The boards gave enough for her to squeeze through.
After one last glance at Isabel’s lifeless form, Oriana wriggled through that space. Her skirt caught on a nail, and she had to rip it to get loose.
She was free.
She let herself float there for a moment. Her skirts were heavy, but her natural buoyancy kept her from sinking too quickly.
The river’s surface above her was dark. Before her Oriana saw shapes floating in the water, more traps like the one she’d just escaped. They were twenty feet or so under the surface, trying to float but prevented from rising any higher by thick chains that tethered them to the river’s murky bed below. Why didn’t they sink to the bottom? Oriana kicked away from her prison, trying to grasp the bigger picture of what she was seeing. In the nighttime waters she could make out two neat rows, stretching on for some distance. There must be more than twenty of these prisons under the river’s surface.
It was The City Under the Sea.
Oriana had read of the great work of art being assembled beneath the surface of the Douro. The newspapers often opined about it, ever since the pieces began appearing in the water almost a year ago. Each was a replica of one of the great houses that lined the Street of Flowers, the street of the aristocrats. Shrunk down in scale to no larger than a coach, the replicas were constructed in wood. They were all upside down, enspelled so that they would float, yet chained to the riverbed so they could never escape. They swayed in the grasp of the river’s outbound current, all moving in eerie unison.
Oriana looked back at the house in which she’d been imprisoned. It was a replica of the Amaral mansion, Isabel’s home. To one side was the copy of the Rocha mansion, and on the other the elegant Pereira de Santos house.
Had Isabel been killed merely for the sake of this . . . artwork? Had others awakened in the darkness only to realize, like Isabel, that their death was seeping in about them?
Oriana gasped, drawing in water, and corruption touched her gills. The water tasted foul, reminding her of a shipwreck, bodies left behind in the water for the fish and other creatures to pick clean. Nausea sent a flush of heat through her body. She slapped a hand over her mouth and nose, as if that could protect her from breathing in the death that was all about her. Oriana kicked hard, fighting the weight of her garments. She had to get to the surface, away from this graveyard.
She swam toward a spot of light that must be the moon’s reflection on the water. But when she broke the surface, her head banged against the hull of a small boat, hard enough to disorient her. She instinctively shoved away. The stars spun. In the distance she saw the lights of a city, although she couldn’t tell which one. She let herself slip back under the water, the only safe place. She spread her fingers wide so she would feel in her webbing when the boat moved away.
Instead she sensed someone diving into the water. Oriana kicked back down toward the depths, but her pursuer kept after her. She drew her dagger again, but before she could turn about, a large hand clamped down on her hand. She had no leverage to jerk away, and it took only a second before the man attached to that hand managed to pry the blade loose from her fingers. It spun away down through the water, quickly obscured. The tang of blood floated in the water; the dagger had cut her hand when he’d wrestled it away. The man wrapped an arm about her chest and dragged her back up toward the surface.
When she broke the surface again, a second man dug his hands into her sodden dress while the man in the water pushed her up and over the edge of the boat. She tumbled into the bilge.
For a second Oriana huddled there, hands balled into fists, trying to catch her breath. Her head throbbed and her hand did as well. Blood leaked from the palm of her right hand, but she didn’t dare look. If she opened her hand to check the wound, her captors would surely see the webbing. Who were these men out on the water in the dark?
The boat rocked as the man who’d pursued her into the river climbed back aboard. She had to face them eventually. Oriana took a deep breath and struggled to right herself between the planks of the rowboat. A moment later she was seated on a bench, wet skirts tangled about her legs, facing an older gentleman. Her pursuer settled behind her. The man before her was sixty or so, still handsome, with gray hair and a stern, square jaw. She recognized his face but couldn’t place it. Where had she seen him before?
“Are you well, miss?” The older man had a blanket in his hands. Oriana flinched back as he leaned forward. He persisted, wrapping the blanket about her shoulders.
Oriana began to shiver. Her garments and shoes were soaked through. She lifted one hand to push her hair from her face, remembering to fold her fingers to hide the webbing. Where she’d banged her forehead against the side of the boat, it was already tender.
Had they seen her hands? When they’d pulled her into the boat, had she had her fingers spread? She buried them in the blanket. Perhaps they’d been so busy they hadn’t noticed. Please, gods, let that be the case.
The man repeated his question. He sounded kindly. He sounded concerned.
He thinks he’s rescuing me. Oriana nearly laughed at the thought. She cleared her throat instead. Her breath still came shallow, and too fast. “Yes,” she mumbled. “I’m . . . well enough.”
“That’s good,” he said. “We were worried when we saw you in the water.”
Her hands balled into fists again under the cover of the blanket. She needed to think faster, smarter. Why was this man out on the river? The Special Police patrolled the waters of the Douro every night, and she thought they had extra patrols over The City Under the Sea, but this little rowboat wasn’t one of theirs. Had these men slipped past their patrols? The moon hadn't risen yet, and the only light came from a shuttered lantern set on a hook at the fore of the little boat, so it was possible they might not have been seen. The boat began to move, the large man behind her handling the oars, smelling of river water and musk.
The gentleman laid a gloved hand on her sodden knee. “Now, miss. How did you get out here?”
Oriana tried to gather her wits. She shook her head jerkily.
“I had a vision,” he said then, “that there would be a girl in the water. I came here straightaway to see you safe, miss.”
Vision? With a sinking in her stomach, Oriana suddenly placed his face. The man before her was Paolo Silva, one of Prince Fabricio’s favored seers. She had seen the man before, although at a distance, at more than one of the balls she’d gone to with Isabel. She hadn’t wanted to attract his attention then, and she didn’t want it now. Her lips trembled. The shivering was worse now, and not just from the cold.
This man was close to the prince who so hated her people. If Silva knew what she was, he would surely turn her in. She could try to dive back into the water, but she wasn’t sure she could get into the river before the oarsman grabbed her. Her twisted skirts and the blanket would make that easy for him. And attempting escape would confirm that she had something to hide. She swallowed hard. There was still a chance they hadn’t realized her true nature.
Oriana tried to keep her voice from shaking. “Thank you, sir,” she managed.
“Good,” Silva said. “You’ve found your voice. Now, do you recall how you got out here, miss? I’m amazed you managed to keep your head above water.”