Chapter 9Cade’s opera, which crowned the evening of the first week of negotiations, dazzled the world with spectacle. It was really a piece of an opera, a truncated version; the whole evening involved scenes from multiple works, a showcase of culture, a celebration of song and emotion and two worlds together.
Cade’s new open-air theater combined sea and stone and curtains and draperies over rocky outcroppings; islanders and Queen’s men and merfolk perched on stone steps and benches and stairs, or swam and drifted in pools, watching the show. The night glowed in torchlight and oil-lamp and starlight on water; the Queen had brought some newfangled long-lasting lights, and some of the merfolk had luminous spines and arms and hair and even pets. The world blazed.
Cadence had summoned fellow
