“What did you call her?” he asked, and she pressed her lips together. She hadn’t been thinking. Vada’s soft gray eyes and sly smile had her all out of sorts.
Leo took a step forward. “Sera?” he said. “Agnes, how do you know her name?”
“Oh, like I’m going to tell you,” she said. “You’ll just run off to Father, and the two of you will find some way to make that poor girl even more miserable. And I won’t help with that.”
She expected some sharp retort, but instead her brother seemed to sag. “You don’t know anything,” he said, turning and trudging back toward his room.
“Leo,” she called. “Are you . . . all right?”
His door closed with a click, and Agnes was left with more questions than her mind could answer.
What had her brother so gloomy?
And what was this party about?
But the most pressing of all: How on earth was she going to get six hundred and fifty krogers by the end of the week?
20
Sera
SERA SIPPED AT THE CUP OF WATER FRANCIS HAD LEFT her for the night as she waited for Errol to emerge from his pond.
She had been so close! She had gotten free of the crate. Whatever that red-haired male had given her to make her fall asleep, she didn’t like it. It had made her limbs slow, her brain fuzzy, until her magic had burned away every last trace of it. She had been shocked when Boris had moved, knocking Leo right off his feet.
Well, now he knew what it felt like. Sera could not spare an ounce of pity for him. She only had enough for herself. She had not been able to see the tether through the glass ceiling, but that did not mean it was not there. If only she could get outside. She needed a spire to climb, someplace high where she could see for miles. Until she was certain her City was truly gone, she would not give up hope.
Her thoughts turned to the other male who had come yesterday, the one with the green eyes and dark hair who they called James. His face kept popping up in her mind for some reason. It was extremely irritating, but she could not seem to stop it. She rubbed at her eyes, as if that would make the vision disappear.
“No nasty humans poking and prodding at Errol today!” The mertag climbed out of his pond, cackling his strange croaking laugh. He plucked one of the luminescent flowers and popped it into his mouth.
“Oh no, don’t!” Sera cried. “Those are our only lights.”
“Don’t, she says? Don’t?” Errol squared his small shoulders. “I am a mertag and I make these flowers. More light she wants? Well, by urchins and eels, more light she will have!”
He dug his clawed hands into the moss and gritted his teeth. His whole body, from head to tail, began to pulse in stunning colors, like his filaments but on a much larger scale. Purple, then pink, then orange. Purple-pink-orange. Purple-pink-orange. Sera watched with wonder as tiny fronds began to sprout from the moss, blossoming right before her very eyes. Soon it was dotted with glowing flowers, giving off more than enough light to see by.
She could not help herself—she clapped enthusiastically at the display.
“How did you do that? It’s beautiful.”
Errol looked smug. “It is all part of being a mertag, Sera Lighthaven. We have sharp brains, yes, but not only brains. There is magic in our scales.” He examined his handiwork. “Though I confess I have never made so many at once before.”
“There is magic in my blood,” Sera said. “But it isn’t helping me much now.”
“You are speaking to a mertag,” he pointed out. “Humans cannot speak the colors.”
“That’s true,” she agreed. “But I want to go home, Errol.”
“Yes, home.” His filaments lit up in mournful greens and grays. “I am not meant to be here either, Sera Lighthaven. I miss the dark waters, the feel of the cold current over my scales, the familiar colors of my fellow mertags.”
They lapsed into silence. Sera clutched her neck where the pendant had hung, wondering if Leela had thought about her at all, if she missed Sera as desperately as Sera missed her.
The silence was broken by a gentle humming sound.
“What’s that?” she gasped, looking around.
“That is Tree,” Errol said. “Tree likes to hum sometimes.”
“They call him Boris,” she said.
The corners of Errol’s mouth turned down. “Tree is female.”
“Oh.” Sera glanced at the silvery trunk. “How do you know?”
He shrugged. “It is obvious.”
There was something soothing about the song Boris hummed that reminded her of the moonflower fields at sunrise and of the thick, soft fleece of a seresheep.
“I know you.” The voice came out of nowhere, and it seemed to echo in Sera’s head the way Errol’s did, except this voice, while deep and rich, was distinctly feminine.
“What was that?” she said.
“What was what?” Errol looked up at her, his mouth full of flowers.
“I know you,” Boris said again, and Sera was sure this time that it was directed at her. The Arboreal’s three eyes turned in her direction. They were dark and smooth like pebbles along a riverbank, full of wisdom and sadness. “Mother,” she hummed.
Sera was not a mother, and if she had been, she would certainly not be the mother of a tree.
“Who is your mother?” she asked, but Boris did not speak the colors, and Sera did not know how to speak the humming tree language. She splayed her hands wide and stared at them, as if she might be able to see through her skin to the magic inside. Mother Sun, but this was frustrating.
“I know your face,” Boris hummed.
“Tree likes you,” Errol said.
“She says she knows me,” Sera said.
“But you only just got here.”
“I know.” She felt as if she was on the brink of understanding something very important, but the answers were just out of her reach, like a butterfly flitting from flower to flower, never settling down. She gazed up at the covered glass ceiling and wished she could see the stars. She had always felt guided by them. But now she was untethered and alone.
More humans came the next day, and this time there were females as well as males.
She was determined to be ready. She would not be stabbed with a needle or captured by a hoop. A change was happening inside her—she could feel it even if she did not truly understand it, and there was no green mother to ask. To be honest, she doubted her green mother would be able to tell her anyway. She had to learn for herself now.
The first to arrive after Francis had given her food and more water and changed the bucket she used to relieve herself was an older male with a tremendous amount of hair on his face. He had it tied in two prongs braided with red and gold ribbons. His skin was wrinkled as a walnut, and he wore two pieces of glass connected with wire over his eyes.
“Let me see her, Francis,” he said, climbing the steps to the stage and rubbing his hands together. He knelt by the crate and peered inside. Sera hated the way he was staring at her, like she wasn’t a person at all.
“In the name of the One True God . . .” he murmured. The green-eyed male James had used the same invocation. Sera didn’t know who this One True God was, but she didn’t like him. “I heard she tried to run yesterday.”