The Golden City

For a second Oriana huddled there, hands balled into fists, trying to catch her breath. Her head throbbed and her hand did as well. Blood leaked from the palm of her right hand, but she didn’t dare look. If she opened her hand to check the wound, her captors would surely see the webbing. Who were these men out on the water in the dark?

The boat rocked as the man who’d pursued her into the river climbed back aboard. She had to face them eventually. Oriana took a deep breath and struggled to right herself between the planks of the rowboat. A moment later she was seated on a bench, wet skirts tangled about her legs, facing an older gentleman. Her pursuer settled behind her. The man before her was sixty or so, still handsome, with gray hair and a stern, square jaw. She recognized his face but couldn’t place it. Where had she seen him before?

“Are you well, miss?” The older man had a blanket in his hands. Oriana flinched back as he leaned forward. He persisted, wrapping the blanket about her shoulders.

Oriana began to shiver. Her garments and shoes were soaked through. She lifted one hand to push her hair from her face, remembering to fold her fingers to hide the webbing. Where she’d banged her forehead against the side of the boat, it was already tender.

Had they seen her hands? When they’d pulled her into the boat, had she had her fingers spread? She buried them in the blanket. Perhaps they’d been so busy they hadn’t noticed. Please, gods, let that be the case.

The man repeated his question. He sounded kindly. He sounded concerned.

He thinks he’s rescuing me. Oriana nearly laughed at the thought. She cleared her throat instead. Her breath still came shallow, and too fast. “Yes,” she mumbled. “I’m . . . well enough.”

“That’s good,” he said. “We were worried when we saw you in the water.”

Her hands balled into fists again under the cover of the blanket. She needed to think faster, smarter. Why was this man out on the river? The Special Police patrolled the waters of the Douro every night, and she thought they had extra patrols over The City Under the Sea, but this little rowboat wasn’t one of theirs. Had these men slipped past their patrols? The moon hadn't risen yet, and the only light came from a shuttered lantern set on a hook at the fore of the little boat, so it was possible they might not have been seen. The boat began to move, the large man behind her handling the oars, smelling of river water and musk.

The gentleman laid a gloved hand on her sodden knee. “Now, miss. How did you get out here?”

Oriana tried to gather her wits. She shook her head jerkily.

“I had a vision,” he said then, “that there would be a girl in the water. I came here straightaway to see you safe, miss.”

Vision? With a sinking in her stomach, Oriana suddenly placed his face. The man before her was Paolo Silva, one of Prince Fabricio’s favored seers. She had seen the man before, although at a distance, at more than one of the balls she’d gone to with Isabel. She hadn’t wanted to attract his attention then, and she didn’t want it now. Her lips trembled. The shivering was worse now, and not just from the cold.

This man was close to the prince who so hated her people. If Silva knew what she was, he would surely turn her in. She could try to dive back into the water, but she wasn’t sure she could get into the river before the oarsman grabbed her. Her twisted skirts and the blanket would make that easy for him. And attempting escape would confirm that she had something to hide. She swallowed hard. There was still a chance they hadn’t realized her true nature.

Oriana tried to keep her voice from shaking. “Thank you, sir,” she managed.

“Good,” Silva said. “You’ve found your voice. Now, do you recall how you got out here, miss? I’m amazed you managed to keep your head above water.”

Her head hadn’t been above water. If she told this man she’d been trapped in the houses below, he would know for certain she wasn’t human.

“I was dumped off one of the bridges, I think,” she lied quickly. “I was drugged, but I remember falling.” She sounded pathetic enough to lend it plausibility.

The small lamp swayed with the motion of the boat, casting Silva’s features in light, then shadow. “How terrible! Shall I take you to a hospital, then, miss? Or the police station?”

Neither one of those options would end well for her. “No,” she said quickly. “I must get home to my mother. She must be terribly worried. She lives right on the quay.”

“Of course, miss,” Silva said solicitously. “I’ll escort you to your door myself, if you wish.”

Oriana caught her lower lip between her teeth. Did he actually believe she’d been thrown off a bridge? Perhaps he suspected she’d thrown herself from one of the bridges. In the dim light of the swinging lantern, his face was unreadable. “No,” she told him firmly. “No. If you’ll take me to the quay, I can get home from there.”

“I feel responsible for you now, miss,” he said gently.

She didn’t want to be around this man any longer than necessary, no matter how kindhearted he seemed. “Please, sir,” she said, “you’ve done enough.”

“May I know your name, at least?” he asked.

When people realized that Isabel was missing, her own name would surely be mentioned in the gossip. Silva might remember having seen her in Isabel’s company, so lying would only draw suspicion. “Paredes,” she said. “Oriana Paredes.”

He reached over and patted her blanket-covered shoulder in a grandfatherly way. “I’m glad I followed the promptings of my gift tonight, Miss Paredes. I suspect our meeting must be propitious. I know we shall meet again.”

Not if I can help it.

They had neared the tree-lined avenue of Massarelos—almost a mile from where they’d found her—far sooner than Oriana expected. The oarsman used a hook to drag the boat over to one of the stone ramps leading up to the street level. Oriana rose carefully. Hand folded to conceal the webbing, she grabbed for the rail and managed to wrangle her wet skirts about to get her footing on the stone. Once out of reach of either man, she felt far safer. She started to unwrap the blanket from about her shoulders.

“No, you must keep it,” the seer insisted. “You must go home immediately and change into warm clothes, miss.”

“Thank you, sir,” Oriana repeated dully.

She walked up the ramp and glanced back to see the oarsman shoving the small boat away with an oar. Beyond the feeble glow of the streetlamps, the boat’s inhabitants were quickly rendered invisible.

Now that she’d escaped her unwanted savior, Oriana desperately wanted to curl up somewhere and cry. She wanted warm clothes. And dry shoes. And a bath to get the foul taste of the water near The City Under the Sea out of her gills. She wanted to sleep. Perhaps she would wake to find that it was all a dream.

But first she had to tell Lady Amaral that Isabel was gone. Somewhere in the bottom of her heart she would have to find the strength to do that.

CHAPTER 3

FRIDAY, 26 SEPTEMBER 1902

A vague sense of foreboding kept Duilio Ferreira from sleeping. An idea fluttered about in his mind, refusing to be caught. Something was wrong; he simply had no idea what.

He lay in his warm, draped bed, staring up into the darkness. He toyed with the idea of rising, turning up the lights, and attempting to read, but hadn’t quite given up on sleeping. His limited seer’s gift had something it wanted him to know. He simply wasn’t sure whether he wanted to spend his night trying to figure it out. He would rather be sleeping. The clock on his mantel, barely visible across the murky dark of his bedroom, ticked past three.

He groaned and tried turning onto his side. It was something about water.