“Four years old. And your parents were okay with this?”
“They were proud of me,” Dax said. “I’ve a gift.”
The way he said the word did not make it sound like a gift at all. She scowled at the sea and thought he had very crappy parents. She also thought she didn’t know him well enough to say that out loud. Shedidsay, “Your friends shouldn’t have been told to lie to you. It’s not like you’re a child anymore.”
“I… agree.” He was silent for a moment, then shook himself and said, “What I’m trying to say, badly, is thank you. You saved me and my friends, and I didn’t even know we needed to be saved. I feel like an idiot, but please know that I’m a grateful idiot.” He was looking at her, his eyes intense. “You came for me. Not for my music. For me. I don’t think you know… What you did… You’re extraordinary.”
Marin shrugged. He was being overdramatic again. “Thank Perri. It was his idea. He has a soft spot for you.”
Out in the waves, the sea serpent was cavorting with a herd of merhorses. Their hooves hit the waves as they galloped through the water, flinging droplets off their manes. Their jewel-toned scales gleamed in the morning sun.
“He just likes me for the squid,” Dax said, squinting toward the sun as he watched the sea serpent and the merhorses.
“Oh, he does. It’s true squid love.”
Dax laughed. His laugh sounded like music, and she couldn’t help but smile. It was the kind of laugh that sounded so pure and true.He doesn’t belong out here, she thought,exposed to the harshness of the sun, the wind, and the sea.In the light of dawn, away from the city, she wondered if she’d overreacted, if he would have been fine cocooned in his conservatory… except his friends, when offered a way out, had seized it. She wondered how many still remained in the conservatory. “Why didn’t they evacuate you?” She wasn’t sure who she meant by “they.” She supposed she meant whatever asshole had convinced Dax he belonged to them, as if he were a prize-winning cow.
“I don’t think they expected the revolution to go on as long as it has,” Dax said. “They believed the empire would squash the rebellion the same way it always has, even without the emperor, and everything would return to normal, with a new emperor, in a matter of days. That said, I haven’t seen Grandmaster Vorac or any of the others in days. It does make me wonder if they evacuated themselves and left the rest of us to wait it out.”
She wasn’t certain what to say to that, except that it did seem likely. A lot of the city had felt abandoned. She guessed that everyone who could flee had already done so, the wealthy and the connected. Not everyone could. There weren’t any big sailing ships in the city—they couldn’t navigate through the canals—so it was a problem of scale. People could have evacuated on the imperial warships, but that would have required the empirewantingthem to be evacuated… and it was likely that whoever was currently in charge of the empire didn’t want that. The imperials wanted everything to stay the way it was.And they never cared who they hurt to achieve that. So long as their lives stayed the same.
What was it about wealth and power that made people so very small?
“I had no idea sea serpents could make music like that,” Dax said. “It’s not in any of the records, at least none that I’ve seen. I don’t think anyone’s ever studied sea serpent music before.”
“Not surprised.” From the sound of it, his grandmasters sounded like the kind of controlling people who thought they knew best.Like Iovar.If they didn’t allow musicians to leave the conservatory, how would they know sea serpents could sing?
“It’s amazing.”
Marin smiled fondly at Perri, who was swimming back toward them as the herd moved off into the distance. “Heisamazing.”
“Do you think he’d sing again, if you asked him to?” Dax said.
“Sure, he likes to sing. You can ask him yourself.”
A delighted look lit up Dax’s face, and he crossed to the port side. “Perri? Would you be willing to sing for me? Or with me?”
Rising out of the waves, Perri flapped his fins and let out a trill.
“He said yes,” Marin translated.
Dax grinned. “Oh, wait, let me get my tri-lute.” He scurried downstairs and then reemerged with the three-necked lute that he’d carried onto the boat. He sat on the deck on top of the cabin and spent a few moments tuning it. She was surprised at how natural he looked,and she wondered if she was wrong to think he didn’t belong on the sea. Or maybe he was just the kind of open, friendly person who was at home anywhere. “You start,” he said to the sea serpent.
Perri trilled a query.
“He doesn’t know what you want him to sing,” Marin said.
“Anything,” Dax said. “What you feel. That’s always best.”
The serpent was quiet for a moment, and Marin grinned. “You’ve made him shy. Usually he’s loud all the time.”
Perri protested that with a sharp whistle and a splash.
Ready for it, she jumped back with a laugh.
“I’ll start, then,” Dax offered. He ran his fingers over the strings in a waterfall of notes, then he paused and waited. Standing, he carried the tri-lute to the side of the boat. A wave smacked the hull, and Dax wobbled. Marin tensed, ready to spring forward to catch him, but he steadied himself and then replayed the notes.
Swimming closer to the sailboat, the sea serpent sang a short cascade of notes.
