Page 95 of Midnightsong
“What is?” she asked, turning fully around.
“There are only four names. I could have sworn there were five of them.”
“Stefan told me awhile back that a group of unauthorized divers had gone out. You think these are the same people?” Angie asked.
“Now that I look at it, it might be.” Ken scratched his stubbled chin. “Stefan confronted them when they came back out, and...” His eyes widened, and he muttered something in Tagalog. “It was them. Two of them stayed behind to talk to my husband and they apologized for not signing out.”
“You think they went diving to scout the area out before going for Serapha?” Angie folded her arms across her chest.
“It would make sense.” Ken sighed.
“Thanks.” She returned to the list in front of her, deep in thought, as Ken joined Mia and Stefan’s conversation.
Invisible insects skittered under her skin. Who was the fifth person? They had to be the key to finding the perpetrator of Serapha’s death.
Forty-One
Kaden
Kaden floated in his bedchambers, readingfrom kelp sheets stuck firmly to his wall. The information from the sentries that they dropped off when he was at the banquet, scribbled on kombu kelp, were tacked at the forefront of the sheets. It pained him that what they uncovered was only Saeryn’s family tree, his village of residence, and the schooling he received.
Nothing he didn’t already know, but he let them know he appreciated their efforts, nonetheless.
He reached for his two gifts from Angie, running his fingers around them. One was a mermaid tail paperweight that was much heavier than it looked, and the second was a snow globe with a qi’e couple inside facing each other on a bed of ice. The base was decorated with two more qi’e, their flippers up and tiny, yellow feet appearing to be dancing, as if they were diving toward the snow globe.
When Angie handed it to him in exchange for the seaflute last tidesyear, she looked so proud of herself. “This could be us,” she said as they exchanged gifts, an inside joke of when she once compared him to a qi’e.
Kaden hadn’t accepted her gifts without a fight. Shortly before they left for the Pacific Coast, she wanted to give him the mermaid tail paperweight. “I got this for you. Thought it would be nice to spruce up your room.”
He initially refused it, and they butted heads for several tidesdays. His culture dictated he was the one to court her, and she only needed to choose. But her culture, on the other fin, saw gift-giving as important and a way to show gratitude, respect, and strengthen relationships.
Four tidesdays after their disagreement, he relented and accepted that gift from her, and a single other one after that, the qi’e snow globe, with the condition he would always be the one giving more to her.
Renewed by thoughts of her, he placed the sculptures back in their proper places on his table, and set off for Saeryn and Aiereka’s village, making one stop on the way.
The animals in their nearby sanctuary clamored around him when he drew near.
Kaden tossed a handful of macro and microalgae out, watching them scatter with the tides, and he smiled to himself.
Angie’s excitement when he took her there last was palpable. In his mind, he heard her as she named the yu here: colorful pink snailfish, arctic cods, arctic chars and sablefish raced for them and snapped them up.
He floated to watch them and winced when something sharp poked his back.
“What the—?”
His gaze met with the tip of a female dujiaojing’s–Angie would call her a narwhal–long tusk, and it was clear she was eyeing the fish swimming around the sanctuary. A second one meandered in and joined the fray—a male with two tusks.
“Oh, no. No, no, please don’t touch them.” Kaden moved forward, waving them away. Neither one budged. Their collective gazes held in a standoff, and the female barreled her way through. “Black fathoms,” he muttered under his breath. He had to find them something to eat before they plowed through the sanctuary population.
There were already less fish since they started releasing fish to the open sea to help feed the humans.
The last time he’d seen a dujiaojing hanging around the palace, it had been tidesyears ago. The council had said the yu population was thinning at the surface. Kaden took to the seafloor, looking for xia or youyu.
He found a colony of tiny xia nearby, and scooped them up in his hands, wincing with guilt when they struggled to escape.
When he returned, the male dujiaojing skewered two xueyu, and sucked them into his mouth.
The female was at the seabed, chasing a flat-bodied yu across the sands. Kaden shoved one handful of xia at the female and one at the male, and both accepted the meals, sucking the wriggling critters clean off his palms.
