Her smile did not seem so full of teeth this time. Something in her earnest, solemn eyes begged me to recognize her. At long last. “Did you… are you the one who wrote me letters?” I said.
She dipped her bow again. “I begged my duke for the chance to be your guide. I look forward to showing you all the things you have wondered about.”
And there were so many things. But what caught me first was the musical quality of her voice, lilting and distorted by the water. I’d expected her to… well, burble. “How can I hear you?”
Something sparkled on the edges of her fingers. Magic. “Would you permit me to take you Below?” She took my hand.
My legs kicked weakly. I couldn’t help staring at Meire’s legs, long and lean and powerful. Her toe-fins splayed wide to push the water. I felt like a doll being dragged by the arm. Maybe I could make something, some kind of flat web for my foot, something to make me swim more like her. The smoothness of Meire’s skin surprised me, too—the scales on her palm were so small and interlocked I could hardly tell where one ended and another began. The scales grew in size as they crept up her forearm, turning darker as they spread over her breasts and reached her sternum, until they were the deep green of algae.
Above us, the ice sheet creaked. It diffused the sunlight, giving the lake a soft glow—but ten or fifteen feet down, the glow disappeared in the murky blue-black. “Where is this city you always wrote to me about?” I asked.
“It is down, of course,” Meire said, and down we went.
The water grew warmer and darker as we swam. Soon I could barely see Meire’s fingers wrapped around mine. Little eddies brushed across my skin, and I thought of the things that created currents like that. I craned my head, but it was useless. I was lost in a lake of ink, with Meire as my only lifeline.
My finger brushed against something smooth and slick—something that flicked around my wrist and tugged. I gasped. Water filled my mouth, all salt and seaweed. Even though I didn’t have to breathe, I felt it in my lungs and coughed.
Something flashed, a little stroke of light that illumined my wrist. The strand released its hold.
“My apologies,” came Meire’s voice from the black beside me. “Can your kind not see in the dark?”
“Not this dark.”
“Permit me to help.” Meire found my loose hand and brushed her fingers over my knuckles. Something cold broke over my skin and I felt a strange jolt in my belly. A moment later, it began to glow in wide stripes where her fingers had connected.
I held my hand up, squinting in the sudden brightness. Behind it, dark shapes pulled away, long tendrils whipping like shadows as they retreated. “What is this?”
“I only gave you a little magic,” Meire said. I gasped again, and Meire’s head tilted as she watched me cough.
“You gave me magic?” I sputtered.
“Should I not have?” Meire didn’t frown, not as a human might, but her eyes widened in what might have been concern. “Is it bad for you?”
“It’s—” I stared at the marks on my skin. Magic had been forbidden to us. Its combination of expense and volatility made it a poor choice of toy for fratricidal children. Why let us try to cram it down one another’s throats when Father could make pretty spells and sell it for a fortune instead? “I’ve never been given magic like it’s nothing.”
“We have more than enough to give.” Meire tugged on my arm and led me farther down.
More than enough. The thought of it was unfathomable. I’d never really considered what the citizens Below did with the magic they kept, but if they had so much they could waste it on turning my hand into a lamp… I’d have to ask Eirhan why Father had restricted magical imports so considerably.
The light emanated from my hand with a strength that surprised me. “Did you know it would do this?”
“Of course,” Meire said. “It does whatever I wish.”
Questions rustled against the edges of my mind like the long fingers of the creatures around us. Why could anyone Below shape magic while only Father could Above? Was it an anatomical difference? Had we spent so much time relying on magic as a system of wealth, as a fancy toy, that we’d lost its actual purpose?
I wanted to ask all my questions at once. Instead, we swam, and the things of the deep moved out of our way. I never saw more than a tail fin or a tentacle; even though I twisted and whipped my hand through the water, the creatures were always faster, shying away from the light.
A pale green haze appeared in the gloom. As we drew near, the haze began to distinguish itself. Hundreds—no, thousands—of little spheres jostled one another as they moved with the current. In their light, I began to see new shadows in front of us that were less afraid of the light—long eels and teardrop-shaped fish with jutting teeth. A tendril drifted in front of my face, and Meire swatted it away. I twisted back to look at it but saw only darkness behind me. “What are they?”
“You might call them sentries,” she said. “They ensure we are protected from any unwanted visitors.”
“Can I—” I stopped just shy of saying take one.
Meire looked at me as though she knew what I wanted. But she nudged the spheres aside and pulled me through. And we were inside the city Below.
Meire’s descriptions of the city Below hardly did it justice. Slabs of black rock, shaped into curves by the current of the water, reflected the light. Spires twisted, buildings swelled and cut back like waves, and in open windows more spheres glowed. Coral bloomed along the crests of buildings. Schools of silver fish no larger than my fingernail nibbled at the algae growing over their surfaces. A shark half as large as me lurked in an alley between two smaller dwellings.
The lake floor was paved with more algae, and long, translucent bones jutted from the dark fronds. Vertebrae lay scattered among them like flowers, and ceratotrichia waved like hands, beckoning. More lights had been fixed to sconces in the sides of buildings. “What are they made of?” I asked, reaching for one before I remembered that a good grand duke kept her hands to herself.
“They are a type of fungus,” Meire replied. She smiled, and it was so strange—those pointed teeth were capable of rending flesh with a simple twist of the head, yet I did not fear her.
As we swam, I began to see the denizens Below fluttering between buildings, following us. I could spot an undulating shape, a flash of fin, but no more. When I stopped to get a better look, Meire pulled me onward.
She let me go when we came to a wide boulevard. Mushroom lamps had been placed at regular intervals to create a clear line of sight, past buildings that grew grander and grander the farther away they were. A current tugged on my wool shift.
This was the processional road. Meire had written of the market and the goods she bought here and the palace at its end. Today the road stretched empty before us, with the palace lurking like a shadow. To either side waited figures, half hidden behind the odd fungal lamps. Silver and blue and coral sparkled on wrists and throats. Wide, dark eyes regarded me as I passed. Mouths opened to reveal teeth like knives. I saw noses like dolphin snouts, and blank spaces with flat gills. Some bodies had scales that looked more like skin, and some overlapped like Meire’s, in a manner reminiscent of hair. They all had bifurcated trunks, as far as I could see, and I was trying not to look too conspicuous in my curiosity. They were naked and had mammalian sex and nursing organs. Did they lay eggs? Did they have one child at a time, as we did?