Read Waterfire Saga, Book Four: Sea Spell: Deep Blue Novel, A for Free Online

swore.
    “Serafina’s so desperate to find him,” Ling continued, “that she gave me this….” She held up the puzzle ball.
    “What is it?” the goblin asked, peering at the object.
    “It’s a powerful, priceless talisman, given to Sycorax, a mage of Atlantis, by the gods,” Ling explained.
    The goblin let out a low whistle. The merman’s eyebrows shot up.
    “It contains something called the Arrow of Judgment, which can tell the innocent from the guilty,” Ling explained. “If I can solve the puzzle, the arrow will point out the spy.”
    “I love puzzles,” the goblin said eagerly. “Let me have a try.”
    He used his long claws to turn the inner spheres but couldn’t make them line up.
    “Give it to me,” the merman said. But he couldn’t crack the puzzle either.
    Ling heaved a worried sigh as he handed the talisman back to her. “I’ve
got
to get this solved. Can you ask around and find out who’s good with puzzles? Tell them to come to me. Anyone and everyone. Our lives depend on it.”
    The soldiers said they would and moved on. Ling went in the other direction. Before the soldiers got very far, they met another pair on patrol and stopped to talk to them. Sera couldn’t hear what they were saying, but she saw them point toward Ling. The second pair hurried off to catch up with her.
    She’ll have the whole camp talking about the spy and the Arrow of Judgment by breakfast,
Sera thought.
Goddess Neria, let that be a
good
thing.

T HE LIQUID SILVER was tensile and bright, almost alive.
    It swirled and lapped around Astrid as she picked herself up off the floor of a long, magnificent hallway.
    How am I going to breathe this stuff?
she wondered, panicking.
I’ll suffocate!
    She held her breath for as long as she could, then inhaled fearfully. The silver was cold and heavier than seawater, but her lungs accepted it. Relaxing a little, Astrid looked around. The hallway stretched into the silver in both directions, as far as she could see. Its walls were hung with mirrors of all shapes and sizes. Sparkling chandeliers dangled from the ceiling.
    Vitrina moved through the hallway. Some idled in chairs or sat slumped against the walls, heads lolling, bodies limp—like puppets whose strings had been cut.
    “This place gives me the creeps,” Astrid muttered, wishing, as she did a dozen times every day, that Desiderio was with her.
    She missed all her friends, but him most of all, because he’d become more than a friend. The memory of the kiss he gave her right after he saved her from the Qanikkaaq, a murderous maelstrom, still made her catch her breath. Just before he kissed her, he’d told that he wanted to be with her. And she, too surprised to speak, hadn’t said anything. She regretted that now. She would tell him the same, and more. Much more. If she ever made it back to him.
    Astrid was looking up and down the hallway, wondering which way to go, when a voice—oily and sly—spoke from behind her.
    “!olleh, lleW”
it purred.
    Astrid whipped around. A man, heavyset and bald, was standing a few feet away. His hands were tucked into the bell-like sleeves of his magenta dressing gown.
    Astrid thrust her sword at him, catching his chin with its point. He lifted his head, placed a fat finger on the sword, and gingerly pushed the blade away.
    “.
rittodsnnifloK dirtsA, emocleW”
    “I can’t understand you,” Astrid replied, her sword still raised. She’d deciphered her name—probably because the bloodbind had given her some of Ling’s language ability—but she couldn’t make out the rest of the man’s words.
    “Ah! Pardon me,” said the man, in mer this time. “Not everyone speaks Rursus, do they? Welcome to the Hall of Sighs, Astrid Kolfinnsdottir. I’m Rorrim Drol. I’ve been expecting you.”
    Astrid stiffened. “How do you know my name?”
    “My dear friend Orfeo told me about you. We’ve known each other for years, he and I. We deal in the same”—Rorrim smiled, revealing a