Above World - By Jenn Reese Page 0,3

blood. Makina hadn’t been bitten or punctured. Aluna stared at the breathing shell attached to Makina’s neck, suddenly suspicious. She reached out a finger to trace the seahorse design. As soon as she touched it, the shell dislodged and drifted toward the ocean floor. Aluna caught it in her hand.

Aluna saw two small, dark holes in Makina’s throat where the shell had been attached. Empty holes. The breathing shell’s two slender tubes should have been burrowed there. Those tails held the shell in place as it filtered air from the water and delivered it to the lungs.

Without air, Makina had drowned.

Aluna opened her hand and stared at the broken shell nestled in her palm. A name was carved on its back in tiny, perfect letters. The Elders had spoken the name a dozen times before, always in hushed voices, always when they thought no one could hear them. She couldn’t read, but Hoku could, and he’d written the letters for her to see.

HydroTek.

Makina wasn’t the first to die like this, and Aluna knew that she wouldn’t be the last. The City of Shifting Tides was fading, one Kampii at a time, and the Elders weren’t doing a thing to stop it.

Aluna squeezed the necklace in her fist. Makina was dead. Suddenly, it didn’t matter that Great White had almost caught her. It didn’t matter that her legs ached and her eyes burned and her head was starting to pound.

She wanted answers.

“I WISH they hadn’t taken the necklace,” Hoku said. “If I could examine one, maybe I could figure out why they’re breaking. They must need power to operate, but where is it coming from? Elder Peleke won’t tell me. I wonder if he even knows.” He looked at his hands, wishing he had his tools. Wishing he had something to focus on besides Makina’s death and Aluna’s anger.

“Of course they took the necklace,” Aluna stormed. “They’re going to act as if none of this ever happened, same as always. One death might be an accident, but Makina was the fifth. How can they ignore five?”

She was swimming circles around her nest, her eyes red rimmed and wild. They’d spent the last hour remembering everything they could about Makina. Now he just wanted to eat some fish and go to sleep. Predictably, Aluna’s mood had gone in the other direction.

“They had no right to hide her away like that!” she said.

“Not everyone wants to see . . .” The body, he thought. When had Makina stopped being a person and become just another object? “She had a lot of friends, and her parents weren’t even in the crossway when you brought her in. Maybe —”

“And they wouldn’t even answer my questions about the necklace! Now the Elders are off ‘conferring.’” She snorted. “That’s all they ever do. Talk, talk, talk. They never actually do anything.”

“But your father . . .”

Aluna waved her hand. “He’s the worst.”

Aluna and her father were like a pair of fighting eels — always going for each other’s throats. Elder Kapono intimidated the entire city, and scared the ink out of Hoku, but Aluna was never cowed. She seemed to think it was her duty to defy him.

“The Elders are probably talking at the council dome,” she continued. “Eating clams and sucking coralfruit juice and gossiping like younglings. If only we could hear through the sound shield!”

“Well, maybe . . .”

Aluna stopped her swishing and swam over to him, her eyes intense.

“Well, what?”

Oh, crabs and krill. Why did he always have to open his mouth? He shrugged, suddenly embarrassed. “I’ve been working on this device, this new artifact. You put it over your ear and it increases the distance you can hear. I thought if I made it strong enough, we could talk at night when we’re both in our nests.” He’d intended to give her the artifact as a gift when she got her tail, as a way for them to stay in touch even when she was off with all her new friends. So much for the surprise.

“And you think it will work through the sound shield?”

“It might. I couldn’t find a way to make us talk louder, so I found a way to make the artifacts in our ears pick up sound better.”

“Brilliant!” Aluna said.

“Well, I, uh — it’s not —”

“We can try it out right now. Let’s go!”

Aluna bolted for the room’s hatch and darted into the passageway. Hoku smiled and followed her back to his family’s nest.

Tomorrow was the ceremony of transformation,