The Underwater Ballroom Society

  “I’ve come,” Syrus said. “Let Miss Chen go.”

  The Ringmaster moved forward. Sally slid behind him, dismissing the goon and taking Abby firmly in hand.

  “Not so fast,” the Ringmaster said in his oily voice. “It’s not so simple, you see?”

  Syrus frowned.

  “We need your help with something,” the Ringmaster said. “We are hosting a Very Important Person here tonight. Queen Victoria herself will be here to negotiate with us. A treaty of sorts. And we thought it would be best if the two heads of state spoke about it, as it were.”

  Syrus was not sure what he hated more—the obsequious falsity of the man’s tone or the twitching calumny of his fingers. “You want me to swear fealty to this queen? Is that it?”

  “Well,” the Ringmaster said, avoiding his gaze and spreading his hands, “after a fashion.”

  “Is it not enough that I am here? That I give you myself in exchange for Miss Chen’s freedom?”

  Switchblade Sally laughed before the Ringmaster could speak. “No,” she said. “You cost us dearly with that stunt on the bridge. You must therefore give more.”

  Syrus knew there was some trick. There always was. But he was out of options, and he knew he would die many deaths to keep the fear in Abby’s eyes at bay.

  “Very well, then,” he said.

  The goon slipped off Abby’s mouth, rolling and squishing along the floor as it reshaped itself to join the goon holding Syrus’s arm. Together, they took Syrus up to the throne, while Abby sobbed and gasped as Switchblade Sally held her still.

  The goons shackled Syrus to his throne, hissing with pain at the iron. Then at Sally’s signal, they took Abby by the arms and led her away. Syrus tried not to watch her go; he didn’t want to give Sally the satisfaction.

  Trumpets sounded from one of the tunnels.

  The Ringmaster turned and gestured to the gallery of terrified musicians near the banquet table. They struck up an entrance march as the herald pushed through the velvet curtain.

  “Victoria Regina!” he announced.

  A stout, middle-aged woman stepped under the dome, garbed all in mourning save for the royal sash she wore. Her train was held up by two maidservants, and they were accompanied by a servingman who looked as if he could take down more than a few goons with the cane hooked over his arm.

  The Ringmaster swept his top hat from his head and greeted the queen with an unctuous bow. Switchblade Sally sank next to him in a deep curtsey.

  “So, this is the mythical menagerie we were promised?” she said. She looked with cold, uninterested eyes at the bedraggled and sullen animals in the room.

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” the Ringmaster said.

  “Where is the phoenix? The sphinx?”

  “I am afraid to say they’ve escaped, Your Majesty.” If the Ringmaster could have twisted his hat in his hands without revealing his anxiety, Syrus was fairly certain he would have done so. “But we have more entertainment devised for you. You will see, Your Majesty.”

  “We had better,” she said.

  The Queen was seated with all ceremony on the dais opposite Syrus. He bowed his head with the respect of one monarch to another, but her glance indicated she was unimpressed.

  “Who is this person who sits enthroned opposite us?” she demanded of the Ringmaster.

  “As I explained a bit to Your Majesty in my earlier correspondence, we will negotiate not just the sale of a menagerie to you, but the possible exploration and subjugation of an entirely new world. This one here is a king in his country. He can transfer to you riches and power beyond your wildest dreams, Majesty.”

  The Queen took in all of Syrus with a dour glance. “Hmph.”

  “Perhaps,” Switchblade Sally interjected, “Your Majesty would prefer a little refreshment and entertainment before we continue? You have journeyed a long way to be with us tonight.”

  The Queen nodded to her maids and servingman. “Yes, that would suit. Bring us something. And let us see this entertainment you speak of.”

  The goons led Abby down the tunnel toward the iron staircase, releasing her at its foot. They didn’t bother trying to speak to her, just gestured up the stairs with their twisted fingers. One of them tossed the iron keys it held back and forth, hissing to itself.

  Abby wondered why it didn’t wear gloves to protect itself, but she figured no glove would ever quite fit in the goon’s present shape.

