There were four guards flanking the servants’ entrance this time. Had they been there previously? She couldn’t remember. They definitely looked more alert than when she had snuck in earlier—these scanned each and every person who passed, sometimes directly in the eye. Ariel hesitated.
One of the guards spotted her and frowned.
As casually as she could, Ariel turned around and walked back against the flow, peeling off to the strip of beach right in front of the castle in case she had to make a quick getaway into the waves.
What she saw there stopped her dead in her tracks.
At first glance, it seemed silly—no, insane. Royal guards were using long poles to draw things in the sand, over and over again, like children punished by a teacher for spelling something wrong.
Why would Ursula do this to them? Had she gone completely off the deep end? Was it some sort of weird disciplinary thing? But then Ariel stood on her tiptoes and saw what they were drawing: runes.
Atlantica runes.
Upside-down from her perspective, because they were facing the sea.
THE MOMENT YOU ARE SPOTTED ON THESE GROUNDS YOUR FATHER DIES
Ariel backed away slowly as the letters burned themselves into her eyes.
Then she turned and ran—
—and slammed chest-first into Carlotta, who grabbed her by the arm and pulled her into the shadow of a pine.
“I saw you try to get in just now…What are you doing here?” she hissed. “We’re on high alert because of what you’ve done. I assume it was you who took the necklace? Vanessa is in a murderous snit! Surprised she hasn’t locked up poor little Vareet…She’s rampaging around, doubling the guards, offering rewards for information…and doing strange witchcraft. Those symbols of hers…”
Ariel shook her head. “That is a message for me. She is threatening to kill my father if I come looking for him…which I have.”
The maid blinked at her.
“Oh, yes, I can talk now,” the mermaid added.
“Does this have something to do with the…” Carlotta said, indicating her neck. The nautilus. Or possibly a voice.
Ariel nodded and held up her wrist so the maid could see the leather band, the broken bit of shell attached to the golden bail. “I smashed it, breaking the spell, and now I have my voice back again—and she has none. Or her own, rather.”
“That would explain the whispering and the muffler and the talk of colds,” Carlotta said, a little desperately, as if that one bit of logic were her lifeline.
Ariel felt bad for the woman, who was obviously having a hard time dealing with it all, directly confronted with the truth of magic.
“Everything’s clearer now, you know,” Carlotta said, falling heavily onto a tree stump. She waved her hand around. “That day. The cake I helped make. The lightning. I may…have even…seen you…your tail.”
She looked Ariel up and down, as if for the first time. Then her eyes rested on the apron full of shells.
“What in the name of all that is good and holy is that? Something for a spell? More magic? More…sea stuff?”
“No, it’s part of my disguise,” Ariel said. “If anyone asked me what I was doing I would say it was for Vanessa.”
“Shells?” Carlotta asked, starting to laugh. Ariel recognized that laugh. It was the beginning of hysteria. “From the beach? And driftwood?”
“They’re beautiful,” Ariel protested.
“Oh, oh, I know,” Carlotta said, laughing and wheezing. “I’m sure you think so. But nobody wants those. Not a princess—not even a fake one, like Vanessa. There was a fad for a bit where fancy girls with nothing better to do would glue lots of tiny shells to boxes or frames like mosaics…hideous, really…but those were tiny shells. Dear, you wouldn’t have lasted a moment even if you’d made it inside the castle. Oh, what are we to do?”
“I have to find my father,” Ariel said firmly. “He is the King of the Sea and Ursula’s prisoner. She turned him into a polyp. She has him hidden here somewhere. I need to find him and free him. Then, together, we can defeat the sea witch and free Tirulia from her rule forever.”
Carlotta just stared at her as she said all that.
Then the maid shook her head vigorously, as if she could physically thrust away all the crazy things she had just heard.
“Whatever else, you can’t set four steps inside that door without someone stopping you. You sound exactly like Vanessa! And believe me, everyone knows what she sounds like. Even if you disguise your voice, you still don’t sound like a servant girl. I need to think about what to do. Who could help us? Who could be clever and figure out a plan? You need someone on the inside, more connected than me. Someone like…”