“Two Tidewakers,” Ursuline said.
The bartender’s brows lifted in surprise, but he set forth to pull out a few bottles, including one I didn’t recognize. It was a shimmering blue, as if glitter swirled inside it, though the iridescence seemed too natural to be that. He shook the concoction and poured it into two glasses. Ursuline thanked him, nabbed them both, and passed one my way. I clutched the cool surface, letting the calm filter through me. Together, we headed for a small alcove by the window where no one loitered.
“What’s in this?” I asked, glancing at the swirling depths of the drink.
“Sour cherry cordial and jessamine,” Ursuline said. “It’s a liquor from a type of kelp that’s distilled and sweetened.”
I tipped the glass back and took a sip. The sweetness mixed with an addictive tang, and I savored the flavors on my tongue. “It’s good. From New Atlantis, I suppose?”
“The Triton family has access to all sorts of things the other families here are unaware of,” they murmured, a darker note to their tone. I couldn’t help but wonder the secrets they hid, the mysteries they contained. My fingers itched to sketch, to paint them out on paper, splashes of purples, dark blues, and black in swirling strokes.
“How do you deal with this?” I asked, my voice low. No one stood nearby, but that didn’t mean people weren’t watching. Weren’t attempting to listen in. “The hypocrisy.”
Ursuline’s lips pressed tight, and then they heaved out a slow sigh. As they leaned back against the wall, they took a sip from their drink, and at first, I wasn’t sure if they’d answermy question or not. Granted, this wasn’t the place to ask—not surrounded by the Triton family in their finest and their human peers.
“I wear who I am as a badge,” they said, lifting their chin. They stared out at the dance floor, where dozens swirled across the surface like unfurled flowers. “I can stand it because I’d never choose to be like them—not for all the riches both land and sea could offer me.”
My heart twisted hard. I resonated with that more than I could express in words. And I wanted to become like that more than anything as I stood here in my sham of a future marriage, both my fiancée and I playing in the farce.
I was so achingly tired of being a pawn, a toy.
I wanted to matter.
Ursuline’s eyes met mine, and my stomach squeezed. Would they ask my question back? Expose me for the fraud I was? Except their gaze softened, and they took another sip of their drink.
I clutched the glass in my hand so hard I worried it’d break, yet there weren’t any easy escapes, unless I wanted to exit the party and head back to my room. I’d considered the prospect a dozen or more times tonight.
“Have you seen the private gallery attachment to the ballroom?” they asked, tapping a nail on their glass.
I shook my head. “Can we go?” If the words came out a little pleading, I was beyond caring.
Their wicked smile set my insides aflame. “Follow me, sunshine.”
That name on their lips was indulgent, holding an intimacy I craved with my whole soul. I’d follow them off a cliff just to hear them call me sunshine in those dulcet, husky tones.
Ursuline swept along the far wall and back to the corner, past the bartender setup. He didn’t even blink as we traveledby, too busy fixing glasses of wine for a couple who I should probably be getting to know right now. Instead, I was hiding away, and I couldn’t find it in myself to care about abandoning this farce of an engagement party. It had been organized to show off Frederick and the Triton family. Beyond Frederick’s initial mention that his daughter Arielle was getting married to me and a nod to the Durand family, the rest of his speech had been focused on the future expansion of his business.
We stepped out of the ballroom and into the hidden gallery.
The quiet here ached around me, a stark contrast to the steady noise throughout the engagement party. No music in the background, no thrum of conversation. And then I looked around the room. The walls were a deep blue, and the sea-glass chandeliers shimmered on the pale white marble floors, casting gorgeous oceanic patterns. Yet what drew my attention were the pieces hung on the walls. This wasn’t art curated for wealth, though the pieces were priceless. No, it held a theme that bled with a longing for the sea.
One I resonated with deeply.
Ursuline stood beside me as I soaked in the staged pictures staggered across the walls, interspersed by the occasional shelf that displayed crafted pottery pieces behind glass. The room here exploded with more color and creativity than the entire ballroom we’d stepped out of, and even though the gallery was quiet and still, I found more peace here than I did out there.
A few of the pieces along the far wall were familiar, and I wandered in their direction.
“You can spot Jason’s work anywhere, can’t you,” Ursuline said, their voice rich with amusement.
“I studied under him for a while. Enough that I’d always recognize it,” I said, reaching up to stroke my fingers along the ridged frame of “Terror,” splashes of blacks, reds, and swirling blue. He’d told me a long time ago it had been inspired by wherehe’d grown up in the depths. In the Pockets. Of the pain and torment his family went through under the rulers down below. The haunted expression he sometimes wore felt so similar to Ursuline’s.
“Do you miss him?” Ursuline asked. They stood beside me, close enough that my body hummed with awareness.
I took another sip of my drink before responding, letting the flavors roll around on my tongue and settle there. “I do. I’d love to see him again, but…” My stomach bottomed out. Jason had messaged me a few times to check in, but he wasn’t a chatty sort to begin with. I hadn’t told him everything that had changed. And I was terrified to reach out.
“You don’t want any potential harm to come his way.” Ursuline finished my statement.
I swallowed hard. “How did you know?”