  Abby put one foot on the stairs. Click. She looked toward the entrance above, where a shadow leaned briefly through the door. Realization dawned. They weren’t really going to free her. Something waited up there—perhaps another goon or something even more dreadful that would make sure she never breathed a word of what she knew.

  But that knowledge wasn’t what made her remove her foot and turn toward the retreating backs of her erstwhile captors.

  No, it was his words ringing in her ears. I’ve come. Let Miss Chen go.

  It was seeing him chained to the throne, seeing all the other things he’d said that she’d scarcely believed come true. It was knowing magic was real when she’d not even been looking for it. It was knowing that, for better or worse now, she was entangled.

  Even if they let her walk away, how could she?

  She’d left the room when the man she loved was dying because she knew she couldn’t save him. If there was a chance she could save this man, she had to try.

  The iron keys sailed from hand to hand as the goons gibbered amongst themselves. Their jangle filled Abby with certainty.

  She slipped off her boots, then ran down the tunnel, driving hard with her shoulder into the goon with the keys. As the keys sailed through the air, she dove for them, ignoring the knotted fingers tearing at her dress, becoming talons and hooking into her flesh.

  Her fingers curled around the keys just before they hit the moldy floor. She came up kicking and lunging toward her attackers rather than away. Her father had always told her that if she could not get away, go for the eyes and the shins of anyone who might try to molest her in the markets. She thrust one iron key deep into the eye socket of the nearest goon. It wailed and collapsed in on itself, melting off the iron into a puddle of moaning goo.

  She waited the other goon out, brandishing the key at it. That one thought better of attacking and decided to flee, not into the tunnel, but up the staircase, its arms becoming wings, its feet vanishing into its body.

  Abby turned and ran barefoot back into the ballroom, leaving her boots by the stairs. She skirted the mostly-empty risers, glad for the distraction of the sideshow since it allowed her to wend her way closer to the dais.

  Syrus looked away from the spectacle, and the suffering in his eyes arrested her.

  His gaze wandered over her torn skirts, the blood drying along her ankle where the goon had tried to seize her. His fear for her tore at her heart harder than her own terror.

  Go home, he mouthed.

  She shook her head. She would not be forced away this time.

  “And now, Your Majesty,” the Ringmaster was saying, “for the main event—a glimpse into your new domain.”

  The lights in the ballroom were dimmed even further.

  Abby tried the key in the locks that held the unicorn and found that the shackles loosened. The unicorn whispered a benediction before it slipped away in the darkness. She crept closer to the iron throne, freeing those she could as she went.

  Switchblade Sally withdrew a tiny hand mirror from the bosom of her corset, a motion which made the Queen snort in disgust. Sally’s hands glowed faintly green as the object grew until it became too unwieldy for her to hold. She set it down, and it continued to grow until it became a heavy cheval glass, a full-length mirror nearly twice her height and as wide as the dais.

  Within the dark mirror, a pinprick of green light winked on, like a firefly or a will-o’-the-wisp. Abby’s chest tightened with foreboding.

  Light rippled across the mirror in waves of green fire. A distorted image wavered and
shifted until it resolved into a scene that Abby recognized only because of what Syrus had told her. The domes and towers of Scientia, the aerial lift cables running their cars up the hill and toward the temple in the mountains. The Winedark Sea pounded at the sea wall; its mesmeric tide pulled her up onto the dais.

  The air in the room became dense and heavy, and Abby moved as though through water. Her very bones yearned toward the image in the mirror as if the image were a magnet calling her to a home she’d never known. The smell of the sea blew out of the mirror, and she breathed it in sharply.

  Pop. The image winked out. The mirror went dim and folded into itself. The lights came up, with Abby red-handed next to the throne. Sally’s eyes threw daggers at her, and in two seconds, she stalked over and took Abby by the arm, her pincerlike grip promising true pain should Abby speak.

  The agitated, sweating Queen glanced at the women, opened her fan, and tried to rid herself of the magic-laden air. She signaled to her maid, who helped her stand, and said to the Ringmaster, “A pretty parlor trick, sir, but we’ve seen enough.”

