Free Waterfire Saga, Book Three: Dark Tide: A Deep Blue Novel by Jennifer Donnelly Page A

Abbadon. You need a sixth songcaster with some seriously strong magic. I don’t have any to give you, and nothing can be done
about it.”
    How Becca hated those words:
nothing can be done about it
. She’d heard them her entire life.
    You’re an orphan now, Rebecca, and nothing can be done about it.
    It’s too bad your doll was stolen, but it’s gone. Nothing can be done about it.
    I’m sorry you don’t have money to go to the kolegio, but you can’t go unless you do. That’s just the way it is. Nothing can be done about it.
    Astrid sat, shoulders slumped, drawing in the silt with her finger. Becca’s green eyes narrowed as she watched her. Astrid had magic inside her—dormant, maybe—but it was there.
Becca was sure of it. She could see it sparking in the merl’s intense ice-blue eyes. She could feel it in her sure, powerful movements. The question was how to get it out of her.
    Becca immediately went into problem-solving mode, as she always did when confronted with a challenge. An idea started to form in her mind. Becca was an expert at coming up with strategies. Life
was often messy and unpredictable, but a good plan could make it neat and orderly. She would need a few things to carry out this particular plan: a length of bamboo or some sort of water reed.
Better yet, whalebone. Some pretty shells, too.
    Becca was not only good at making things, she was good at making things better. Life in foster homes had taught her that if she waited for someone else to make things better, she’d be
waiting a very long time.
    “Hey, we’d better get going,” Becca said. “Sitting here all day isn’t going to get us home.”
    Astrid raised an eyebrow. “That was sudden,” she said.
    “Yeah, well. I, um, just realized…that we probably shouldn’t hang out here all day,” Becca said. “You know, death riders and all.”
    She rose and grabbed her travel case. Astrid slung her backpack over her shoulder. As they swam out of the cave, Becca spotted something glinting from the seafloor, half in and half out of the
silt. She bent down to pick it up.
    “What is it?” Astrid asked.
    “A piece of sea glass,” Becca replied, showing her her find. It was cobalt blue, polished by sand and surf to a milky opaqueness. “Pretty, isn’t it?”
    “Dreaming up a new shade for your Whirlpearl Glitterbombs?” Astrid teased, referring to the line of songpearl cosmetics Becca had mentioned on their way to the Iele’s
caves.
    “No, I just like bright, shiny things,” Becca said airily. “They inspire me, you know? You never know where your next big idea will come from.”
    “For an eyeshadow,” Astrid said. “Or a lipstick.”
    “Or something that just might save the world,” Becca said, pocketing the sea glass.
    Astrid laughed.
    Becca didn’t.

“G ET UP!” the death rider shouted, slapping an elderly merman with his powerful tail fins.
    A dozen soldiers—spearguns drawn—had swum into the
Bedrieër
’s hold. They were herding frightened prisoners out of the ship’s containment area and into the
water lock.
    Ling rose in the water, straining against her chain, trying to see what was happening. She glimpsed a large cage. Prisoners were being forced into it. When the cage was full, a hatch was opened
and the cage was lowered into a chamber underneath the ship’s hull.
    Ling knew that there was another hatch in the chamber. She was certain that the death riders would open it, and then the cage would plummet through the water…but why? Where were the prisoners
going?
    She also knew that the death riders would have to detach the chain that tethered her to the hold’s wall if they wanted to put her in that cage. When they did, she might be able to break
away.
    If she could slip out of the water lock into the death riders’ quarters, or the hold’s kitchens—someplace,
anyplace
, where she could hide until the rest of the
prisoners were gone—she might be able to steal to the water lock and let