“It means you need to read up on trade and be prepared to discuss options at a cabinet meeting. Now, Minister Itilya and Minister Rafyet—I’m sorry, Your Grace, am I boring you?”
Yes. I didn’t say it. I was busy looking at the smooth black bowl on the corner of the table, polished as a mirror, and the water that swirled inside it as though stirred by an invisible hand.
I wasn’t supposed to know what it was. It was a messenger bowl, and I’d been using them for years.
Messenger bowls sat in all the state rooms, filled with a water that never froze. My earring had fallen into one at a party, and I spent the evening hiding from my mother in the family library, afraid she’d accuse Aino of stealing it. Hours later, the water in the messenger bowl burbled, and I found my earring suspended in the water. As though someone had known I’d lost it and had known where to return it to me. It was only proper to write a thank-you as a lady of our house, and thus the correspondence had begun. I’d learned about the city Below, carved in black stone, warmed by hot water that jetted up from fissures in the lake floor. I learned about the battles citizens Below fought with beasts that lingered outside the city, using iron spears from Above. Notes came twice weekly and were always short, written on a waxy green paper with ink that never smudged. And no matter how I begged, nothing was sent besides letters. I had never even seen the hand that wrote them.
“That was quick,” Eirhan murmured. “The duchy Below has realized there’s a new duke Above.”
The water turned faster and faster. Something glinted at the bottom of the bowl, a flash of reflection. But as I watched, the flash came again and again. And then it wasn’t a flash at all, but a piece of debris caught up in the water. I reached in, gasping at the water’s cold bite, and pulled out a folded slip of green paper that was waxy to the touch. I angled away from Eirhan as I opened it. I’d assumed it would be from the same anonymous hand that had always written to me. But the handwriting in dark blue ink was unfamiliar and nearly illegible.
We send our heartfelt condolences to Grand Duke Ekaterina Avenko regarding the health of her family. Please accept this invitation to receive further regards, in person, at the hour of half past one. Delegates will be waiting to escort you Below.
Below. My heart squeezed strangely, painfully. Images of fishmen with spears, of glimmering magic, filled my mind. My skin grew cold, then hot, then cold again. “Below?”
Eirhan leaned over my shoulder to read the note. His brow furrowed. “It’s traditional for new grand dukes to be received by Below. And it’s one thing I think you’ll be well suited for.”
“You think I’d be good at something?” I asked flatly.
Eirhan’s smile seemed more polite than amused. “Your Grace will need to be aware that the grand duke Below is as masterful a politician as we are Above. He became angry when your father reduced the trade of magic, and we haven’t exchanged goods in some time. He will talk to you prettily and attempt to charm you into reversing your father’s policies. Promise him nothing.”
We were under embargo, yet Eirhan thought I could manage the situation. My mind stalled. “I… can really go?”
“Unless you’d like to meet the minister of agriculture with me?” Eirhan’s smile seemed almost kind. “I will have a gift arranged. You have twenty minutes to get ready. And…” He licked his lips. “I implore Your Grace not to be taken in by all the new things you see. Our relationship with Below is—”
“Political. I understand.” I grabbed Aino’s hand.
Below. A whole world that no one Above got to see. A world of flora and fauna that I would be the first to study. A place that held the secret to magic. A place that might know how my family had been cursed and how I could fix them.
Below. Let Eirhan abuse his power while I was gone. I had to go Below.
CHAPTER FOUR
The entrance to Below was a stone-lined room with a bench and steam room in the corner. In the center of the room, a circular hole had been cut in the three-foot ice sheet. Black water lapped at its edge, ripples hiding whatever lay beneath.
“Your escort awaits you,” said Olloi, minister of Below. He looked as if he’d spent so much time observing fish he’d tried to become one. His long coat obscured his figure, and he seemed to sweep rather than walk around the room, so silent I almost bent down to see if he had fins or feet. He stared at me without blinking. I half expected his mouth to pucker.
“What’s the protocol?” I asked as Aino braided my hair and loosened my gown. I couldn’t embarrass myself beneath the ice. I had to make a good impression so that they’d invite me back. So that I could see all there was to see, study all there was to study.
Olloi stared at me a moment too long. Then he spoke, slowly, as though drawing the words out from a difficult place. “The duke Below is your elder, and he takes precedence. You are there by the grace of the citizens Below, so don’t be rude. Follow your escort, and do not stray to look at some interesting flower. Do not argue with anyone from Below.”
The water before us bubbled. A dark, slick head emerged, covered in long scales that slid over its scalp like a mane. The face was more woman than fish: long, with sharp cheekbones that cut down toward her nose. Her large, dark eyes fixed upon me. They were mostly pupil, with a thin, gray iris. When she smiled, her teeth made little points and did not meet. I leaned forward to see if she had an extra set tucked in her gums. Aino hissed in a breath behind me, but the representative merely lifted a webbed hand and beckoned.
My own breath caught. Below.
Olloi handed me a bundle of electrum ingots—a gift for the duke. I belted them to my waist, sat on the ice, and slid one foot into the water. I’d been in the moat before, but you never truly got used to the shock of the cold.
Aino’s hands lingered on my shoulders. I sent her what I hoped was a reassuring look, then levered myself off the ice shelf and dropped beneath the water’s surface.
For a moment, panic rose with the shock of cold, carrying some memory that lurked right beyond my grasp. Then my escort ran a dark green finger down my forehead and over my nose and lips. The pressure on my lungs disappeared, and the intensity of the water lessened. My limbs became looser and my heart slowed to its normal beat.
Above me, a solid white sheet—the ground floor of the palace—stretched out as far as I could see. Tiny fish nibbled at the algae that clung stubbornly to its underside, and farther away, larger shadows swam in the water. The surface of the ice was uneven, and I wondered if it was the weight of our lives that had caused it to buckle. I wondered what else grew on the bottom of the ice, and what else scavenged for its food up here.
The fishwoman brought her legs forward and curled in on herself, touching her forehead to her knees. Their version of a bow, I supposed. It was rude to stare, but I followed her form as she uncurled, past the point where her trunk bifurcated and to her feet. Instead of toes, her skin fell away in long ribbons of fin that glinted silvery pink against the dark green of her body in the pale light under the ice. Her fingers were likewise long, longer than any human’s could be, and they ended with blunted tips like mine. She extended them toward me. “We may speak now. Welcome, Your Grace. My name is Meire, and it is a pleasure to meet you at long last.”