“Mother had twenty-six bites, but managed to fight them off and make it home, even though everyone else on her mission was killed.” Vindaris continued the tale with a deep sadness. “Aldo had gone into voluntary exile from the North Sea at that time, as part of his reconciliation with the Blood Dragon King Huttr Erdhelm for accidentally killing that village. Léviathan was furious Aldo had abandoned us to go to the Red Letter Hotel and placed anofficialbanishment upon him while Auriana was out on her mission. Thus, we all got to be there with mother before her death – except Reginald. Father was too stubborn and wouldn’t let any of us contact Aldo to tell him mother was injured until it was too late. I don’t think Aldo will ever forgive father for that.”
“You forget there were two sides to that dark fate.” Reginald spoke quietly as they walked, and Layla felt something wrathful move inside him, deep and old. “Father was late to tell me mother was injured not just because he was angry with me, but because I was training to become a Courtier at the time. As part of my training at the Red Letter Hotel Florence, I was not allowed to take calls or visitors, and father spoke with my Partner, the Vampire Barone Quindici DaPonti, who was then Head Courtier. Vampires and Sirens do not generally get along; father would not relay any information to Quinn and Quinn would not let Léviathan speak with me until he knew what it was about. In the end, I did not get the memo about mother’s injury until she was a scant hour from passing. She died while I was in transit.”
“Reginald, I’m so sorry.” Layla spoke, clasping her hand closer around Reginald’s arm.
“It is deepwater history, Layla.” He spoke softly. “But thank you.”
At last, they arrived at a set of vaulted water-arches guarded by six men in full armor, who gave the royal siblings a pound of their tridents on the floor as everyone passed into the next hall. A massively ornate dome of coral water-arches, twelve helices of water surrounded the room, swirling with living fish, pearls, and bright shells. Stepping into the center of one helix, Vindaris beckoned and everyone else joined him, except the attendants. As soon as they were in place, the water plumed up beneath them in a lift. Moving smoothly up like an elevator, they ascended to a circular upper floor of corals flowing around the edge of the high dome. Stepping off the lift, Layla saw suites of rooms along it.
Before them towered a set of gilded double-doors of ornate purple coral, flowing with water. As Vindaris set his hand to the doors, the water shivered and flowed open as the corals parted. Beyond was an incredible suite that curved around the edge of the dome, with vaulted pillars of purple coral, water, and pearls. Between the vaults to the outside, water flowed in sheets so thin they created shimmering windows through which one could see a driftwood and pearl balcony against the bright sky beyond. As Vindaris clapped his hands, the sheets of water covering the windows ceased, allowing in a brisk sea-breeze and the cry of gulls.
“Layla.” Vindaris glanced at her with a cheeky wink. “Welcome to your home-away.”
“Fuck.” Layla couldn’t help but curse at the opulence, her rooms beautifully appointed with coral furniture sculpted in gold and pearls, everything padded in ornate silks chased with gold. Fountains burbled down the walls, flowing into rivers that ran through the pearl and abalone floor. Layla’s room had her own anemone wall, plus a gilded coral bathroom with an inset hot tub and a flowing waterfall shower. The bed had been grown up out of the far wall and floor in a cradle of purple coral with a thick mattress and luminous white bedding. Moving over, Layla set a hand to the bed, finding the bedding ultra-soft yet supportive, delicious as sea-foam.
Stepping to a gilded coral table, Vindaris inspected a spread of fruit, fish, and crustacean dishes, plus wine and a few decanters of spirits. He nodded with satisfaction as Layla stepped out to the driftwood and pearl balcony with Reginald. Her room overlooked the central harbor, surrounded by white cliffs topped by the domes and minarets of the city. The harbor delved down so far that its purple reaches went black in the middle. Clearly, this was thedeeppart of Deep Harbor, and as Layla saw how the buildings of the city cascaded down the cliffs, straight underwater all around that blackness, Reginald stepped to her side.
“Is that Deep Harbor?” She asked.
“Technically, the entire island is Deep Harbor, but yes, that’s the central access to the Under Harbor, though there are others throughout the citadel.” Reginald spoke.
“It’s so beautiful. The whole city, I mean.” Layla said, awed. She had once thought the Crystal Plateau in Luxor was the most impossibly beautiful place she had ever seen, but this was rivaling it vista for vista.
“It is.” Reginald spoke quietly, then turned as Vindaris and Leni arrived with four glasses of red wine. Reginald handed one to Layla, and the four clinked in a toast. For a moment, everyone watched the harbor as they sipped. Far below, Layla saw Sirens walking into the water and shifting with ripples of light into their enormous, eel-like Dragon-forms. In the harbor’s deeps, she could see massive white-opal shapes moving through the underwater city, buildings glowing below the water’s surface with some kind of pearl-blue luminescence.
