Gods & Monsters (Serpent & Dove #3) by Shelby Mahurin

When Célie nodded, Elvire extended an arm, and the two joined elbows, as prim and polite as any two aristocrats strolling through the park in Cesarine. Sabatay gestured for Angelica and Coco to fall in behind them while Leopoldine and Lasimonne flanked Reid on either side. Aurélien stepped in behind without a backward glance. Only his barnacle-crusted trident even glanced in our direction, waving us forward.

And that was how Beau and I found ourselves at the rear of the procession into the city.

Le Présage was unlike anything I’d ever seen. Just as I’d suspected, the melusines lived like magpies, building their homes from the remnants of sunken ships, from coral, from stone, hoarding sunken treasure to decorate their windows and lawns. A weathered marble bust sank deep into the silt of a kelp-filled garden at the edge of the city. The owner had affixed diamonds to each eye. Farther in, officials ushered melusines to the side of a bustling thoroughfare. Instead of brick or cobblestones, the road had been paved with mismatched coins—gold, silver, and bronze couronnes, as well as foreign coinage I didn’t recognize. The occasional gemstone. An errant shell.

“Is it always this . . . crowded?” Beau asked, brows raised. Scores of melusines gathered to watch us pass, their eyes luminous and skin lustrous. Many wore gowns hundreds of years out of fashion—ostentatious and ornate—while others, like our guards, wore nothing at all. A merman with a bone necklace and pearl hood winked at me from afar. His companion had painted her entire body gold, donning only a fork in her intricately braided chignon.

The only thing every melusine had in common, it seemed, was their legs.

“We have not walked for many years,” Aurélien said as means of explanation.

From around the bend of the street, a team of sienna-colored octopi surged into view, pulling a gilded carriage behind. Except its paint had disintegrated in the salty water, and its wood had mostly rotted, caving in half the roof. Still, the melusines nearest it clapped gleefully, and the couple inside—one wore a monocle, for Christ’s sake—waved as if royalty. And perhaps they were. Perhaps kings and queens in the world below owned octopi and carriages. Perhaps they also sewed shark teeth into veils and wore golden cutlery in their powdered wigs.

The entire city glittered with the air of ludicrous opulence gone to seed.

I adored it.

“I want a wig.” I couldn’t see enough as we marched past little shops of stone with planter boxes of red algae. One melusine walked his pet spotted turtle on a gold-threaded leash. Another lounged in a claw-footed tub at the street corner, pouring water from a pitcher onto her legs. They transformed back into obsidian fins before our very eyes. Merchants hawked wares of everything from conch fritters and crab legs to oyster-and-pearl earrings and music boxes. The light of the sea stars undulated eerily across each face, the only illumination in the entire city. “Why do melusines own wigs?”

“And gowns?” Coco asked, eyeing the couple nearest us. They both wore heavy trains of brocade velvet and . . . corsets. Just corsets. No bodices. No chemises. “How do you wear them with fins? Wouldn’t skirts weigh you down in the water?”

“Can a melusine drown?” I asked curiously.

Olympienne tilted her lavender head between us in consideration. She pursed her lavender lips. “Do not be silly. Of course melusines cannot drown. We have gills.” She bared her neck, revealing pearlescent slits along the side of her throat. “And lungs.” She inhaled deeply. “But yes, unfortunately, such handsome attire can prove quite troublesome underwater. We have much anticipated your arrival for just this reason.”

“To wear dresses?” Beau frowned as a young boy strode past in scarlet breeches and billowing cloak. He bared sharp teeth at us. “You drained the entire city to wear . . . dresses.”

“We drained the city because we are courteous hosts,” Lasimonne said, his voice unexpectedly deep. “That we should also wear our treasure is a pleasant inclusion.”

Wear our treasure. Huh. It made sense. Where else would a melusine trapped below water find such sumptuous clothing but sunken ships? Perhaps Lasimonne’s ruby nipple rings had come from the ship we approached at this very moment, splintered at the base of Le Palais de Cristal.

“How long does it take to drain an entire city?” I peered down a darkened alley that seemed to drop straight into an abyss, where I swore I saw an enormous eye blink. “And what’s down there?”

“A giant squid. No, do not provoke it.” Aurélien steered me back onto the main road with the tip of his trident.

“Isla foresaw your arrival months ago.” Sabatay tossed his braid over a sculpted shoulder and gestured for us to keep moving. The palace loomed directly ahead of us now. “From the moment you chose to marry the huntsman rather than flee or allow the authorities to lock you away.”

Beau cleared his throat, glancing up at the waters far above. The sea stars’ reflection pulsed faintly in his dark eyes. “Yet Constantin was quite adamant that Célie and I not enter this place. Indeed, he said humans who drank of the waters would go mad.”

Elvire looked at us from over her shoulder. “And did you drink of the waters?”

“I—” Beau frowned and looked at Célie. “Did we?”

She shook her head slowly, brow creasing. “I don’t know. I did have a rather disturbing dream while unconscious, but I thought . . .”