starfish clasp on the borrowed dress. “My mother had blue eyes,” she said matter-of-factly. “I don’t remember her well. She returned to the sea when Damaris was born, and I was such a little waif; I only remember taking care of the new baby. But Jareth remembers.”

“Returned to the sea?” Reva asked, allowing Belen to finish adjusting the shoulder of the dress.

Belen tipped her head back to look Reva in the face. “She died,” she said without a quaver to her voice. “It’s our way, to return them to the sea.”

Reva flinched and fought hard not to look away. “I see. I’m sorry. My—my father also returned to the sea. He spent as much time on the Perseus as he did on land, so we gave him a sailor’s burial.”

Belen smiled then, but this time emotion twisted her lips in a sad and wistful way. “Well, we might as well be sisters. But I’ll leave that to my brother to sort out. Off you go then.”

One of the guards opened the door for Reva and stepped aside to let her enter alone. She grimaced and eased into the chamber beyond, a long narrow corridor lit by only a single fish lamp at the far end. Gloom and a headier smell of mildew greeted her as she strode toward the shadowy figure at the end of the tunnel and braced herself for whatever Jareth had planned.

He didn’t look at her as she approached but stood with hands locked at the small of his back, staring through one of the strange paneless windows. The invisible barrier stretched from floor to ceiling and gave her a disconcerting view of the shadowy ocean beyond. As she came alongside Jareth, however, she realized she wasn’t looking at the ocean but another chamber.

Except it was underwater.

Two elves swam in the chamber beyond, lighting their way with fish lamps strapped to the armor encasing their chests.

“This is the chamber that flooded this morning,” she guessed quietly, stopping beside Jareth.

It made sense now why he wanted her to see this. Perhaps he hoped to shock or guilt her into helping him.

Jareth exhaled slowly but didn’t tear his attention away from the work beyond the barrier. “It is. They’re salvaging what can be saved.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I should have been here.” His whispered confession hinted at a suffering she didn’t understand but could imagine.

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