The Golden City

“The whole time? With whom will I talk?” he asked, allowing a plaintive edge to creep into his voice.

She rolled her eyes but let him help her into the coat. He hoped that look of exasperation meant he’d been forgiven any inappropriate ardor she might have perceived. “I can’t promise to make conversation, sir,” she said. “It’s not one of my skills.”

He couldn’t resist the temptation to tease her, even though he knew he should. “That only makes me curious to know what your skills are.”

* * *

At the quay where the lovely yacht waited, Mr. Ferreira inspected the bolt cutters that Joao had collected for him. They had a brief discussion and picked two out of the batch. The sun set while they prepared the rowboat to cast off. It actually served as the yacht’s lifeboat, so they had to lower it down by winch to the water before Mr. Ferreira pulled it around for Oriana to join him in it. With Joao’s help, she stepped from the floating marina’s planks into the rowboat and swiftly sat. There was a shuttered lantern at her feet, so she made certain to keep her skirts away from it.

“Where is your brother, do you think?” she asked delicately. She’d half expected to find a dozen selkies waiting for them. She was disappointed when they weren’t there.

“He’ll be here,” Mr. Ferreira said, using one oar to push away from the marina. “May be late, but he’ll show up.” He handled the oars easily, as if he’d done a lot of rowing in the past, and they were quickly away from the other boats clustered near the quay as darkness fell over the water.

The city proper was more than two miles inland, and The City Under the Sea had been constructed on the southern side of the river, between the large bend in the river’s path and the breakwater that shielded that area from the sea. Mr. Ferreira rowed patiently, taking them along the river’s northern bank and then heading across the lanes of river traffic at a southwesterly angle that would take them to where the houses floated. By the time they got close to the right spot, it was full dark.

Oriana disrobed quickly and slid into the water. She submerged long enough to identify the vibrations of another vessel—the commandeered patrol boat—moving slowly toward the breakwater. She fixed the direction in her mind and then returned to the rowboat. Mr. Ferreira helped her over the side and wrapped the overcoat back around her. With her directions, they soon located the patrol boat. A few minutes later the rowboat was tied behind it, sparing his arms.

“I haven’t rowed in a while,” Mr. Ferreira whispered ruefully, rubbing at his left arm.

“So, what do we do now?” she asked.

“We wait,” he said.

CHAPTER 30

In the darkness, the patrol boat floated along without lights, the rowboat drifting behind it on a towline. The moon hadn't risen yet. They were nearer the breakwaters now that sheltered the river from the open sea, well over a mile from the city itself. They could see the lights of the city still, but were closer to the dark Gaia shore with its high cliffs. Two lighthouses on the breakwaters marked the edge of the open sea.

The crew on the patrol boat had cut their engine, so the silence wrapped about them. They had been sitting there for a couple of hours now in the darkness but hadn’t yet seen a single Special Police patrol—or anything else. There were no gulls out here, no seabirds at all, as if they knew what was under the surface of the water. The absence of their cries was eerie. In the darkness it was as if the two boats had fallen off the edge of the earth.

Oriana kept one hand in the water, feeling the currents in her webbing. Her clothes lay in a neat pile near the prow of the rowboat. She hadn’t seen the need to don them again, since the borrowed overcoat kept her warm enough and hid the paleness of her skin.

The selkies Aga had gone to fetch never arrived, which meant that the freeing of the house was Oriana’s task alone. She could do it. She wouldn’t let herself think otherwise.

She could barely make out Mr. Ferreira’s face a few feet away. He’d kept the lantern shuttered to prevent anyone from seeing them, and true to his earlier words, he’d talked with her. Mostly trivial things, such as what books she liked, her favorite food, whether or not she cared for Mozart or Alfredo Keil. Had she read Eca de Queiros? Castelo Branco? Dickens?

He was trying to set her at ease, a kindness since she was so tense. “Is it my turn or yours?” she asked.

He laughed softly and whispered, “It was your turn, but you wasted it by asking that, so now it’s my turn again. What happened to your father, Oriana? You told me he was exiled.”

He’d taken to addressing her by name. It was a step further than simply using the familiar person, more intimate. She liked that. She took a deep breath and considered his question. Then she answered honestly, no matter how terrible it must sound. “He lives in Portugal now.”

She opened her mouth to explain, but paused.

She sensed movement in her webbing. It was large—a ship, its screws churning the water. With the pitch- blackness about them, she couldn’t see the approaching ship, but could feel its motion and hear the ripple of its wake. A shiver ran down her spine. She touched his hand to get his attention; he could see even less in the darkness than she. “It’s in that direction. No lights.”

He lifted one shade of the lantern, letting off a pair of brief flashes, the signal agreed upon with Gaspar. A single flash showed in response. They’d gotten the message.

The yacht continued on past them in the darkness as he cast off the towline. There were only a couple of faint lights on the yacht’s deck, but Oriana could make out the arm of a crane affixed to the deck. A large, boxy shape hung from the crane, a house all ready to drop into the river. A chain draped from the underside of the hanging house to the deck of the yacht. It would have a weight attached—she knew that from the journal—even if she couldn’t see it yet. When they got to the right spot, they would drop the chain, then lower the house into the water from the crane. The weight would drag it downward, and their diver—Silva’s selkie—would guide the weighted chain to the right spot and attach it to an anchor set on the silt-clouded riverbed before the first house had been put in place.

It was eerie to see the instrument of Isabel’s death.

They waited in silence a while as the ship found the right position, apparently being directed by the selkie, much as she’d led Mr. Ferreira to the patrol boat. Mr. Ferreira rowed quietly, moving them closer to the yacht.

Then Oriana heard the rattling of chains. The sound sent a cold wash of remembered fear into her stomach. She dropped the coat she wore and slid into the water, naked save for the knife strapped to her wrist. She reached over the edge of the rowboat to grab the bolt cutters from the bench.

“Be careful,” Duilio told her.

She submerged in time to feel the house hit the water, its chain dragging it down. As she got closer, the water was full of death. Oriana breathed it in, felt it in her gills and tasted it in her mouth, the flesh of dozens of innocents rotting away in this slow eddy of the river. The taste of corruption in the water sent the terror and pain of that night surging back into her mind. Isabel was among those whose bodies were slowly decaying in this watery graveyard.

Isabel had died in this place, but she hadn’t. Oriana was going to make use of that.

She forced herself on, swimming awkwardly with the heavy tool in her hands. Her large eyes took in more light than a human’s, but in the moonless dark, distorted by the water’s movement, the house was little more than a blur.

Oriana reached the floating house and immediately swam downward to locate the chain. She brushed against columns, a triangular pediment—definitely the Carvalho house. She couldn’t hear voices within, so the captives might not even have woken yet. Perhaps they would be spared the worst of the terror.

She located the chain. It was taut, which told her the selkie must already be pulling it downward to affix the chain to the weight on the riverbed. Oriana wrapped one leg about the chain for leverage and worked the bolt