“Do you?” he said again, turning back to the older fey. “My first campaign, my first chance to prove myself, any boy’s dream. Not that I expected to have to. I was in titular command, but it was merely a symbolic post, the king said. To prove to others that my father’s treachery hadn’t tainted his view of the entire clan. It was an honor…”

He gazed around again, but the bearded fey did not. I could see him in glimpses, whenever Arsen’s eyes went past, and he was keeping his own squarely fixed on us. “I should have come with you,” he said. “Then and today. I shouldn’t have allowed you to see this alone.”

Arsen acted like he hadn’t heard, and I honestly thought that might be the case. Because, when his voice came again, it was tinted with wonder, as if he was back there, in that watery memory. “It was like nothing I’d ever seen,” he said again. “Beautiful beyond words, beyond imagining. A different world.

“I expected a palace, but there wasn’t one. Huge, golden shells provided housing, spread across an entire mountainside and spilling into the valley beyond, all under the waves. They grew gardens of sea crops, which tiny schools of fish swam across, like colorful birds. Children darted in and out of kelp fields, playing like ours do in a forest.” He turned on the older fey again, his voice anguished. “Do you understand? They were just like us—”

“I understand—”

“Do you?” It was louder that time, echoing off the gruesome walls, and coming back to us, as if out of a hundred throats. The bearded fey started slightly, and his eyes darted about, as if he was feeling the eeriness of the moment, too. It honestly felt like the whole corridor was screaming.

But then he hurried forward and his hand caught our arm. “Keep your voice down! I beg you—”

“Beg him,” Arsen said, throwing off his hold. “Beg the one who slaughtered them under a flag of truce. Beg the one who tore their king apart, with his own trident. Beg the one who claimed it as my doing, my victory, my honor.

“Beg him!”

Arsen took off, striding down the corridor this time, fury in every step.

Until our arm was caught again, in a grip like steel. Arsen tugged against it, but went nowhere, something that seemed to surprise him. But the bearded one was stronger than he looked, and he held on, with both hands now.

“Don’t let my failings cause you to do something rash,” he said quickly. “We have plans, plans that an outburst, however warranted, could undo—”