“It was an honest question—”

The melusines didn’t pause at the walls of water, instead gliding seamlessly through them and stepping—actually stepping—onto the footpath, their split tails transforming to legs before our very eyes. The scales on their fins disappeared, and glistening skin wrapped around feet, ankles, calves, thighs, and—

A beat of silence passed as Beau’s alarm promptly vanished, replaced by a wide, shit-eating grin.

They were naked.

And, contrary to Angelica’s assertion, they looked very human. Célie gasped.

“Bonjour, mademoiselle,” Beau said to the one in front, bending to kiss her long-fingered hand. He hesitated for only a second when he saw she had one extra knuckle per finger. Each clenched around her spear as she pointed it at his face, hissing and revealing a pair of thin fangs.

“You dare to touch me without permission?”

The male nearest her lifted his trident to emphasize her words. Unlike the female, he wore a thick golden rope around his neck, its emerald pendant the size of a goose egg. Matching twin emeralds glittered at his tapered ears. “He likened us to amphibians as well.” When he tilted his head, the movement was predatory. His silver eyes glittered with menace. “Do we appear as amphibians?”

Angelica swept into a deep, immaculate curtsy. “He meant no offense, Aurélien.”

Beau lifted placating hands, nodding along hastily. “I meant no offense.”

The female slanted her black eyes at him. Against her narrow silver face and her long—long—silver hair, they appeared . . . disconcerting. And far too large. Indeed, everything about her and her kin’s features seemed disproportionate somehow. Not wrong, exactly. Just . . . strange. Striking. Like a beautiful portrait meant to be studied, not admired. She didn’t lower her weapon. “Yet still I hear no apology. Does the human prince think us ugly? Does he think us strange?”

Yes.

The answer rose to my lips, unbidden, but I bit my tongue at the last second, frowning and averting my gaze. The movement attracted the melusine’s attention, however, and those black eyes turned to me, flicking over the planes of my face. Studying me. She grinned with dark cunning, and my stomach dropped with realization.

The women who dwell here are truth tellers.

Drink of the waters, and spill their truth.

Oh god.

Beau, who’d quashed his own answer with a strangled sound, cast me a panicked look. I returned it full measure. If we couldn’t lie, if we’d been forced into a kingdom of literal truth—

If he didn’t kill us, I certainly would.

Either way, we’d all be dead by night’s end.

Beau tried to speak again, keeping his eyes trained carefully on the melusine’s face. His throat bobbed against the tip of her spear. “Of course you do not look like a frog, mademoiselle, and I am grievously sorry for the implication. Indeed, you are quite—” The lie stuck in his throat, and his mouth gaped open and closed, like the fish who’d gathered to watch our inevitable demise. “Quite—”

“Lovely,” Célie finished, her voice earnest and firm. “You are lovely.”

The melusines regarded Célie with open curiosity, and the silver-haired female slowly lowered her spear. Beau swallowed visibly as she inclined her head. The others followed suit, some bowing deeply, others curtsying. The one called Aurélien even extended his hand to her, pressing an emerald earring into her palm. “You are welcome here, Célie Tremblay.” The silver-haired melusine’s lip curled as she glanced back at Beau. “More so than your companions.”

Célie curtsied again, smaller this time. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Mademoiselle . . . ?”

“I am Elvire, the Oracle’s Hand.” The melusine smiled in approval at Célie’s impeccable manners, and another of her companions looped a strand of pretty white pearls around Célie’s neck. They looked ridiculous against her tattered gown, but Célie didn’t seem to mind.

“Thank you.” She lifted a hand in surprise, stroking them gently, before pushing the single emerald stud through her pierced earlobe. She looked like a magpie. “I shall treasure each one.”

Beau stared at her incredulously.

“They suit you.” Elvire nodded before gesturing toward her companions. “We are here to escort you into the Oracle City. This is Aurélien”—she pointed to the bejeweled but otherwise naked merman—“Olympienne”—another mermaid, this one the palest lavender with diamonds adorning her teeth—“Leopoldine”—a third with thin golden chains sparkling along her charcoal torso—“Lasimonne and Sabatay.” She finished with two onyx mermen. One boasted rubies in his nipples, while the other’s eyes glowed milky white. Seaweed wound through his braided hair. “We are simply enchanted to meet you. If you would be so kind as to walk beside me, Mademoiselle Célie, I would much appreciate your company.”

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.