Page 46 of A Magic Deep & Drowning

“He is my dog and nothing more. I am a silly girl and am quite attached to him. Please, do not punish him for whatever my transgression was.”

After a long moment, he gave her a smile that reminded her that he was not just a character from an old story, but a real creature; a dangerous creature. “Maurits always did have a habit of befriending the broken ones, the stupid ones. You poor child. You think that he loved you, that for all his faults and all his lies, that at least his feelings for you were genuine. But tell me, would a man who truly loved you, go to such lengths to deceive you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He gave a flick of his tail, scales shimmering in the glow of the pearly light. “Your dog,” he said with studied disinterest. “Isn’t it funny how he appeared after Maurits left, how as soon as Maurits returned, you never saw Pim again?”

The icy water curled around her. There was much that Clara had experienced in the past months that beggared disbelief, but what this creature was implying was beyond the pale. “That can’t be,” she said.

“Can’t it? Your Maurits is a trickster, just as many of the Old Ones are. He enjoyed playing with you, making outlandish claims and watching you twist yourself about in an effort to believe them. You already know that he can take different forms—why wouldn’t he use such an ability to deceive you?”

Despite the cold, Clara felt her blood go hot. “And you didn’t? Coming to me pretending to be Maurits, only to lure me down here?”

The man with the fish’s tail gave her a one-shouldered shrug. The gesture was remarkably human, and only unsettled her further.

Even as Clara fought to deny the wretched lie, she knew it to be true. The dog with the beautiful green eyes had appeared after Maurits had bid her farewell, and it could be no coincidence that Pim had disappeared in the flood, only for Maurits to save her. All of her sweet memories of her companion were tarnished now. She was truly left with nothing. “Why are you telling me this?” she finally brought herself to ask.

“Because I think it important that you understand the sort of creature you have chosen to attach yourself to. And you have attached yourself to him, whether you believe that attachment still stands or not.”

Maurits had lied to her time and again, and she would bear the scars of those lies for the rest of her life. Yet why should she trust what this creature said? He had lured her down here usingtrickery and deceit, and he seemed determined on turning her against Maurits.

She studied the merman before her, forcing herself to look past the silvery skin and stormy eyes that glowed with uncanny knowing. He was not Maurits, but she again noted the striking resemblance.

Catching the understanding that was beginning to dawn on her face, he gave a smug smile. “You did not ask who I am. I would have thought the identity of your captor would be of more interest.”

“I do not care who or what you are,” she said, though the quaver in her voice betrayed her.

“You should care. I am King Thade, and I rule over the Water Kingdom. I have brought you here myself as my mother and brother proved unable or unwilling to do so. You are the last child due as payment, and as such, it is important that the folk of the Water Kingdom see you for themselves. They must know that justice has been done, and that their rulers do not take the breach of contracts lightly. Tonight, you will stay as my guest in the palace. Tomorrow, you will appear at court, and then meet the fate that you have so long evaded.”

All those times Clara had cursed Helma as being a nuisance, and her nursemaid had only been trying to protect her from herself. The water was dangerous, yes, but it was Clara herself who posed the greatest threat to her own well-being. She had been unthinkably foolish to come here. It was her own headstrong foolishness that now saw her trapped in a deadly world of which she didn’t know the rules.

She opened her mouth to speak, tried to lift her feet, but found that she could neither produce words nor move so much as an inch. The king gave a littletsk. “Your voice was a privilege of which you showed yourself unworthy,” he told her. He produced a bubble the size of an orange seemingly out of nowhere, a flicker of blue light dancing within it.

It glowed softly, bobbing like a leaf on a current. Something stirred within her at the sight of it, a dull ache that started in her throat. She opened her mouth again, tried to say something, but no sound came out.

Her hand went to her throat as she fought a wave of nausea. It was her voice. He had taken her voice, trapped it in a little glass bauble like a specimen in a university.

“A fine addition to my collection,” he said, and for a moment he was no different from her father, pinning the spoils of trade to his wall. “Human voices, for all that they speak falsehoods and deceits, are remarkably interesting to behold.” His gaze slid back to her as he palmed the bubble. “I have matters that need attending to,” he said as he rose abruptly from the throne. “I hope that you will find your stay here tolerable. Never let it be said that the Water Kingdom is inhospitable to our guests.”

Two scaled creatures carrying staffs materialized and wrapped their tentacles about her arm, bearing her away before she could try to choke out a plea for help. There was no time to take in the labyrinth of coral halls and the curious water folk who paused in their conversations to watch as she was hauled by. Everything was dark and unfamiliar, horrifyingly beautiful in the way of an unsettling dream. There were merfolk, both men and women, but other creatures like the guards that she could not even begin to make sense of; tentacles and glowing jellyfish, shells that clung to the walls, and everywhere eyes that peered at her from the darkest crevices.

The guards escorted Clara to the chamber where she was to bide until the morrow. When they’d gone and bolted the door from the outside, Clara allowed herself the luxury of curling into a ball for a few moments, rocking back and forth on the cold floor. The horrible reality of her situation made her want to shut her eyes, lull herself into an endless sleep, but she did not have the luxury of ignoring it.

Uncurling herself, she stood and inventoried the small, dim room. Perhaps of all the strange, unbelievable details about life below water, what struck Clara the most was the lack of windows. Of course there would be no windows, for what light could they admit? What fresh air was there to blow in? The closeness of the room pressed in around her, the only light from some sort of moss or algae that clung to the roughly hewn ceiling.

Clara rubbed at the stinging spots where the guards’ tentacles had left circular imprints on her arms. The small room was dry, at least, but there was no warmth, no comforts other than a bucket and a small wood pallet. How did anyone tell time down here? How did one know when the night ended and morning began?

As she lowered herself down to the pallet in the corner, she tried not to dwell on the memory of nearly drowning when she had tried to escape from Maurits’s grotto. The way the water had stolen her breath. How it had taken and taken and taken until her vision had gone black, her lungs empty. There was no use in trying to escape. And indeed, she did not want to, for her prison was also her salvation, the only means of keeping her alive in this dark and inhospitable place filled with hungry creatures until she was summoned to meet her fate.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Like the tongue of a great beast, the stone table stretched from one side of the rock-hewn dining room to the other. If Clara closed her eyes, she could almost pretend that she was home, a goblet of wine at her right hand, a plate of steaming fish in cream sauce in front of her as Atty scurried about with serving platters. But even with her eyes closed, there was no mistaking the cold bite of the damp air, the lack of any sort of smell other than wet rock and salt.

Thade was seated across the chasm of a table from her, his face a mask of benign disinterest, a little silver spear in his hand which he used to occasionally skewer small fish. There had been two merfolk who set down some platters and then were dismissed by Thade, leaving him and Clara alone.

“Eat,” Thade said, more of a command than an invitation. “I am not an ungracious host, and I do not like to see my guests go hungry.”

Clara had no appetite for the cold fish or the pile of seaweed that lay before her. She had been escorted from her dreary chamber to the dining room after a guard had delivered a gown to replace her soaking skirts and jacket. Even in the chambers filled with air, it was damp and the rough wool and linen clung to her skin. Putting cold food in her stomach was the last thing she wanted to do.

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