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  As we descended the never-ending steps the prickly feeling at the back of my neck told me that perhaps Marko had arranged for some guards to follow us incognito. I was glad—more for Marko than for me. At least it meant he was still being cautious. Perhaps this was why he was here, alive and safe, a year since I’d first suspected Sylvia and Damir’s alliance.

  The people bustling through the streets looked at me openly again, but this time they didn’t gawk as much, rather smiling and turning back to what they were doing pretty quickly. Some of the men and women occasionally stopped us for small-talk as we made our way, chatting about the ‘weather’ as though the darkness above us was indeed the sky and not the Pacific Ocean.

  Most of them seemed happy to see me, but one bearded man, dressed in a dark suit and a fancy black hat, who looked to be in his thirties, gave me a hard glare that pierced right through my eyes to the back of my skull, rattling my brain.

  Involuntarily I squeezed Marko’s hand.

  What was this guy’s problem? What reason did he have to hate me?

  When I dared to look again, the man softened his face into a smile, which quickly transformed into a throw-your-head-back belly laugh, before he disappeared in the crowd.

  I froze, recognising the laughter. But then I shook my head and told myself that it couldn’t be him. That he didn’t have blond hair and a ginger beard like this man. That he was locked away in the dungeons and would never hurt me again.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE STRANGER AND his weird, unsettling laugh was hard to shake, even though, at my insistence, Marko had immediately sent one of his guards to make certain Damir hadn’t escaped the dungeons—he hadn’t.

  But once we were aboard the gondola, gliding along the smooth, silvery water, which reflected the tiny light crystals that glittered along the banks, my shoulders began to relax a little. Lost deep inside the beauty and marvel of the underwater city, I could easily forget the hidden menace behind it in the form of Marko’s siblings; or that, some eleven thousand metres above me, there were people who loved and missed me.

  As we drifted past the gleaming, white-walled city, past dwellings and restaurants and past other small boats and their passengers, Marko seemed increasingly nervous, and filled the awkward air between us with talk of architecture and vegetation. It was strange. If I was just a ‘friend’ then shouldn’t he be relaxed around me? Did this mean there was a possibility that he still harboured feelings for me? And that he wasn’t acting on those feelings purely out of respect for my freedom to choose, as his letter inviting me back to Marin had implied? Or was it because those feelings were gone and he was too polite to say so?

  It was all too confusing. I was even starting to question my own feelings. Every time he came near me I felt my insides go up in flames, but I wanted to be sure those feelings weren’t purely of the physical kind. It was all well and good to be attracted to somebody, but it was the Marko inside I wanted to get to know all over again—the passionate, interesting, fiery-yet-caring guy who’d put my needs before his own twelve months ago.

  The Colosseum loomed ahead in the distance. The huge, blindingly white arena drew horrifying memories up to the surface of my mind, memories of blood and razor-sharp teeth tearing Philippe, the dancer-turned-traitor, in two, and of Robbie being hunted down by a monstrous, thrashing Great White. Without thinking I shifted across my seat, until I found myself on Marko’s lap.

  The boat rocked and Marko’s hands gripped my waist and slid down over my hips while I clung to his arms. I felt the vibrations of his laughter through his chest.

  I inched my gaze up until I locked eyes with his.

  ‘Sorry. I was thinking about the sharks and Robbie and Philippe and…er…I’ll get off you now.’

  Marko’s hands tightened around my waist.

  ‘I think you’d better stay right here,’ he said, his voice low and gruff. ‘For safety reasons, of course. We wouldn’t want to end up in the cold water.’

  ‘No,’ I answered. ‘We wouldn’t want that at all; better to be safe than sorry.’

  He stared at me long and hard, in a way that made my heart go crazy against my ribcage.

  ‘So you don’t wish to rock the boat, Miranda. Is that what you’re trying to tell me?’

  Huh? Was he talking about the boat or us?

  The gondolier tapped his pole against the edge of the boat and turned to raise his brow at Marko.

  ‘Yes. Here will do just fine,’ Marko said.

