Dangerous Depths (The Sea Monster Memoirs) (27 page)

I held out the shard of mirror. “This is a piece of—”

“The all-seeing mirror,” Lloyd finished.

“How did you know?”

He pointed up at one of his wall panels. “I have some all-knowing devices of my own.”

I eyed the carvings, not understanding what he was talking about. Maybe his poor health had made him senile. I tried handing him the mirror again. “You were a gorgon. Can you see anything when you look into it?”

“Maybe I could, if the powers that be hadn’t taken my sight from me.”

“What?” His eyes were gray and cloudy. How had I missed that? “Lloyd, I’m sorry.”

“Meh.” He waved it off like being able to see wasn’t important. “Probably best I can’t see what it might show. If I saw Yara or either of my sons suffering, I’d probably rush into that world like the glutton for punishment that I am.”

I doubted Lloyd could even get out of bed. He wasn’t rushing anywhere, no matter how badly he wanted to. I tossed the mirror onto the blanket near his feet. “I broke the mirror and
angered Stheno and Euryale for nothing. Splendid.”

Lloyd took a breath to speak, but ended up coughing and wheezing. Indrea placed her hands on his chest and his coughing calmed, but not much. Caspian placed his hands on top of Indrea’s, and Lloyd breathed normally again.

“Thanks,” Lloyd said to them. “But don’t waste your energy on me.”

“We can at least help calm it,” Caspian told him.

Lloyd nodded. “As I was saying, a gorgon must activate the mirror, but I’ve heard any sea creature can use it to view our worlds.”

My head snapped up. “You mean you could make it work and I could see Yara in Harte?” Indrea and Caspian looked hopeful too.

“I can give it a shot,” Lloyd said. “But it being broken might put a kink in things.”

“It’s just as good as having the whole mirror,” I assured him.

“Why would you think that?”

“I don’t know why. I just do.” Somehow, something—maybe a sixth sense—told me the mirror would help me figure out how to help Yara. I believed that with every part of me.

Lloyd held out his hands, motioning for me to give him the mirror. I gently laid it in his hand. “Careful. It’s sharp.”

He closed his weary eyes and chanted a bunch of gibberish I didn’t understand. The mirror, which had been showing a reflection of the ceiling fan above Lloyd’s bed, fogged over as he breathed on it. Its surface rippled up like miniature waves which spread like a parting sea. A still lake formed in the middle of the waves, changing from silver to black. What started as two faint clouds slowly solidified into Yara and Treygan. 

“Are they dead?” I whispered, a lump forming in my throat.

“What do you see?” Lloyd asked.

“Yara and Treygan are sprawled out on the ground with their eyes closed.” Indrea leaned closer, squinting. “They don’t look injured, or even sick. Just … motionless.”

Yara’s wings were flaccid behind her. “Her wings look fine. So, what was the searing pain in my back about?”

Caspian shook his head. “I don’t understand any of this.”

“Show us Rownan,” I told Lloyd.

He chanted the same incantation again. Treygan and Yara’s image faded and Rownan came into view. “He looks the same as Yara and Treygan,” I reported to Lloyd. “Passed out on a beach of some sort, but no sign of injuries.”

“I’d like to summon a view of Vienna,” Lloyd said. “Will you tell me what you see?”

My heart felt heavy as a stone. I nodded, but realized Lloyd couldn’t see me. “Yes, of course.”

Lloyd chanted, but just as he said Vienna’s name Otabia burst into the room.

“Fools!” she squawked. “You’re wasting your time.” I didn’t peel my eyes away from the mirror until Otabia said, “Nothing is as it seems in Harte.”

“What does that mean?” I asked her. “And how would you know?”

Mariza danced seductively around a stiff Otabia. “Otabia knows all about the only soul to survive Harte.” She ran her talon-like nails down her sister’s arm. “Secrets, secrets. My, how they fester.”

Otabia turned and snapped her teeth at Mariza. “You annoying harpy. Shut your beak before I break it.”

I stepped away from the mirror. “Otabia, what do you know about the merman who escaped from Harte?”

“I know he’s none of your business.”

I stomped over to her. “Tell me what you know or I’ll claw it out of you.”

Otabia cawed with anger. Mariza smiled and shrieked, excited by the argument.

My wings spread wide and I let out a screech that muffled their annoying racket. “Both of you shut up!”

I grabbed Otabia by her neck, lifting her off her feet. Her black boots kicked the air as she tried breaking free of my grip. My wings rippled behind me and the candle on Lloyd’s nightstand roared to life. “You tell me now, or so help me gods, I will poison you when you least expect it and let you die a long, slow, and miserable death.”

Mariza laughed and clapped her hands.

“You’ll be next,” I told Mariza. She stiffened and shut up.

Lloyd called out from his bed. “Nothing is as it seems. He told me that too. He said Harte preyed on his fears, played tricks with his mind and soul until he didn’t know reality anymore, or if he was even still himself. He worried he had left his true self in Harte.”

