Page 54 of Music of the Ocean

Callie winked at him, a tiny bit conspiratorial.

Saxby grinned as he finished the last of his meal and Callie rose from her seat. Indigo chuckled as he stood, gathering his tentacles.

Saxby swam beside Indigo, careful not to betray his growing anticipation with anything as obvious as a skip in his step. Stride. Pace. Whatever it was called now.

Callie led the way, her glide through the water brisk. For the first time since his arrival, Saxby thought he saw a hint of real enthusiasm in her. Indigo kept pace with Saxby as they swam along.

Indigo let his fingers brush against Saxby, and then he slowly joined their hands. The current that moved between them stirred something briny and warm, with a hint of sea-salt caramelized over a flame. It was a scent Saxby had started associating with safety.

Indigo glanced over at him, the corners of his eyes crinkling in a silent check-in. Saxby squeezed his hand, not only to reassure Indigo but to also ground himself in this new reality. The steady thrum of Indigo’s heartbeat traveled through the delicate membrane between his fingers.

Yeah, this was no dream. As they approached the next turn, the hum of city life grew quieter, replaced by a new set of sounds. The faint whisper of water moving through porous stone and the almost imperceptible shimmer of light refracted through a million microbubbles.

Ahead, the corridor brightened. The ceiling bowed outward and the floor dipped, forming a gentle slope. Callie guided them forward through a membrane that glimmered like the surface of a soap bubble.

On the other side, the space opened up into an underwater farm. It was massive, too. The land stretched in all directions, divided by winding paths of smooth stone and branching columns that sprayed something on certain plants.

Every available surface grew something—kelp in bands of emerald and ocher, masses of feathered greenery, clusters of glassy round berries suspended from twisting vines, cubes and orbs, and root-type veggies.

Bioluminescent tendrils hung from the ceiling, lighting the garden with overlapping shrouds of blue and gold.

“Oh my gods, this is a biodome! A huge, massive, underwater biodome,” Saxby breathed.

“Yes. All cities have one,” Indigo said.

Dozens and dozens of people worked the gardens. Some were on their hands and knees, pruning with bone-handled shears, others hovered in the water, sorting cuttings into baskets woven from kelp.

Callie led Saxby and Indigo through the gardens, pointing out features as they swam. “Those acres of bicolored fungi? That’s where the fermentation happens.”

“And over there, those translucent tubes that are each capped with a swollen blue node? Those filter toxins from the water,” Indigo added.

Saxby noticed that beds of coiled, geometric plants lined the path. Every so often, one released a cloud of fine spores that shimmered before dissolving.

“This is incredible.” Saxby’s gaze bounced over the miles and miles of what was basically farmland. There was so much to look at.

“As I said, the planet provides,” Indigo replied.

The garden’s noise was a layered symphony of trickling water, the soft hiss of respiration, and the low, constant hum of the city beyond the walls. The workers greeted Callie and Indigo by name.

Indigo nodded while Callie sometimes paused to trade jokes or advice. One of the gardeners, a tall amber-skinned woman, offered Saxby a berry the size of his thumb, which he accepted and bit into. A citrusy sweet aroma released into the water.

At the heart of the garden, a shallow pool circled a cluster of stone columns. The pool’s bottom was covered in a lattice of living, breathing mesh. Shrimp-like creatures moved about with darting movements.

Above, a canopy of kelp undulated in slow waves, casting shifting shadows.

Indigo guided Saxby to a bench grown from interwoven coral. Callie sat beside them, her legs swinging in the water. The three watched as a worker scaled a column, using the webbing on her fingers and toes to climb. She plucked a cluster of orbs from a ledge, then floated down and distributed them into a basket.

“You seem to know a lot about the biodome, Callie,” Saxby said as he watched the worker. She moved as if she knew what she was doing.

“I work here. I find it soothing and kind neat, too, if I’m being honest,” Callie said.

“Agriculture is fascinating, I agree.”

Indigo contributed facts now and then as they explored, like how the ecosystem recycled waste or how the lights changed color to mimic the rhythms of the moon and tide.

Saxby listened, but his attention constantly moved between the interplay of Callie and Indigo, the shifting architecture, and the anticipation that thrummed in his chest.

“Hey, Callie, could you come take a look at something for me? There are these white pits on the sea lettuce in section B. And I mean, whatever it is, it’s all over that section,” a merman said as he drifted up.