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A s the Sea Queen swam through the barred door, Vahly would’ve held her breath if she knew how in this new body. What would Astraea want to hear from her and how long would she let Vahly live in an effort to gain this information?

Vahly sat straight, not bothering to hide the fact that the ginger-haired guard had untied all but one of her bindings.

Astraea wasn’t the type of opponent one tried to sneak things past. The Sea Queen wore the cool expression and calm demeanor of a female fully in charge of her surroundings and her future as she dismissed the guard, locked the door with her spear, and turned to face Vahly.

Vahly would need to pull an Ace out of thin air—or water—to survive this day.

First step, unsettle the opponent by revealing an unexpected and powerful card.

“When your lover changed me into one of you, he gave me sea magic. Isn’t that something?” Vahly grinned, enjoying her bluff. Astraea didn’t need to know that Vahly had zero idea how to use said magic. Let her wonder if Vahly could call up a wave as well as any.

Astraea’s red lips parted, her eyes widening.

Success. Vahly had chipped the cold exterior of this queen.

But Astraea schooled her features and returned Vahly’s grin. “General Ryton was operating under my orders, little queen.”

Step two, study the opponent in action.

So Astraea was going to play as though giving Vahly magic was part of the plan.

Vahly knew full well it had not been as she said.

Ryton had almost killed Vahly before changing her.

The indecision in his eyes had told the story.

The Sea Queen may have sent Ryton after Vahly, but more than just loyalty had been swimming through Ryton’s head during the capture and subsequent spellwork.

He had been tortured by something deep inside his heart.

Vahly had seen as much from battle-scarred dragons. The behavior was familiar.

Astraea whispered, words inaudible, her gaze above Vahly’s head.

Vahly twisted to see a golden, legless creature slip out of a crack in the wall.

Vahly’s mind sifted through possible reasons that Astraea would call up an impossibly long fish that moved like a snake.

The thing’s scales glittered in the dim prison as it circled Vahly.

“Have you heard of a coinfish?”

The fish curled around Vahly’s ankles, the touch light and gritty like sand.

“Can’t say that I have.” Despite her cavalier words, Vahly’s stomach tightened with fear.

“Your kynd used to travel across our ocean on ships,” Astraea said, her accent extending the S sound and clipping the words at odd places.

“Sometimes they were careless with the gold coin they carried. When it dropped into the sea, lightning eels gobbled them up. Eventually, these gold-eaters became something new entirely. Coinfish.”

The fish uncurled and slithered through the water that flowed between Astraea and Vahly. Vahly fisted her hands, trying to control her fear.

Time for step three: play a card that makes the opponent believe they’re winning.

It wasn’t tough to find a good whimper and let it out. Vahly’s sound of trepidation brought the smile back to Astraea’s horrible, beautiful face.

“Place this on your tongue, little queen, and we will have a lesson in determination. Coinfish are known for their tenacity.” Astraea held out a circle of gold. It was a human coin.

Vahly’s heart stumbled around her chest like a newborn dragon.

The Sea Queen shoved the coin between Vahly’s lips. Astraea whispered as she pinched Vahly’s cheeks, forcing Vahly to swallow the gold, “They’re such hungry beasts.”

Skin heating like another high fever had taken her, Vahly choked the coin down. “You can’t get information from a corpse,” she spat out, gagging and keeping an eye on the circling coinfish.

Astraea stepped back, her webbed toes stirring up sand. After adjusting her scarlet coral and gold crown, she crossed her arms over her pearl-encrusted dress. “The coinfish won’t kill you, little queen. It will only make you beg for death. They can live inside a host for days on end.”

As the coinfish undulated toward Vahly’s mouth, she imagined growing scales like a dragon.

She envisioned the steely scales covering her insides, shielding her emotions, waking up her mind.

She refused to die like this. No daughter of Amona the Lapis Matriarch would go down in such a low and twisted way. No. No. No.

She locked her jaw as the fish struck at her face with its sharp teeth. Pain cut across her lips and down her chin.

Then water blasted into Vahly, and Astraea cackled, her spear outstretched. Vahly’s mouth was blown wide open. The coinfish slid into Vahly’s mouth, down her throat, into her stomach.

The world blurred. Pain bloomed in every part of her body as she heaved, trying to dislodge the beast from her stomach.

The beast was a sword in her belly, slicing, burning, destroying her from the inside out.

She doubled over, but that only made the pressure in her body build and made her feel as though her head were about to explode like a pocket of torched sulfur.

“Don’t worry,” Astraea cooed. “Once he has eaten the coin, he will calm down. Until he grows hungry again.”

But Vahly could barely hear Astraea over the pounding in her veins. Her earth magic thrashed deep within her, panicked and smothered by the sea’s power and the change in Vahly’s body. The earth magic wanted to save her, to help, but Vahly couldn’t comprehend anything except the blinding agony.

Then the beast was silent and still inside her.

