The court behind the row of houses was private. Beyond the courtyard were the mews that served the wealthy homeowners of the Street of Flowers, and the scent of dust and horses carried in the cool night. Under the streetlamps, it was bright enough to see the whole alleyway, but Oriana couldn’t make out a coach waiting in either direction. She turned to Isabel, who, with her white cap and apron, almost looked the part of a housemaid, although an impudent one. “Where is Mr. Efisio’s coach to meet us?”

Isabel pointed to the farther end of the block with her chin. “On Formosa Street. His driver is to wait for us there.”

Oriana groaned. That was several houses away. She should have bribed Carlos to carry the luggage all the way there. Casting about, she spotted the small stair leading from the cobbles down to an old basement entry, the coal room. Reckoning no one would be using that door tonight—no shipment of coal was due for another month at the earliest—she took the two portmanteaus down and tucked them by the steps, where they wouldn’t be seen. Then she and Isabel picked up the trunk between them and began the trek down to the far end of the alley.

Isabel had thrown herself into the adventure of the moment. She didn’t complain about having to carry her own luggage. She didn’t complain about the weight of the trunk, or how far they had to go. She simply picked up her end and led the way. Oriana had to admire her for that, because the trunk was damnably heavy. They’d nearly reached the end of the alley when a coach approached slowly and eased to a stop.

“Thanks be to God!” Isabel said passionately, tugging on her end of the trunk to draw Oriana along faster.

The driver of the coach set the brake and jumped down to help them. They lowered the trunk to the the ground as he opened the coach’s door and folded down the steps. Isabel went to climb inside while Oriana spoke to the burly driver. “I need to go fetch two more bags,” she told him. “I’ll only be a moment.”

He grunted his assent, and Oriana turned to dash back to the Amarals’ courtyard.

A hand grabbed her hair, fingers tightening about the braided mass at the nape of her neck. Off balance, Oriana stumbled backward toward her attacker. Before she could cry out, he pressed a cloth over her mouth and dragged her against his body.

Oriana bit down hard. But biting only drove the cloth into her teeth, a strange sweet taste on her tongue and in her gills. She struggled wildly as the fire in her stomach died back into cold fear. The big man had her pinned helpless against him. She kicked at his shins, but her heel tangled in the hem of her skirts, like seaweed wrapping about her legs. It was getting harder to move. All these damned skirts . . .

The man set her down, shaking the hand she’d bitten. Oriana swayed on her feet. She tried to loosen her shirt cuff to draw her dagger, but her hands wavered in her vision. A surge of nausea rose, leaving her hot, then cold.

What was wrong with her? She should do something . . .

As if at a great distance, she heard Isabel cry out. Oriana spun that way, reaching one arm out to her. Then she was tilting, falling toward the night-dark cobbles.

CHAPTER 2

Oriana dreamed she was bound. It was dark. Her head ached fiercely, her stomach felt hollow, and everything was wrong.

Ah, gods, no. It wasn’t a nightmare.

She was tied firmly in place. She was upside down, seated in a chair, bound fast to it by ropes about her arms and chest and ankles, and that chair was secured to the ceiling. Her wrists were tied, forcing her hands to lie flat on a metal surface—a table or tray. Her ragged breath echoed in the small space.

She jerked against the ropes, but they didn’t give. Instead, the whole world swayed around her. A whimper escaped her lips. What is happening?

She couldn’t seem to think straight. I’ve been drugged, haven’t I? There had been something bitter on the cloth the driver held over her mouth. Was he one of the Special Police, the branch dedicated to hunting down nonhumans like her? Had someone turned her in?

She had to find a way out of this place. She could smell wood and cork, the pungent scents of resins and paint, and, faintly, the river. She held her breath and could hear muted sounds, but nothing that made sense. Her eyes began to adjust to the blackness, better than human eyes for that sort of thing.

And then she realized she wasn’t alone. Isabel hung in a chair across from her. The cobwebs that cluttered Oriana’s mind blew away in a sudden rush. “Isabel,” she cried. “Wake up!”

Isabel’s head swayed and her eyelids fluttered, but she didn’t respond. She must have been drugged, too.

Oriana’s hands curled into fists against the table’s surface. She had to get Isabel out of this place. She yanked against the ropes that bound her arms again, but couldn’t make out how they were tied. The knots must be behind her back.

She surveyed the shadowy room then, taking stock. She could make out its size now, not much larger than the inside of a coach. The walls looked featureless, dark and plain. There was only her and Isabel and a small round table nestled between them. The ropes pressed her hands down on one side of the table, and Isabel’s hands lay opposite them. Oriana could see that the surface was patterned somehow, but the room was too dark for her to make it out.

What is this? Why would anyone put us here?

Her breathing sounded harsh in her own ears, overloud in the tiny room. She forced it down, not wanting to frighten Isabel. She had to come up with a plan. Then she heard a new sound through the walls: the metallic rattle of shifting chains. There had to be someone nearby. “Let her go,” she cried, hoping they would hear. “She didn’t know I’m not human. She’s not a Sympathizer. It’s . . .”

Everything moved. Oriana had the terrifying sensation of falling, then her body slammed to a stop against the ropes that bound her. She hissed and followed that with every foul word she’d ever heard her aunts say. The initial flare of pain ebbed after a moment. They were on water now. The room bobbed like a boat.

“It’s me you want,” Oriana screamed into the darkness. “Not her, damn it!”

There was no response save for the continued clatter of chains.

Oriana’s breath suddenly went short. This room couldn’t be watertight, not if she’d heard the chains so clearly through the walls. Water was going to fill this space, and quickly. “Isabel, wake up!”

Isabel moaned in response, her eyes fluttering open. “Where am I?”

She heard water bubbling into the structure that trapped them. Something was dragging them deeper. They didn’t have much time. “I don’t know. We have to try to get loose.”

“Oriana? Where are you? I can’t see.” Isabel began to cry helplessly then, like a lost child.

Oriana tried to keep her voice steady for Isabel’s sake. “It’s very dark, Isabel. That’s why you can’t see. Now listen to me. You have to try to get your arms loose.”

“I can’t,” Isabel sobbed.

Oriana couldn’t see the water yet. It was above—no, below—her head, seeping upward. She could hear it and smell it, though. Cold fear knotted in her gut. They were going to run out of time.

No, she wasn’t going to give up that easily. “I’m going to untie myself,” she told Isabel. “Then I’ll untie you.”

“How?” she whimpered.

Oriana didn’t take time to answer. She grasped the edge of the table and shifted in the chair that held her, twisting so her teeth could reach the rope about her right wrist. Her teeth were sharper than a human’s, something that rarely proved an advantage. The rope splintered and shredded in her mouth.

The water continued to seep upward, inexorable.

“Oriana? Are you still there? Oriana!”