Leo could still feel the tingles in his stomach, the yearning for physical affection, a side effect of the memory share. He’d felt what Bellamy had felt, yet it was also mixing with his own feelings, the ones he fought against every night after he’d left Sera and closed the door to his room. Bellamy was frozen in shock but Sera was looking at him, and the expression on her face was . . . strange. Almost like she was seeing a different version of him.

Then she reached out very slowly and ran her fingers down the back of his hand. “Leo,” she said, and his insides shivered.

“By the goddesses,” Bellamy gasped, coming alive at precisely the worst moment. She gulped at the air. “What . . . what . . .”

Sera turned to her and the spell was broken. Leo felt himself shaking. He wanted her eyes back on him, wanted her fingers back on his skin.

“It was like I was there again,” Bellamy was saying. “On that very day.”

“Yes,” Sera said. “I wanted to give you something to hold on to. A gift. Of love. You love him very much.”

A tear fell on Bellamy’s cheek. “I do. I . . .” She gazed out over the ocean again. “You know, she didn’t let us marry for six years after that day. Six years and three other engagements, all made without his consent, all broken. You’d think after Alethea, Ambrosine might have figured out the sort of people her children are. But they aren’t really people to her. They are pieces on a game board.”

It was the most Leo had ever heard Bellamy say.

She turned to Sera, her face fearful. “You can never let her know about this. This power you possess. She will try and take it from you. She will never let you go.”

Suddenly, a bell rang out from the mainmast and the water around the ship began to churn, waves frothing and raging against the hull.

“What’s happening?” Leo asked. Bellamy seemed remarkably calm as a dark strip of land appeared in the distance.

“Leo, look!” Sera gasped. “There’s so many of them.”

“So many of what?” he asked.

And then he saw.

The ocean was filled with the colorful lights of hundreds and hundreds of mertags.

Bellamy turned to them. “Welcome to Culinnon.”

Part Four

The City Above the Sky

21

SERA’S VOICE WAS STILL RINGING IN LEELA’S EARS AS SHE hurried to join the celebrations for Plenna’s pregnancy in the Day Gardens.

“Where have you been?” Elorin hissed when she arrived. “Novice Loonir was looking for you. I told her you had just gone to the creamery for some cheese.”

“Thank you,” Leela said, glancing left and right. Cerulean were laughing and dancing, fiddles and drums and pipes filling the sweet-scented night air, and everyone seemed more relaxed than they had in days. Once again, the High Priestess had managed to distract the City.