  I looked around. The tight concentric city structure had given way to sparser houses and more greenery. The strange, rectangular-shaped pearl-white houses had backyards, some with crisp white linen flapping in the fake breeze.

  It was darker out here, away from the hundreds of light crystals powering the city, giving off the vibe of post-sunset. But no amount of light crystal could disguise the blackness of the sky—the ocean—above us.

  ‘You didn’t tell me there were actual fields out here,’ I said, in awe of the rolling hills that disappeared into the shadows.

  ‘Yes. The light crystal isn’t as powerful as the sun, but it’s powerful enough. There is not much above ground that we cannot do here in Marin.’

  ‘Except watch a wild storm and feel the rain on your skin or watch the stars,’ I said, more morosely than I’d intended. Marko frowned and sighed.

  ‘You’re right; especially about the rain.’ He half smiled, but his eyes were distant with melancholy. I recalled the time he’d played the piece titled ‘Rain’ on the piano—a piece he’d written for me—and how I’d fallen asleep in his arms that night feeling the most ‘right’ I’d felt since Mum and Dad had died.

  Marko stepped off the boat first and waited for me, arms outstretched. The gondolier helped to steady me as I moved across the wobbly little boat, before I took a leap into Marko’s arms. He held me for a moment, tight against his chest, before setting me down on the ground, a soft smile on his lips.

  I cleared my throat and gazed around.

  The grass covering the ground wasn’t thick and lush like in the castle gardens, but it was amazingly real and patchy, even riddled with weeds, like any field back home. The houses ended here, and the land became undulated and almost eerily barren in the distance beneath the dark sky.

  Marko walked briskly up the hillside and I ran ahead of him, eager to see what was on the other side.

  By the time we reached the crest I was panting and bent over with a stitch. Marko didn’t seem as exerted by our little dash, but his breathing was slightly harder and his face had taken on a rosy glow.

  ‘What do you think, Miranda?’

  I stepped forward and leant my hand against the coarse trunk of a leafy tree before looking out over the rise.

  The sight was gorgeous. Endless rows of vines lit up with light crystals, giving off a Christmassy vibe. The leaves were golden and sunburnt, like row upon row of little fire trails.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ I said.

  ‘Extremely beautiful,’ Marko said, but he was looking right at me and not at the vines.

  Okay.

  I leant against the tree, my side pressing against its roughly textured trunk. Last year, it had taken a long time for me to believe it when Marko had told me I was beautiful. I still had a bit of trouble believing those words to this day. But surely his eyes couldn’t lie.

  ‘I organised a packed lunch,’ he called over his shoulder as he began walking down the gentle slope of the hill, closer to the crystal-lit vines. He stopped halfway, where a basket sat waiting, and withdrew from it a red, blue and white chequered blanket. I joined him and took one side of the blanket and helped him to set it on the grass.

  ‘This is great,’ I said.

  A small smile flickered on Marko’s lips as he poured me water from a canteen into a plain silver goblet. ‘I’m happy you like it.’

  We ate a crisp salad of tomatoes and lettuce with olives and goat’s cheese, alongside warm bread and, after the water, drank the early sw
eet wine from this summer’s grapes. The wine made me feel warm and sleepy.

  Afterwards, we lay on the blanket and I listened to Marko speak about the recent harvest. The sound of his smooth, deep voice combined with the tickling, manufactured breeze lulled me to sleep. I wasn’t sure how long Marko had let me rest for, but when he gently shook me awake I felt so groggy it seemed like at least a couple of hours. The drugs were taking their sweet time getting out of my system, or maybe it was the early wine. I reminded myself to steer clear of the stuff next time. I needed a clear head at all times around here.

  On the journey back to the castle, taking a different water channel so that Marko could show me more sights, we passed several narrow, white rectangular-shaped canvas structures.

  ‘The greenhouses,’ Marko said, not making eye contact.

  I said nothing, trying not to show my excitement at seeing Robbie’s workplace, but instead studied the area, taking care to remember the buildings and landmarks surrounding it so that I could return on my own to visit him sometime soon.

