Page 71 of Surfaces
I furrowed my brow, as did the judge. “This looks…new.”
Mateo swallowed uncomfortably. Nervously. “Yes, sir. It is.”
“Well, don’t keep us in suspense. How’d you get it?”
“I…have family on land. I went to a witch. Asked her to do a portal spell.”
A gasp went up, since portal spells were notoriously unstable.
“And you had your family pass you this through the portal?” The judge finished off with a question.
Mateo nodded, eyes dropping. “I couldn’t get anything else. It wouldn’t hold.”
The judge nodded. “Alright then, well, let us discuss.” He looked over at the herald. “Go ahead and announce this one now, won’t you?” Then he placed the gleaming horseshoe on the table while he talked with the other judges in hushed tones.
I watched carefully, on alert. Their faces were serious. We never used portal magic in Evaness. It had been illegal there because of the dangers. Was that why Mateo looked so ashen faced? Had it been traumatic?
Mateo swam stiffly, as if his side was hurting, over to the judges’ table.
“Excuse me,” he asked in a low voice. “I…promised my family I’d give them back the horseshoe. It’s brand new and they really can’t afford another just because…”
The whiskered judge nodded. “Alright. Go ahead.”
Mateo gave a quick nod and quickly scooped up the curved bit of metal. After that, he didn’t look at me as he swam over to the refreshment room and downed a glass of bubble.
Odd. Very odd.
But Felipe returned just then, so I was distracted by his presentation.
Like Valdez, he’d taken an interpretive approach. He appeared with a charm bracelet. From it dangled three small golden charms: all three of the tournament items.
I stiffened as I watched the judges complete another long consultation, this time my nerves scratching at me like sentient thorns. I couldn’t let them disqualify Felipe. I wouldn’t.
I breathed through my teeth, nerves nearly as bad as when I’d hurtled through the city toward danger.
Two men had interpreted their assignment broadly. That meant the judges had to accept it, right? They couldn’t possibly score those two worse than the four who’d found nothing. Could they? Could misinterpretation be considered worse than failure to succeed?
I glanced over at Sahar, gaze scolding because I wasn’t sure of all the damned rules. Because I didn’t get to make the damned rules.
But my future was on the line. And I realized I wanted both Felipe and Valdez in it.
Sard.
Julian arrived next with his hands full. The siren smiled serenely as he gently arranged all three items neatly onto the judges’ table.
Their eyebrows all shot up nearly to their hair.
Julian provided an explanation before they even asked. “One of my colleagues, a fabulous man by the name of Mayer. He has a cabinet of curiosities over near the library. He’s working on a compendium of knowledge, trying to write a book that explains and categorizes all the surface detritus. He’s calling it, ‘Insight into Sand Trodder Objects and their Useful Application to Underwater Life.’ Working title. I swam over and asked, and we were able to dig up all of these little treasures!”
I couldn’t help clapping. Julian really did know quite a few of these local scientists. There was a whole community of them, trying to study and gain knowledge and contribute useful things to society in their own way.
He glanced over at me and blushed, his bronze cheeks darkening to almost brown, when he saw me beam in his direction and I felt the tinge of affection color my cheeks. I might not have had a visceral connection with him, but I appreciated so much of who he was and what he was trying to do. He made the little girl that I’d been—the struggling, imperfect little human sister trying to shine in a world of sparkling magic—proud.
I was thrilled it seemed like he was going to win this competition handily, cheering along with the crowd as the herald announced his return and the judges calculated his score.
In fact, I was so tickled over Julian that I forgot that several competitors weren’t back yet. But the bell in the distance started to chime out three o’clock just as Stavros hurtled over the edge of the roof.
He was breathing hard, his expression darker and his demeanor more somber than I’d ever seen him. The shy siren strode forward with a confidence I hadn’t seen from him before and dropped a heart onto the table. Blood still trickled from the ventricles, tainting the water with a metallic scent.