“What?” I loosened my grip on Otabia’s throat, but when she tried to slip free again, I tightened it and pinned her against the wall. Her black lips parted, trying to speak. Her eyes bulged so wide they looked like they might pop out and fly across the room. I let her go and she fell into a heap on the ground, rubbing her neck and taking deep breaths.

“You’ll pay for that,” she uttered.

“You’ll pay a lot more than me if you don’t start telling me what you know. How dare you keep such a crucial secret from me! I’m your sister!”

“I kept it a secret for your safety. You aren’t strong enough to go into Harte!”

“I’m not going there! But you could have told Yara what you knew. She would have had a much better chance of coming back alive.”

“No,” Otabia hissed. “That’s just it. No one who goes in can get out on their own.”

“Liar! The merman did. He lived and came back to tell about it.”

Otabia’s nostrils flared as she straightened. “Because
I
made the mistake of going there and bringing him back.”

I stopped breathing. Caspian and Indrea gasped.

Lloyd’s head fell back against his headboard. “Ah. Of course.”

Mariza’s eyes were wide, and when they met mine, her focus darted to her feet.

“
You
have been to Harte?” I asked Otabia.

She rolled her shoulders. “You want to know the truth, here it is. I loved him.”

“
You
loved a
merman
?” My mind was blown. Otabia didn’t love anyone but herself. 

“I knew we couldn’t be together,” she began. “We were different species. It was forbidden. I broke his heart, even though I loved him. I denied his affections to protect him. I broke him so badly that he threw himself into Harte. I had to get him out of there. Or so I thought. What I didn’t know, what I couldn’t have known, was how awful that place truly is. That no soul will ever be right again after they have been inside.” She stared at the floor. “Including me.”

I felt her heartache, but I needed to focus on Yara. “How did you get him out?”

“I flew him out. It’s the only way. The only two gateways are in the sky. Well, the sky is more like a waterless ocean above the ground. As I said, nothing is as it seems. Once a creature enters, unless they can fly, they can never exit.”

I stated the obvious. “Like Yara.”

Otabia shook her head. “She’d never be able to fly.”

“I just saw her. Her wings are fine.”

“That place has broken her spirit by now. She will believe she is doomed, therefore she will be. Her body—”

“No,” I said through clenched teeth. “Yara is stronger than that.”

“No soul stands a chance in Harte. I was almost consumed, and I wasn’t there nearly as long as they have been. I still have nightmares. I’m still lured back in my dreams. I still question reality at times.”

“How long were you there?” Indrea asked.

“Minutes,” Otabia replied. “The longest, most agonizing, most dangerous few minutes of my life.”

“She’s been damaged goods ever since,” Mariza added. My attention snapped to her. She knew too? Of course she knew. She and Otabia had been together since their creation. Mariza strutted closer to me. “Why do you think we crave such dark and lustful experiences? Haven’t you ever questioned our greedy appetites? Wondered why we subject so many men to our wrath, or why we steal entire souls instead of just consuming a memory or two?”

I glanced between Otabia and Mariza. “We’re sirens. It’s our nature.”

Otabia smirked. “It’s lustful greed. I unleashed an appetite that will never be satisfied. All because I went to Harte.”

“You’re not strong enough to enter Harte,” Mariza told me. “Even if you were, so much light still exists in you. That place would fill you with darkness, just like it did to Otabia. As much as we fight with you, you are our sister, and we don’t want to lose you.”

“Even if you did survive,” Otabia added. “We don’t want you to be as dark and ravenous as us.”

It would have been touching if my mind wasn’t racing a million knots a minute.

“You didn’t know when you went to Harte, right?” I asked Otabia. “You didn’t know the dark would become part of you?”

“No. I thought it was something outside of myself. I didn’t realize it was a part of me waiting to be awakened.”

“But I do know. I won’t let it awaken that side of me. I’ll fight it.”

“There is no fighting it.” Otabia sighed. “It’s more powerful than you can imagine.”

I stared into Otabia’s big black eyes for what felt like eternity. The room was so quiet you could hear a feather drop. “I’m going in to get them.”

“Them?” Otabia’s eyes widened.

“Yara, Treygan, Rownan, and Vienna.”

“No you are not,” Mariza said through clenched teeth

Otabia’s black wings rose high and wrapped around me. “You’re mad. Saving Yara alone would take so much time the dark would consume you. It would be impossible to save all of them. Impossible.”

“Maybe impossible for you, but I can do it.”

Mariza screeched with rage outside the wall of Otabia’s wings. “We’ll be hurt by this too! We’ll feel whatever you feel. You’re risking us all turning even darker.”

I pushed Otabia away from me, prying my way out of her wings. “I’d say I’m sorry, but I’m not. I won’t leave Yara in Harte.” I walked over to the bed and held Lloyd’s hand. “I won’t leave any of them there.”

Lloyd squeezed my hand and lowered his head.

“We will tie you down!” Mariza cawed. “Cage you if needed. We won’t allow this to happen.”