  The Ringmaster’s jaw dropped. Syrus snickered, and Sally glared down at him.

  It was clear by the Ringmaster’s expression that he had expected the Queen to believe him. He, the greatest of all liars, had banked everything upon someone else’s belief in him. And a powerful someone at that.

  “Joseph,” the Queen said, “have them ready our carriage above. Tell Wright we won’t be staying tonight; this fiasco has quite taken up enough of our time as it is.”

  The Ringmaster’s face went ashen. “Just a moment, please, Your Majesty,” he said. “I’m offering you the world, can’t you see? And power beyond your wildest dreams! How can you say no to that?”

  Queen Victoria did not answer but took hold of her skirts and made to move past him.

  The Ringmaster put on his best, most unctuous smile. He laid his hand on the Queen’s sleeve. “You cannot leave, Your Majesty, not now! There is still so much to discuss!”

  “Don’t listen, Your Majesty!” The words were out of Abby’s mouth before she could stop them. Sally shook her until her teeth rattled as hard as the keys in her hand.

  The Queen didn’t need her advice, though. She glared at the man touching her. “Unhand us at once.”

  All went still. The Queen stood arrested, imperious, incensed. The Ringmaster stood, likewise arrested, pleading, restraining, leaning toward harm but also filled with fear.

  Then his hand closed around her forearm, and his lip rose in a sneer. “I have taken one monarch captive; I can surely take another.”

  “You wouldn’t dare,” the Queen said.

  “Watch me,” the Ringmaster said.

  Before Abby could draw another breath, the old Queen laughed. “Watch us,” she said. She jammed the heel of her little boot precisely into the top of his shoe.

  The Ringmaster howled.

  The room erupted.

  The Queen’s servingman, Joseph, drew a sword from the Queen’s walking stick and set about defending her from all comers.

  Switchblade Sally turned to Abby, pulling the very weapon for which she was named from a clever sheath in her wicked boots. Abby brandished the iron keys at her, but the woman was taller than she was, and far more agile than her goons.

  Abby and Syrus desperately locked eyes as Sally bent her toward him over the blade of the knife. Abby tried to insert the keys in the first shackle, but Syrus whispered as low as he could, “Get the mirror.”

  Abby turned her head and saw the mirror quite unattended and at the mercy of both the Queen’s boots and Joseph’s dueling feet.

  She dove for the mirror, dragging Sally with her, knocking the knife from Sally’s hand against the throne.

  Sally dug her fingers into Abby’s brunette curls until she cried out in pain, but Abby wouldn’t let go of the mirror.

  Joseph had chased the Ringmaster down the dais and was forging a way for the Queen and her servants to exit through one of the tunnels, but goons leaped on him almost faster than he could fight them off. Animals, servants, and musicians ran about in terror.

  As Abby looked into Sally’s eyes, she saw the black pupils twisting into tentacles that reached out from the blue depths. Abby clutched the mirror in terror as Sally’s arms tightened about her.

  Syrus lifted his face to the ceiling, as if help would somehow magically come from above.

  And there, peering through one of the panes of glass, was a pale face, one of the mermaid sisters who hadn’t tried to escape. The Ringmaster and Switchblade Sally had forced the mermaids to swim in the lake since they could not fit the aquatic cart down here. Sad, watery eyes met Syrus’s, and he remembered the mermaids singing, their young sister telling him her powerful father’s name and promising to aid him if ever he needed it. He remembered the statue above them.

  Little king, the mermaid whispered against the glass, say the name given thee. The best is yet to be.

  “Triton,” he whispered. “Triton, Triton, TRITON,” he said, his voice gradually growing into a full shout. “AWAKE!”

  There was a great cracking from above, a groaning as of metal twisting and ripping free. Everyone beneath the dome stopped and looked up as a sheet of water poured from the ceiling.

  Switchblade Sally stared up, open-mouthed, releasing her hold. Abby stuffed the mirror deep into her generous bosom with a triumphant grin. She ran to Syrus and unlocked the irons that held him as the dome shattered in a spray of glass and dark water above them.