  When we arrived back at the castle, Marko took me via the normal route back to our rooms. Jordon had returned to his post. He winked at me when Marko wasn’t looking and I couldn’t help but grin.

  ‘I’ve got some pressing things to attend to this evening and probably won’t be back here until very late. Are you going to be okay?’ Marko asked, unable to look me in the eye. Why did I get the feeling he was hiding something?

  ‘I was just going to stay in my room and read anyway,’ I said quickly, hoping to conceal my disappointment. Though we’d spent an entire day together we’d only spoken about superficial things. And whenever we came near the subject of feelings, he’d spoken in some kind of code I hadn’t been able to decipher. And now he was avoiding my eyes. It was weird and, despite the touching secret-sci-fi-door moment, I couldn’t help but feel that the divide between us was getting greater by the minute.

  Marko nodded. ‘See you tomorrow, then,’ he said, with a smile so quick and short that I wondered if I’d imagined it. But as I walked into my room I heard him sigh deeply down the corridor. Was he disappointed that he wouldn’t be seeing me until tomorrow? Or, I hated to think it, relieved to have me off his hands?

  After washing my face in the bathroom and scraping my hair back into a messy knot, I left my room and sought out the one place I knew I’d find solace—the library.

  Walking the corridor that led there gave me the chills, because directly opposite the library entrance was Marko’s grandfather’s study—the place Frano Tollin had kept his disgusting woman-to-mermaid experiment book, which I had found.

  For reasons I couldn’t understand, I stepped towards the door and reached out to touch the doorknob, but the door swung open before my fingers reached it.

  ‘Miranda!’

  I jumped, what felt like a metre high, and stumbled until my back hit the library door.

  ‘Sylvia.’

  She put a hand on her heart, where her chest heaved with each breath. ‘Are you trying to give me a heart attack?’

  ‘Sorry. I was looking for the library and…forgot which door it was.’

  Her green eyes narrowed slightly before they crinkled up at the corners and she laughed.

  ‘Oh, yes. This place is a maze. Even I forget where everything is sometimes.’ She stretched her pale Linda-Hamilton-from-Terminator muscled arms, and smiled. ‘Welcome back, Miranda. You have made Marko so happy by returning.’

  When I didn’t step into her arms she moved forward and wrapped them around me, her long dark hair, smelling of potent, sweet spices, smothering my face. This was weird. This was not the Sylvia I’d remembered.

  ‘Thanks.’ I managed to wriggle out of her grasp.

  Sylvia continued to smile and, weirdly enough, it seemed genuine, not poisonous like the smiles I’d received countless times last year. But I wasn’t going to trust her after one measly smile. It was hard not to forget the way she’d threatened to toss me into the Colosseum with the sharks whenever I’d disobeyed her last year. And it was harder still not to forget that she’d had that woman-to-mermaid book in her bedroom, days before I saw it again in Damir’s underworld lair.

  Sylvia could smile her pretty head off at me—I’d still never trust her.

  ‘I’ll just go and choose a book to read tonight. It was great to see you.’

  ‘Likewise. I’ll call on you very soon.’ She smiled faintly and tilted her head. ‘Perhaps the four of us can go out to dinner in the city one evening.’

  ‘That sounds great.’ I thought for a moment, wondering who the fourth person would be. ‘Do you have a partner?’

  Sylvia frowned, and then her eyes glittered in a way that reminded me of the old Sylvia. ‘No. I meant me, you, Marko and his new friend.’

  My pulse exploded in my ears.

  ‘New friend?’ I smiled to mask my horror. ‘You mean Marko’s… He’s dating someone?’

  Sylvia shrugged. ‘It’s not for me to say. But she is fabulous company, and the dinner would be a riot.’ She winked and said, ‘Have fun with your little books,’ before leaving me alone in the corridor.

  I stood there, limbs frozen, while my heart raced around my chest. So this was why Marko was acting distant and weird. Surely he could have told me this at the beach before I gave away everything to come down here.