“See?” Astraea raised a palm. “You lived. You are strong. And now you will tell me exactly where Amona sleeps.”

Vahly shivered, pain making the colors of Astraea’s crown and the features of her face go hazy and indistinct.

Vahly’s new gills shuddered, opening and closing in an uneven rhythm that had her gasping for breath in a place with no air.

An errant thought slid into her head. Why hadn’t the coinfish gone after the gold in Astraea’s crown?

Only coins must tempt it. Her mind spun, random thoughts riding the haze of pain.

Arc would say the coinfish had fascinating behavioral developments.

“Amona sleeps…” A cough tore at her throat and she gagged. “In the Lapis palace.”

Astraea rolled her eyes. “Where exactly? On a lower level? Or near the western entrance? Or does she prefer to look out across the territory of those she kills, perched on the cliffs like a filthy, stinking harbinger of death?”

If Vahly gave them this information, the sea folk would tweak their flooding plans, making certain to strike Amona’s chambers.

Presumably at night. But if Vahly could escape and warn them, maybe even set up a surprise attack from the northern reaches on the night Astraea struck out, the dragons could win the day.

“What makes you think I would tell you the truth?”

“I can spot a lie, child.”

Astraea wouldn’t spot Vahly’s lie. She’d spent a lifetime bluffing and fibbing her way around the cider house, the Jade palace, and even in her own Lapis home during pranks and jobs done with Nix and the others.

Nauseated from the coinfish that had started turning in her stomach, Vahly envisioned Dramour as he bluffed at the cards table, her heart aching with the memory of her lost friend.

He made direct eye contact when lying, his grin a prequel to a mocking chuckle.

Vahly did her best to mimic the display.

“Her chambers are on the floor above the feasting hall.” She paused as the coinfish jerked suddenly and pain cracked her composure for a moment.

Taking a shuddering breath, she continued, “Near the tunnel leading from the western entrance.” It was almost true.

Near truths made the best lies. Amona actually slept on the higher levels above the hall.

The Sea Queen studied Vahly with darting glances toward her eyes, mouth, and the set of her shoulders. “Good. For your reward, I will make the next question quick.”

“How is that a reward, exactly?”

“The sooner we complete this questioning, the sooner you get to die and end the pain of having the coinfish in your belly.”

It was a sad fact that death did seem like a positive right now. Vahly hugged her free hand to her middle.

“How many dragons live in the Lapis palace?”

Honestly, Vahly had no idea. But fewer dragons meant less water in the attack, right? “A little over five hundred.”

Astraea’s grin was a sharpened blade.

If Vahly didn’t play step four soon in this game, if she didn’t play her winning hand soon, death would welcome her into the darkness.

The coinfish lurched, and Vahly thrashed, her insides twisting and spasming like she was being squeezed by a pair of giant hands. Dots swam in the green-gray water before her eyes.

“Time for a snack.” Astraea produced another coin and shoved it down Vahly’s throat with a finger.

Choking and bucking, Vahly fought hard, trying not to swallow.

She bit down on Astraea’s finger, and the Sea Queen yelped and pulled back as blood spread like fire.

Tasting the gold of the coin sliding down her throat and the metallic tang of the queen’s blood, Vahly steeled herself for the agony of the coinfish’s feasting.

But a tingling spread through her mouth and down her neck, and the sound of water magic roared in her ears. Squeezing her eyes shut, she focused her will on the beast in her belly.

Out. Out. Out.

Invisible waves crashed in Vahly’s ears, and she felt strong, strong enough to fight Astraea’s creature.

Go. Go. Go.

The beast wriggled up Vahly’s throat, fins slicing her from the inside as it swam from her mouth.

When Vahly opened her eyes, Astraea’s face was contorted with shock, her mouth drawn back from her white teeth and her stare blank.

Another coin flashed between Astraea’s fingers.

Vahly imagined water rushing forward, and the sea obeyed, coursing at Astraea and pushing her back a step.

The Sea Queen shrieked, then lunged at Vahly, coin in hand.

The beast whipped through the water above their heads, and Vahly pulled against her binding, the sea rope cutting into her wrist as she rose to meet Astraea.

Anger and the desperate need to survive raced through her veins as she raised a hand to grab the Sea Queen.

“Déno,” Astraea whispered.

Something sharp wrapped around Vahly’s formerly free arm and yanked her backward, slamming her onto the rock shelf and jarring her teeth together.

Stunned, Vahly’s mouth popped open. She shut it quickly.

A second coinfish surrounded her arm, holding her tight.

Vahly lifted both knees and launched her feet into the Sea Queen’s middle.

Astraea stumbled back a step before snarling and rushing forward, her face in Vahly’s.

The scent of the Sea Queen’s magic flowed across Vahly’s gills: salt, blood, and an overpowering floral reek like rotted blooms.

Gold danced between Astraea’s fingers. She was going to ram that coin down Vahly’s throat.

This was it. Vahly wouldn’t survive.