“Miss Paredes?”

She jerked to attention, her jaw clenched tightly. “Sir?”

Duilio wondered what it would take to get her to call him by his name. “Why don’t you join me in the library? You look like you could use a brandy.”

“I could, actually.” She followed him meekly down the hall. He grabbed the decanter out of the liquor cabinet, and she settled in the chair while he poured. “Can you tell . . .” she began. “Do you know if someone will die tonight? If I can’t save them?”

Duilio closed his eyes and concentrated, trying to call his gift into order. He posed a question to his mind, but his gift only had a tentative answer for him, as if there were too many variables that could change. He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“Ah,” she said, sobering.

“It’s not just your responsibility, Oriana,” he said. “There will be several of us out there, all working on it.” She didn’t object to his using her name. Perhaps she hadn’t even noticed.

“She fed Silva all that information. She wanted to be sure he’d repeat it to us.”

“That doesn’t surprise me,” he said. “If she’s the saboteur, then she wants them to be brought down. She just doesn’t want to be brought down with them, or have anyone know that she brought them down.”

Miss Paredes nodded shakily. “She said that once the press gets hold of Isabel Amaral’s death, I’ll be exposed as a sereia.”

He’d expected that, but had already planned to pay off anyone necessary to keep her name out of the press. “That can be worked around. I can assure you that your name, and possibly Isabel’s, won’t appear in the papers.”

She shook her head wearily. “She’s making arrangements for my extraction. If I don’t go, there will be repercussions.”

Duilio felt all the threads he’d pulled together slipping loose out of his hands. Why had his gift not warned him? He’d known she had a life beyond this household, but he hadn’t seen her walking away so soon. “When?”

“I’m not certain,” she said softly. “She’ll send word.”

Duilio reached across and touched her chin, trying to get her to meet his eyes, but she seemed determined to avoid his gaze. Leaning that close to her, he felt a sudden, wild desire to press his lips to her jaw. He need only lean forward a few more inches. He wanted to smell her skin, tangle his hands in that tightly braided hair. He firmly reminded himself that he was a gentleman in whom she’d placed a great deal of trust. She wasn’t one of the demimonde to be pawed, or one of Erdano’s girls looking for a night’s entertainment. Oriana Paredes was as much a lady as his own mother. So he sat back, putting some distance between himself and temptation. Heaven knew they had other things to do tonight than entertain his currently hotheaded desires.

“What sort of repercussions?” he asked. “Can I help?”

“No.” She gazed down at her hands. “I’ve been used as a tool, nothing more.”

That had to sting. “It happens to all of us at one point or another, Oriana. There are always people out there using other people to get their way.”

“She let Isabel die,” she said. “She made the choice. I don’t think I could ever do that.”

Ah, now he had an idea what was whirling around in her head. “Spies put their ideology ahead of everything else. One reason I’m not a spy. I don’t think I could do it either.”

She smiled then. “No, you would have tried to save Isabel.”

He’d never been good at keeping up a subterfuge when it violated his principles. “Speaking of saving others, we should probably head down to the quay.”

She picked up her brandy and tossed back the whole glass in one gulp. “I’m ready.”

They left the library. On the table in the hallway lay the two overcoats that he’d asked Marcellin to bring down. Duilio pulled one on, picked up the second, and held it so she could step into it. “Too big, I think, but it will keep you warm. It’ll be cold out on the water.”

“I’m going to be in the water,” she pointed out.

“The whole time? With whom will I talk?” he asked, allowing a plaintive edge to creep into his voice.

She rolled her eyes but let him help her into the coat. He hoped that look of exasperation meant he’d been forgiven any inappropriate ardor she might have perceived. “I can’t promise to make conversation, sir,” she said. “It’s not one of my skills.”

He couldn’t resist the temptation to tease her, even though he knew he should. “That only makes me curious to know what your skills are.”

At the quay where the lovely yacht waited, Mr. Ferreira inspected the bolt cutters that João had collected for him. They had a brief discussion and picked two out of the batch. The sun set while they prepared the rowboat to cast off. It actually served as the yacht’s lifeboat, so they had to lower it down by winch to the water before Mr. Ferreira pulled it around for Oriana to join him in it. With João’s help, she stepped from the floating marina’s planks into the rowboat and swiftly sat. There was a shuttered lantern at her feet, so she made certain to keep her skirts away from it.

“Where is your brother, do you think?” she asked delicately. She’d half expected to find a dozen selkies waiting for them. She was disappointed when they weren’t there.

“He’ll be here,” Mr. Ferreira said, using one oar to push away from the marina. “May be late, but he’ll show up.” He handled the oars easily, as if he’d done a lot of rowing in the past, and they were quickly away from the other boats clustered near the quay as darkness fell over the water.

The city proper was more than two miles inland, and The City Under the Sea had been constructed on the southern side of the river, between the large bend in the river’s path and the breakwater that shielded that area from the sea. Mr. Ferreira rowed patiently, taking them along the river’s northern bank and then heading across the lanes of river traffic at a southwesterly angle that would take them to where the houses floated. By the time they got close to the right spot, it was full dark.

Oriana disrobed quickly and slid into the water. She submerged long enough to identify the vibrations of another vessel—the commandeered patrol boat—moving slowly toward the breakwater. She fixed the direction in her mind and then returned to the rowboat. Mr. Ferreira helped her over the side and wrapped the overcoat back around her. With her directions, they soon located the patrol boat. A few minutes later the rowboat was tied behind it, sparing his arms.

“I haven’t rowed in a while,” Mr. Ferreira whispered ruefully, rubbing at his left arm.

“So, what do we do now?” she asked.

“We wait,” he said.

CHAPTER 30

In the darkness, the patrol boat floated along without lights, the rowboat drifting behind it on a towline. The moon hadn't risen yet. They were nearer the breakwaters now that sheltered the river from the open sea, well over a mile from the city itself. They could see the lights of the city still, but were closer to the dark Gaia shore with its high cliffs. Two lighthouses on the breakwaters marked the edge of the open sea.

The crew on the patrol boat had cut their engine, so the silence wrapped about them. They had been sitting there for a couple of hours now in the darkness but hadn’t yet seen a single Special Police patrol—or anything else. There were no gulls out here, no seabirds at all, as if they knew what was under the surface of the water. The absence of their cries was eerie. In the darkness it was as if the two boats had fallen off the edge of the earth.

Oriana kept one hand in the water, feeling the currents in her webbing. Her clothes lay in a neat pile near the prow of the rowboat. She hadn’t seen the need to don them again, since the borrowed overcoat kept her warm enough and hid the paleness of her skin.