The remainder of dinner had passed without a hitch, though Selena suspected Father was onto her. He would bide his time, making certain it was her before acting, and she had to be prepared for him to strike at any moment.
Selena paused outside the Augurey's Nest to take a deep breath before entering the fray. The packed lounge was already buzzing with lively music and chatter. Her shimmering royal blue gown swished around her ankles as she strolled the room in search of Adam, the movement silky but foreign against her skin. On her feet, she wore silver sequined flat sandals. She was finished experimenting with heels.
Servers worked the room, floating oversized trays laden with champagne and fancy snacks. When she made her way by one held aloft by a mat woven of earth magic and decorated with green vines and white roses, Selena stopped to take a flute of champagne and a puff pastry.
"There you are, Mystery Girl. I thought you might have stood me up, but wow, the wait was worth it. You look amazing!"
She lifted her gaze to find Adam standing before her, bathed in the glow of the setting sun that shone through the floor-to-ceiling windows beyond. His hair was pulled back into a ponytail at the nape of his neck, and he had dressed in an expensive charcoal grey suit, crisp white shirt, and royal blue tie. Odd. Had he matched his tie to her dress with magic as soon as he spotted her?
Unsure what to say, or how to feel other than thoroughly flustered at his fawning over her looks and the whole color-matching thing, she managed, "Well, don't get used to it. This is a level of effort you're not likely to see me make again."
Heat flushed her cheeks. She wasn't about to admit that he looked quite good himself. However, he must have read the thought on her face, because he flashed a pleased grin. "Same here. This suit is hot and itchy, and these dress shoes are killing my feet. Want to go sit outside in the fresh air?"
The music stopped, and the chatter died down. Onstage, a dark-skinned woman in a golden strapless gown announced in a rich voice amplified by air magic, "Ladies and gentlemen, the moment you have all been waiting for has come. In a few moments, the ship will begin its submersion. For those of you first-time cruisers, rest assured you're in for a treat. The ship's protective bubble will keep us safe and sound for the next three days of our journey underwater. Keep your eyes out for mermaids, marine life, and some of the most breathtaking coral reefs you'll ever see. Some have even sworn they've glimpsed the sunken Atlantis in the depths on this route."
"Fine," Selena agreed if only to avoid the crowds inside. At least out on deck, they'd have an ocean breeze. "Can we stay outside while the ship submerges?"
"Yeah, the bubble stays airtight against the ship's hull, but it covers the entire upper and lower decks. We'll have the best view out there."
They claimed a table by the railing, and Selena sat gazing out at the endless waves. The sea stretched out toward the horizon ahead as far as she could see, the sun's reflection a ray of gold and red on the water. Her lips parted in wonder at the sight. She expected a strong breeze to blow about the stray curls piled on top of her head in an elegant bun, but she barely felt a breath of wind, as if something were blocking it. As she focused her vision, she noticed a clear bubble creating a skin-tight dome around the ship. Selena reached out to touch it, and the bubble sparkled a rainbow of colors and sprang back against her palm. Intrigued, she tried again, with the same result. Magic tingled her hand and trailed up her arm.
"This is air magic mixed with water magic, isn't it?" Her voice came out in a breathy, reverent whisper. The current emanating from the protective bubble was strong, reassuring, and beautifully intricate. Selena had never encountered anything like this, and she itched to run back to her room and read all about the spell in the leather-bound volume on elemental magic Uncle Franklin had given her last year for her birthday.
"That's right." Adam's jaw dropped. "You can tell that by touch? Impressive."
Heat flamed Selena's cheeks once again, and she sipped her champagne to cover the reaction. "I forget that most people can't. It's just something I've always been able to do."
Adam reached out as if to take her hand, but then to his credit seemed to decide against it and instead popped a mini quiche into his mouth. "One of my best friends is a water mage, and he's got this amazing read on magic the way you seem to. I'm a fire mage and can't sense what's in a spell to save my life."
"A girl I knew from school is a fire mage, and she is like that, too. Maybe it comes with the territory." Olivia had always said she wished she could feel magic the way Selena did, but no matter how hard she tried, she'd never succeeded.
