Vindicated, I almost laughed at the realization. At the hard, delicious truth. For all her extraordinary intelligence, beauty, and bravery, here she was . . . in need of me. A sea urchin. “If you know I’ve used it, you also know I don’t have it any longer. My mother does. It’s kept under lock and key at Chateau le Blanc.”

“Precisely.”

“I don’t quite grasp what you’re implying. Ordinary brain, you know. If her ring is so important, surely you can retrieve it yourself?”

When she turned me to face her abruptly, her smile shone hard and bright, and her nails dug painfully into my forearm, longer and sharper than before. She lifted a finger to my lips when I tried to protest, and the metallic taste of blood followed. My blood. “Ah, ah, ah.” Her eyes dipped to my lips, to her finger, before flicking back to my own. “Do not disrespect me, or you shall never hear my proposition.”

I glared at her in mutinous silence.

She arched a devilish brow. “I cannot retrieve the ring myself because I cannot directly intervene. My melusines cannot do it for me because they cannot leave the waters without it. Do you understand now, mon pouffiasse? It is, as you say, a mutually beneficial arrangement.”

Her words rang in my ears as the rest of her fingers curled around my face, squeezing my cheeks hard enough to bruise. “Tomorrow, you shall return to the surface, and you shall steal back Angelica’s Ring from your mother. Then—and only then—will my people join you against her.”

The Most Beautiful Shade of Blue

Lou

On deck a scant hour later, Angelica pulled Coco aside as Aurélien, Olympienne, and Sabatay hovered around Célie, bidding her tearful farewells. Truly. Actual tears dripped down Olympienne’s lavender cheeks. Scoffing, Beau readjusted his pack and started down the plank. Halfway to the seafloor, he turned to jerk his chin at me. “Come on.”

I hoisted my own pack over my shoulder. After dinner, Isla had wasted no time in expelling us from her realm. She might’ve been the most conceited creature alive, but she had gifted us supplies for the journey ahead, at least. That included fresh clothes. Sensible ones, this time, and warm ones too. I’d also slipped a new sheath around my thigh, just in case.

Reid drifted along behind, still comatose, as Elvire and Leopoldine escorted us from the city. With each step, the unease I’d been avoiding grew impossible to ignore. It set my teeth on edge, pulsing painfully in my right temple.

Despite my pleas, Isla hadn’t woken him. She’d insisted she couldn’t intervene. I’d insisted we couldn’t rob Chateau le Blanc with a six-and-a-half-foot, two-hundred-pound, unconscious man in tow.

Truthfully, I’d expected him to wake by now. He’d been unconscious for hours.