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I stared into the eyes of a total stranger. I had told myself I had fallen in love with her, but how was I to know? I had never been in love before. To what was I comparing my feelings for her? Childhood crushes and passing infatuations. Of course I felt more for Cecelie than that; she was the daughter of my closest friend.
    But was that love?
    “Why is the sea in your blood, my lady?” I blurted the question before I had chance to consider it. It only seemed to make her smile all the more.
    “My mother was encante,” Drusilla said.
    Minerva pushed her seat abruptly back from the table, picked up her considerable skirts and stalked out of the room. None save Axel marked her departure, and he only to roll his eyes.
    “She passed on, I’m afraid, some years ago,” Drusilla continued, as if the departure of her step-mother had not even registered for her.
    “I’m sorry,” I said. “I lost both my parents to the Kabbalah when I was young, so I know what it is to lose your mother.” She met my eyes again, and for the first time I saw the violet shine that should have been the giveaway. I also saw the pain there, the desolate hole left in one’s heart when they lose someone in such a manner. I had always thought that was something Cecelie and I shared, the common bond of losing a parent, for her own mother was dead also, but I realised now she had never felt the loss as I did. Perhaps because her father was still alive; perhaps because he had taken a lover so soon after his wife’s death. Cecelie might never have been without a mother at all. She was so young at the time I doubt she even recalled it. “I’m sorry,” I repeated.
    “So am I.” She smiled sadly and returned her attention to her meal. A meal, I noticed suddenly, that included no form of fish.

Chapter Six
    S leep eluded me that night, despite the relative comfort of Reuben Williams’ bed. My conversation with Drusilla had left me restless for more than one reason, and I sought the soothing half-light of the watery windows which graced the corridors of the Narwhal. Somewhere in the ship, floating to me down those corridors, was music so sweet I might well have been dreaming. My feet followed the melody, or possibly only the casements of water, one after the other, until I arrived, perhaps inevitably, at the hydroponics bay.
    I took a few furtive looks around, fearful of encountering Garrett and his boxlock again, but it appeared he was abed. The encante seemed to be absent also; I wondered if they slept, and if so, whether their beds were watery or dry. I had noted their odd ability to emerge from the water as dry as if they had never been in. They were certainly the strangest amphibians I had ever seen, and that was before I considered the odd mechanical tails they employed while swimming.
    I gravitated towards the belvedere, oddly comforted by its familiarity. I had a gazebo of a similar nature in the forest gardens of the home Cane had provided me with in Hollowvale: dome-roofed with elegant columns and arches giving out on all sides to an expansive view of the valley. I’d been wondering what was within this one since I first saw it. Now it would seem I was about to find out. The lights were dimmer than they had been earlier. Evidently Garrett chose to save on whatever fuel powered the overhead spheres, which had illuminated the room upon my arrival. Now the only light came from the water below and a smattering of half-guttered sconces on the walls. I picked my way carefully, peering into the water beneath me only long enough to determine the light there came from some of the vegetation itself, perhaps even some of the larger fish, who didn’t seem quite so coy now they thought themselves alone for the evening. They were quite mistaken in that belief however, and so, as it happened, was I.
    As I stepped inside the belvedere, movement startled me. It was so unexpected I reeled backwards, the heels of my ill-fitting boots catching on a join in the