He sat back. If he’d been captured and nearly killed, he would have been trying to find the person responsible, investigating. But a woman would be more likely to seek assistance, the police or . . .

He shook his head, annoyed with himself. Why was he assuming she would ask for help? If she was a spy, that implied an intrepid nature, a self-reliance he’d not been factoring into his expectations. If such a thing had happened to him, he wouldn’t have known whom to trust. He would have tried to solve the problem himself.

“Seven of diamonds,” Felis said, drawing his thoughts back to the cards. “Traveling near water, perhaps?”

Miss Paredes might return to her people’s islands, he reckoned. “A sea voyage?”

“No, not the sea.” Felis continued to deal out the cards, ending up with several facing upward. She spread them wider and scowled down at them. “The river. Hmm. Why would she do that?”

Duilio reached to flip over the first card she’d laid down, only to withdraw his hand hastily when she slapped it. “You said it was my card,” he protested.

“They’re all my cards, boy, so leave it alone.”

That seemed unfair. One of these days he was going to find a book that listed the supposed meanings of each card. For all he knew, Felis was making it up as she went along.

She slid the jack of clubs out from where it had been hidden behind another card. She scowled and said, “There’s a man involved. A man with ill intent.”

Well, he had to agree that the man who’d put Miss Paredes in the river had ill intent. Perhaps the card represented the artist, Espinoza. “I knew that,” Duilio said. “Any ideas where I can look for her?”

“Back to the water, boy. She’s going back to the water.” She looked up then, clearly at the end of her reading. “That’s where you’ll find her.”

Duilio sat back, puzzling over that claim. It was so vague as to be useless. Felis began to retrieve her cards, apparently ready to leave. When she picked up the last card—the hidden one she’d said belonged to him—she chuckled to herself. Duilio leaned around and saw the king of hearts in her fingers. “What does that mean?”

Felis tucked it in among the others, slid the box back in her pocket, and gathered up her handkerchief full of barnacles. “Remember, boy, you don’t believe in the cards.”

He felt a flush creep up his cheeks. Her tone wasn’t remonstrative; more teasing than anything else. But he didn’t believe in fortune-telling. Not exactly. He wished he’d thought to dissemble instead of admitting that as a child. He helped her to her feet and opened the library door for her. “I believe in you, Miss Felis, which is more important.”

The old woman snorted and walked out without a backward glance.

Duilio paced around the library once, trying to settle his anxious mind. In the far corner, the normal collection of social invitations waited on his desk for his attention, but he didn’t sit. The prayer niche between two bookshelves offered no answer at the moment. He contemplated the liquor cabinet and decided that wasn’t the answer either; that had been Alessio’s favored response to problems, and it had never served him well.

Somewhere on the library shelves, Duilio recalled, there should be a volume in French that told of the strange and barbaric society of the sereia out on their islands, supposedly penned by a sailor who’d been there. His father had brought the book from Lyons or Marseilles, and Duilio had read it a dozen times as a boy. He halfheartedly scanned the shelves, aware that the answer wouldn’t be between its covers either. He couldn’t find the book, though. It was probably sitting next to the copy of the Camões epic that Joaquim claimed should be in this library; he still hadn’t found that.

Duilio finally flung himself onto the sofa and stayed there, fretting.

If he were to seriously consider the fortune Felis had laid out before him, then he had to believe Oriana Paredes would go back to the water. Not her home, not the islands, but to the river. Could she be swimming in the chill waters even at this moment, living in the rough, as selkies did? That didn’t seem right. Every time he’d set eyes on her she’d seemed to fit in perfectly, not chafing at the restrictions of human society. He could no more imagine Miss Paredes hiding among the moored boats along the quay than he could his own mother. No, Oriana Paredes was living in the city. She was going to the water. Returning, Felis had said.

Duilio sat up abruptly. He knew exactly where he would find Miss Paredes; his gift told him he was right. She was going to return to the scene of the crime.

CHAPTER 8

MONDAY, 29 SEPTEMBER 1902

The sides of the submersible groaned, an eerie sound to hear while trapped inside its metal body. Oriana pressed closer to the viewing window. She clutched her hands tighter about her handbag to still their shaking. She didn’t trust this creaking metal fish.

She could have simply swum here but couldn’t afford to risk being seen. And she hadn’t wanted to breathe in that death-laden water, so she’d sold her best pair of embroidered silk mitts to old Mrs. Nunhes at the boarding house to purchase a ticket aboard this rickety contraption. Now she’d begun to question that decision.

Set every few feet along the walls of the submersible’s viewing room, the white-painted casings of small round windows dripped water onto the decking, whether from leakage or condensation, Oriana didn’t know. Either possibility suggested poor workmanship. Even so, she was only one of nearly a dozen paying customers crammed into the small vessel. Finely dressed citizens of the Golden City pressed against those dripping windows, straining to catch a glimpse of The City Under the Sea.

She’d come to this place, hoping that another viewing of the floating houses might reveal some clue she’d missed before. She wanted more to tell Nela’s Lady if she agreed to meet with her. They were getting close, so Oriana steeled herself to look at the sunken houses.

The man sharing her window, a gentleman she’d seen somewhere before, craned his neck to look toward the surface above them. She already knew what she’d see. She clenched her jaw, drew out her small notebook, and gazed out the window. Lanterns inside the submersible lit the scale replicas of the Street of Flowers. With the sun shining down on it, the river’s surface above them truly did look like a silvery street with its houses lined up neatly in file.

It was art that only those who swam could appreciate. Or those who observed from vehicles such as this, chugging and whirring through the calm waters of the river’s edge. It was a shameful waste of money, made all the more sickening by the macabre details that the other observers with her didn’t know. No one in this contraption understood what they were viewing, but she had tasted death in that water, many deaths.

The replica of the Amaral house was remarkably accurate, a fact she hadn’t noticed that night. There was even a wrought-iron railing on the second-floor balcony. On either side she saw the Pereira de Santos home and the Rocha mansion, just as she remembered. Oriana stared at the houses, unable to tear her eyes away. Who would do this? And if necromancy was involved, what were they trying to achieve?

From one corner of the house’s top—its floor—she could make out a sliver of pale light. That had to be the table glowing, visible where she’d pushed the boards loose enough to wriggle out. Had the wood swollen back to close the gap? Odd that no one seemed to have noticed the damage.

“Have you ever seen anything so magnificent?” her companion asked, awe in his voice. The light musky scent of ambergris cologne floated with him when he leaned nearer.