“Here’s to Reginald and his Partner,” Vindaris spoke suddenly, eyeing the group with shrewd solemnity. “If anyone can change how fucked-up life is around here, my vote’s on you two.”
“Don’t raise your hopes, Vin.” Reginald spoke darkly as he swirled his wine, watching the city. Reaching out to Layla, he corralled her waist in an intimately possessive gesture. “Father has made it clear I’m not wanted here, nor is Layla. Despite my best efforts at playing the game to win his regard these past months, he still despises me.”
“He’ll come around to your Bind with Layla, Aldo, give it time.” Vindaris sighed, though Layla could tell even he didn’t believe his own words. “You know he wants you to become Siren King when he finally falls. Everyone can see how he’s grooming you for it.”
“His and my argument isn’t about the Bind, or about becoming Siren King, necessarily. It’s about the kind of man I am, which my father hates – a lover, rather than a Battle-Lord like him.” Reginald spoke succinctly, swirling his wine as he pulled Layla almost uncomfortably close now, though she liked his dominant possession. “I’ve given Léviathan three centuries to acknowledge the man I choose to be rather than the one he wants me to be. He turns a blind eye to it. He can’t see past grooming me to be King after him. He can’t see that’s not what I am.”
“So kick his ass in public and make him see.” Leni spoke darkly.
“Challenging father to a dominance battle would secure me a place on that throne, Leni, if I win.” Reginald spoke firmly as he glanced to his sister. “Which is not where I wish to be.”
“Maybe it should be.” Leni spoke with a deep challenge as she sipped her wine, turning and pinning Reginald with her intense cobalt eyes. “Léviathan will never accept you being a Head Courtier at the Red Letter Hotel Paris, Aldo. To him, the Hotel is only something to hold stake in for financial gain. You pursuing a career there asstaffis like sticking a constant harpoon in his side. Why not embrace your destiny here? Why not challenge Léviathan before he wrecks the rest of our family with all his devious manipulations?”
“What do you mean, wreck the rest of your family?” Layla asked, eyeing Reginald and Leni as she sipped her dark, sweet Bordeaux.
“It’s a long story,” Reginald sighed as he glanced at Layla. “Suffice it to say I’m not the only son our father has banished over the years, thentestedmercilessly to win a spot back in the clan. He’s obsessed with making us all prove our worth, to make sure we’re all the strongest in the world’s seas. Tests of strength, mental challenges, tests of obeisance, tests of governance in impossible situations. I am not the only sibling who has balked under his extreme treatment over the ages – I’m just the one who rebelled most.”
“So others have gotten shitty treatment from your father?” Layla asked.
“Oh, yes.” Vindaris chuckled darkly now, taking up the tale. “Some of our brothers pushed themselves to do everything father asked and it made them vicious, though they already had that temperament, like Bastien and Alexandre. Others swam away around the world to escape father, like Beau and Orlando, though Orlando returned and died for father’s war, whereas Beau we still don’t know where he is. Some tried to play father’s game and became weary, like Tempeste. Some still try to play, like poor Typhos and Atlantos, Leni and myself. Fury went mad from father’s tests, and had to leave Deep Harbor. But Aldo just flat-out rebelled, falling in love with a Blood Dragon then becoming a Hotel Courtier. It was the ultimate fuck-you to Léviathan, and still is.”
“And now he’ll never forgive me.” Reginald spoke, draining his wine and setting it aside upon the balcony’s glossy driftwood.
“Perhaps it’s not you that needs his forgiveness,” Leni spoke solidly, pinning Reginald with her deep gaze. “Perhaps he needs yours. Perhaps it is his time to step down. And your time to rise.”
“I’m not having this conversation with you again, Leniana.” Reginald spoke with firm chastisement, and Layla heard the haughty, furious tones of his Head Courtier persona in his smooth baritone voice now. “My journey here does not include battling my father to take him down. Only to get him to see who I really am.”
“You’ve tried, Aldo.” She pushed back, her dark blue eyes flashing fiercely as she set her wine aside also. “You’ve done everything he’s asked of you these past months to atone for killing Bastien, andstillhe screws you with vicious challenges. He doesn’t respect your choice to live and work at the Hotel, and we clearly saw today that he doesn’t respect Layla, either. He’ll never stop testing you because he’spunishingyou. He’s punishing you by making you become Clan Second and stay here, when you’ve made it abundantly clear you wish to return to the Paris Hotel.”
“Is that true?” Layla asked, blinking in astonishment as she glanced at Reginald. “Do you really want to return to the Paris Hotel and give up being Clan Second?”
With a sad quirk of his lips, Reginald took Layla’s wine glass from her fingertips and set it aside on the driftwood railing. Turning her in his arms, he corralled her close.
