The Golden City

As if at a great distance, she heard Isabel cry out. Oriana spun that way, reaching one arm out to her. Then she was tilting, falling toward the night-dark cobbles.

CHAPTER 2

Oriana dreamed she was bound. It was dark. Her head ached fiercely, her stomach felt hollow, and everything was wrong.

Ah, gods, no. It wasn’t a nightmare.

She was tied firmly in place. She was upside down, seated in a chair, bound fast to it by ropes about her arms and chest and ankles, and that chair was secured to the ceiling. Her wrists were tied, forcing her hands to lie flat on a metal surface—a table or tray. Her ragged breath echoed in the small space.

She jerked against the ropes, but they didn’t give. Instead, the whole world swayed around her. A whimper escaped her lips. What is happening?

She couldn’t seem to think straight. I’ve been drugged, haven’t I? There had been something bitter on the cloth the driver held over her mouth. Was he one of the Special Police, the branch dedicated to hunting down nonhumans like her? Had someone turned her in?

She had to find a way out of this place. She could smell wood and cork, the pungent scents of resins and paint, and, faintly, the river. She held her breath and could hear muted sounds, but nothing that made sense. Her eyes began to adjust to the blackness, better than human eyes for that sort of thing.

And then she realized she wasn’t alone. Isabel hung in a chair across from her. The cobwebs that cluttered Oriana’s mind blew away in a sudden rush. “Isabel,” she cried. “Wake up!”

Isabel’s head swayed and her eyelids fluttered, but she didn’t respond. She must have been drugged, too.

Oriana’s hands curled into fists against the table’s surface. She had to get Isabel out of this place. She yanked against the ropes that bound her arms again, but couldn’t make out how they were tied. The knots must be behind her back.

She surveyed the shadowy room then, taking stock. She could make out its size now, not much larger than the inside of a coach. The walls looked featureless, dark and plain. There was only her and Isabel and a small round table nestled between them. The ropes pressed her hands down on one side of the table, and Isabel’s hands lay opposite them. Oriana could see that the surface was patterned somehow, but the room was too dark for her to make it out.

What is this? Why would anyone put us here?

Her breathing sounded harsh in her own ears, overloud in the tiny room. She forced it down, not wanting to frighten Isabel. She had to come up with a plan. Then she heard a new sound through the walls: the metallic rattle of shifting chains. There had to be someone nearby. “Let her go,” she cried, hoping they would hear. “She didn’t know I’m not human. She’s not a Sympathizer. It’s . . .”

Everything moved. Oriana had the terrifying sensation of falling, then her body slammed to a stop against the ropes that bound her. She hissed and followed that with every foul word she’d ever heard her aunts say. The initial flare of pain ebbed after a moment. They were on water now. The room bobbed like a boat.

“It’s me you want,” Oriana screamed into the darkness. “Not her, damn it!”

There was no response save for the continued clatter of chains.

Oriana’s breath suddenly went short. This room couldn’t be watertight, not if she’d heard the chains so clearly through the walls. Water was going to fill this space, and quickly. “Isabel, wake up!”

Isabel moaned in response, her eyes fluttering open. “Where am I?”

She heard water bubbling into the structure that trapped them. Something was dragging them deeper. They didn’t have much time. “I don’t know. We have to try to get loose.”

“Oriana? Where are you? I can’t see.” Isabel began to cry helplessly then, like a lost child.

Oriana tried to keep her voice steady for Isabel’s sake. “It’s very dark, Isabel. That’s why you can’t see. Now listen to me. You have to try to get your arms loose.”

“I can’t,” Isabel sobbed.

Oriana couldn’t see the water yet. It was above—no, below—her head, seeping upward. She could hear it and smell it, though. Cold fear knotted in her gut. They were going to run out of time.

No, she wasn’t going to give up that easily. “I’m going to untie myself,” she told Isabel. “Then I’ll untie you.”

“How?” she whimpered.

Oriana didn’t take time to answer. She grasped the edge of the table and shifted in the chair that held her, twisting so her teeth could reach the rope about her right wrist. Her teeth were sharper than a human’s, something that rarely proved an advantage. The rope splintered and shredded in her mouth.

The water continued to seep upward, inexorable.

“Oriana? Are you still there? Oriana!”

Oriana paused. The fear in Isabel’s voice tore at her heart, but she needed to get loose more than Isabel needed an answer, so she kept chewing. But she did stop and glance up when Isabel screamed.

The water had reached the top of Isabel’s head. Isabel began thrashing wildly. “No!” she screamed. “No!”

This was cruel. Crueler now that Isabel had figured out the fate planned for them.

“Isabel, be quiet.” Oriana used her voice to call Isabel, the one magic she possessed. She wove the imperative into her words—not a spell like a human witch might use, but simple desire, yearning. It would have been more successful with a human male, but she could hold almost any human’s attention for a few minutes, and even prompt her to action. The magic drew Isabel’s gaze to her and, although she didn’t think Isabel could see her, it forced Isabel to focus on her words. Oriana hoped she could buy them some time. “Isabel, bend forward as far as you can,” she ordered. “Right before the water gets to your nose, take a deep breath and hold it.”

Isabel’s ragged breathing was interspersed with sobs, but she obediently bent forward, her dark head almost touching the table.

Oriana prayed that would be enough. She set her teeth back to the rope. It gave suddenly, and she yanked it with her mouth. It had been wrapped around several times, so she had to pull each loop loose. Chilly water touched the back of her head. Cold fingers of water spread along the back of her housemaid’s costume, grasped her shoulders, climbed up her garments.

It reached her mouth, and she took it in. Her gills opened involuntarily and her throat closed, stealing her voice. She breathed in the familiar water of the Douro River as she dragged her arm free of the loops of rope.

No! The rope holding her other arm hadn’t loosened at all. They were separate ropes. She would have to chew through each one individually. She tore at her shirtsleeve, but her wrist was tied too tightly to get her dagger loose, not until she could get that hand free.

There was no time. Oriana didn’t want to look, but she couldn’t stop herself.

Across from her in the darkness, Isabel’s eyes were stricken in the pale oval of her face. The water had nearly reached her waist. Oriana didn’t know how long Isabel had been holding her breath, waiting to be rescued.

If she could just reach Isabel, she could breathe for her. Oriana jerked against the rope trapping her left arm, but it didn’t give an inch. She tried to shove the ropes binding her chest down to her waist, but they tangled in the fabric of her apron.

Isabel’s bow-shaped lips opened. A flood of bubbles streamed from her mouth, the last of her breath. Her body jerked convulsively against the ropes that bound her to the chair. Her eyes were wide with terror.

Unable to reach her, Oriana pounded her free hand on the surface of the table, setting off painful vibrations through her webbing. She wanted to scream. She wanted to beg Isabel’s forgiveness. But her voice was gone underwater. She reached out her throbbing hand and laid it over Isabel’s fingers. What could she do?