  Once within the walls of the library, I collapsed on my favourite musty velvet chaise, the one I used to snuggle into and read on last year. But there was no way I could lose myself in a book right now. My heart was thrumming at high speed. I couldn’t get the picture of Marko and his riotous new friend out of my head. The idea of him loving someone else was too much.

  But again, I couldn’t let information out of Sylvia’s mouth cloud my judgement. She was good at manipulation. I had learnt that last year. She could be trying to poison my relationship with Marko. That was more likely. The fact that he wanted me in Robbie’s old room so that I could be as close to him as possible was validation enough that Marko still cared for me somewhat.

  After selecting a few good books to bring back to my room, I ran the length of the corridors superfast.

  As I approached my room, the hauntingly melancholic sound of Marko’s piano called me. Just picturing him hunched over the keys, lost inside the music, quickened my breath. It was nothing I’d heard before, but beautiful all the same. Then again, he could play ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’ and I’d probably swoon.

  Dumping the books on my bed, I pushed our adjoining door open a crack and watched him. He was nearing the musical climax of his piece, the muscles in his back cording beneath his shirt while he pounded out the last keys.

  Then suddenly he stopped. Without turning he said, ‘How long have you been standing there for?’

  A long silence stretched between us.

  ‘Not long. I was on my way back from the library and the music was so beautiful I—’

  ‘You decided to spy on me. Hmmm, it’s becoming quite a habit.’ He glanced over his shoulder, smiled and gestured with his hand for me to sit beside him on the piano bench.

  The leather squeaked when I sat down. Our thighs touched and my arm brushed against his, sending a thrill shooting through my veins.

  ‘You try something,’ he said, gesturing to the keys, the dare making his eyes sparkle.

  I poked out ‘Hot Cross Buns’, and Marko looked on with amusement. He started to add an elaborate background tune and I giggled.

  ‘Who knew a song about fruit buns could run so deep,’ I said over the music.

  Marko laughed, and started bashing out a mad solo at the ‘two a-penny’ part. I couldn’t even play at this point I was laughing so hard.

  Then our hands touched.

  We froze like that, fingers splayed across the keys, our masterpiece forgotten. I put my hand over his, feeling bold and scared at the same time, my heart knocking against my chest, my fingers practically buzzing from the contact.

  Marko stared at
our adjoined hands for what seemed forever. ‘What does this mean?’ he said, his voice gravelly and low.

  ‘That I care about you. That I…’ I inwardly winced at what I was saying but decided I may as well spill everything. ‘That I came back for you just as much as I came back for myself…and for Marin of course. I came because I needed to see you again. I needed to know you were okay.’

  Marko sighed, his nostrils flaring.

  ‘Well, thank you for caring, Miranda. But if this is about some fear you have for my wellbeing as the king, then I don’t want to hear it.’ He drew his hand away and mine fell onto the keys, the piano protesting beneath my touch.

  I stood up, shaking, not understanding his problem and feeling a little scarlet-woman-ish.

  Marko stood up as well, but grabbed me by my arm as I turned to leave. Hot fingers stroked my skin. His breathing was laboured.

  ‘No. Don’t be like that, Miranda. Don’t be offended.’ His eyes briefly skimmed over my lips and back up. ‘I…I just hate it when people pity me.’

  ‘But I don’t pity you. I didn’t say—’

  He snorted. ‘It’s the way you look at me. Like you know things about me, about Marin. Things I don’t know myself.’

  ‘But I do know things. It’s the truth.’

  He scratched his head with his free hand and pulled me in with the other one before he planted a kiss on my forehead. The feeling of his lips against my skin made me delirious; if I hadn’t had such important words to say to him right then, I would have tilted my head up and tried to kiss him back, on the mouth.

  ‘Please,’ I said, before taking a deep breath. ‘I’ve got something to tell you. Just listen to me this once, please, and I promise I won’t ever mention it again.’

  Marko frowned but nodded. I sat down on the edge of his bed and he leaned against the wooden post and folded his arms. ‘I’m listening,’ he said.

  ‘Okay, remember when I told you about the book I saw at Damir’s, just after you rescued me?’