"Maybe. So, is this your first time cruising?"
Selena let out a heavy sigh. She'd already let on way too much information about herself without even realizing it. "Wouldn't you like to know? Let's forget all the personal details and keep the mystery going. I'd imagine you travel a lot, but I'm not going to pry."
At the next table over, an elderly man with youthful, piercing blue eyes stood, his metal chair scraping the deck. His face had turned purple with rage, or maybe too much champagne. How much of it had he drunk? "I don't care if you believe this Cunningham fellow is the most powerful mage in existence, he's crooked as sin, I tell you, and you're fooling yourself if you think his little project will save us from the nonmagical. If he gets his way, he'll let the whole world know about our magic, and they'll exterminate every last one of us!"
His companion, a man about twenty years his junior, also leaped to his feet, jostling their table so hard his three empty champagne flutes tipped over and shattered. His face had turned red, and he huffed and puffed as he glared across the table. "You're the fool for buying into that isolationist propaganda," he accused, his words slurred. "And a bigot! My wife — er, my friend's wife — is nonmagical, and it's completely ridiculous that we all have to hide it, when it's an open secret that everyone knows mixed couples like that."
"Don't you dare call me a bigot! I have nothing against the nonmagical, but they will never understand our world, and they attack what they don't understand."
"That's right! Get him," Selena heard someone shout. "People like him want to risk our world, and for what?"
Selena stiffened as the two men raised their palms and shifted their bodies into a duel stance, with legs spread evenly apart for balance. The argument brewing between the men had started to draw a crowd, and the onlookers added their own shouts and encouragements to fight a literal battle over the politics that had deeply divided the mage nation.
The older man unleashed a whirling sphere of air magic at the younger one. The blue sphere gusted around the younger man, sending shards of broken champagne glass flying everywhere. Onlookers cried out and raised their arms to shield themselves. One piece came within a fraction of an inch of the protective bubble, while another grazed Selena's cheek.
Selena let out a hiss of pain and clapped a hand to the injury.
"Oh, no." Adam's eyes widened as he stared at Selena. "How bad is it?"
"I'm fine," she gritted out.
"Hey!" Adam shouted to get the crowd's attention, but nobody glanced his way. He tried it again, blaring his voice with air magic. "You people injured this beautiful lady here, Knock it off before someone gets badly hurt, or worse!"
The shouts and jeers from the onlookers only got worse. The younger man retaliated with a glowing red ball of fire magic that hurtled toward his opponent until it stopped to hover directly in front of him. Tendrils of flames burst from the sphere and wrapped around the older man's arm, singing the skin wherever it touched. The man shrieked in pain.
"That's enough," Selena snapped, swiping the thin trail of blood from her cheek, but her voice was swallowed by the people surrounding them. She amplified her voice with air magic. "Enough! Go inside and party the night away or something before you impale us all with glass, burn us to a crisp, or rupture the delicate, razor-thin bubble that's keeping us all alive."
Her warning came too late, and this mob was too angry and drunk to listen. As the ship began its submersion into the sea, a duel erupted.
Egged on by the older man's torment, someone else in the crowd unleashed a green sphere of earth magic. The sphere hovered by the older man, too close to the ship's protective bubble. Green tendrils ending in sharp spikes pierced the sphere and jabbed indiscriminately at those nearby.
"Stop, you idiots!" Selena yelled again, seeing what was about to happen next. As she summoned her water magic to douse them all in an icy shower that would end the duel and send them scattering inside, one of the tendrils pierced the bubble and ripped a long, jagged tear across the forward-most point of the ship, where the ship had already submerged. Water rushed into the gaping hole, and the pressure of it spread the tear wider and wider as Selena watched in horror.
She was going to drown. The entire bubble would rupture, the hull would break in half, and she and everyone on board the ship would drown because of the stupidity of these men. Adam pulled her against him as if that could protect them from the doom rushing at them, but she was too numb with shock to push him away.
As she plunged underwater, the only thought she could manage to cling to was, I don't want to die.