  He embraced her, shouting, “Take a deep breath and hold fast to me!”

  It was all he had time to say before the waters closed in.

  The force of the falling dome ripped Abby from Syrus’s arms. He lunged toward her, but she spun away, and he lost her in the murk and splintered glass.

  Then he saw Queen Victoria sinking toward the lake bottom like a stone. As he fought his way toward her, something whipped around his ankle and tightened. He looked back and saw Sally grinning, the beak of her jaws opened wide as her tentacles pulled him toward her.

  Kraken. He should have known. But then, he had never seen a Kraken walk the world in human form.

  Behind her, lightning flashed from the trident, electrifying Sally even as she transformed. Triton nodded to Syrus before turning to deal with the Ringmaster. Syrus gripped the unconscious Queen as she floated past and did his best to tear the heavy mourning clothes from her. He was running out of air, but she was so weighted down by her mourning, he feared he could not get her to the surface.

  At last he gained purchase, and yards of the black fabric disappeared into the murk. He took hold of her collar and kicked with his last burning breaths up through the darkness. He pulled her up on shore to the great consternation of her manservant Joseph, who had just hauled himself up from the water and was frantically calling for her.

  Syrus bowed to Joseph as he rushed to his Queen’s aid, then dove back into the water, seeking Abby.

  He found a few of his fellow performers and dragged them to safety. But Abby was nowhere to be seen.

  At last, exhaustion took him, and he sat shivering at the edge of the lake. He had lost her. He put his head in his hands, cursing himself for not being able to hold her, cursing himself for putting her in danger in the first place.

  The barest green glimmer shimmered along the rippling tarn. Syrus looked up, half-expecting the Ringmaster or Sally to rise up and drag him into the shattered depths.

  Then the glow resolved into the tines of a trident, and the Lord of the Near Shore, Triton, rose from the lake. His daughters swam near him, carrying Abby in their arms. Syrus rushed out into the water to help them get her to land. He worked feverishly over her while the mermaids and their father watched impassively; they could not aid him, for water was their very breath.

  But perhaps Triton helped a little, for he lowered his trident and sent a glimmer of gold through the water, which snaked up the shale to Abby’s exposed foot. In that moment, she drew
a gasping breath and coughed water all over Syrus’s face.

  He wiped it away with his sleeve and helped her sit.

  Abby apologized profusely when she could speak, but Syrus put two fingers against her lips.

  “No need,” he said. “I recall doing the same to you not long ago; it’s only fair you return the gift.”

  He smiled at her, and she chuckled.

  Then he turned to Triton and bowed to him. “Thank you, Lord,” he said.

  Triton bowed his head. “All the thanks belong to you, little king. You saved my daughters and our kin. And you saved me. I was brought here long ago, slowly turning to stone the farther I was from my sea until I became a decoration for this man’s estate. Chance may have brought us together, but still I thank you for it.”

  One of the mermaid sisters swam close to her father, and he embraced her with his free arm. “May we go home now, Father?” she asked.

  She held up the mirror, which had slipped from Abby’s corset.

  Triton looked to Syrus and Abby. “Will you come home, Sire?”

  Syrus thought of the long vistas of Scientia, from her ring of mountains to the plunging seas. The loneliness there had been almost as crushing as his captivity. Almost.

  Then he looked at Abby and wondered if he needed to be alone anymore.

  Triton held up the mirror, and it grew until again they could see the Known Lands within them, Scientia’s many domes and towers, the airships navigating the dangerous sea winds to land before her wall.

  Abby’s eyes widened as she beheld the land looming toward them again, as she smelled the salt and spice of the Winedark Sea for the second time that night.

  “Will you come?” Syrus asked softly. “First-rate mudlarking, I hear.”

  She threw a clot of mud at him, laughing.

  “Is that how they say yes in this country?”

  Abby laughed again, then hesitated, her eyes clouding with worry. “What about Mum? I can’t just leave without her knowing what happened to me. Can we send a message to her?”

  Again the trident flashed, this time toward a heron statue that stood nearby. It flapped its wings and looked down its beak at them.