Jenna did not expect Favel to take her on a honeymoon.  She had lost quorum, and she didn’t have anyone new to interview.  After a few days with her head as low to the ground as she could get it, and the position had nothing to do with her keeping her nose to the grindstone, she was just in too much pain to keep her head up, she slowly started to feel a little better.  She could sit up in bed without any fuss and she could walk to the bathroom without feeling like a guillotine survivor.    

However, with everything going on, Favel still sent a pod for her, Celestina did a little reality TV with Jenna while Misha packed her clothes and they all chatted about how exciting it was that she was finally going on her honeymoon.

She was knocked out for the journey in the pod because there was no point in keeping her awake and the trip was twenty hours.  The Hotel of the Twinkling Stars was on the other side of the planet.  When Jenna awoke in the hotel lobby, she was feeling the best she’d felt since the jewel had been attached to her crown. 

Favel was in a goblet that was being pushed around by a bellboy in a blue and gold uniform.  He looked like part of the wall.  Everything around her was blue like the ocean and gold like the sunlight shining on the surface of the water.  She was led through grandeur, unlike anything she had ever seen before.

“This is like the Little Mermaid’s palace under the sea,” she said happily as she and Favel were checked in.

“I don’t know what a mermaid is, but this is an underwater palace of Adamis’ imagination.  You’ve been in an Octavian’s mansion and the two things don’t have much in common,” Favel said, a little sourness hinted at in his tone.

Jenna looked at him sideways.  She moved to step closer to him and he moved away so quickly, half the water in his goblet splashed out.

Jenna had forgotten he could lose a tentacle if she got too close.  She’s also forgotten that they were keeping her force field problem a secret from the general public.  She turned to the bellboy and asked, “Could he get some more water, please?”

“Of course,” the boy said as he left his position behind Favel and rushed to a nearby fountain.  There were jugs all ready to be filled and sprinkled on their Octavian guests who ventured into the parts of the hotel generally reserved for Adamis.

Jenna watched as the boy poured water over her husband and thought crankily that pouring water on him had been one of the few things she could do for Favel to show that she cared for him.  With the jewel in her crown, she couldn’t even do that.

She shared Favel’s sourness as they were shown to their room.

It was the Paris room, and it was all chandeliers, all crystal, all velvet, all marble, and all quartz. Jenna looked at the ceiling overhead and threw herself on the bed.  

Favel poured himself into the fountain and it was some time before the hotel staff had finished putting away Jenna’s luggage and departed with some information about what was on the menu.  It didn’t matter what was on the menu to Jenna.  Smoothie had packed her food so there was no point hearing what the hotel restaurant had on offer.  

 “Favel,” she said across the echoing space that separated them in the huge room.  “I am pleased you invited me here, but I hope that it has a double purpose and that you didn’t just bring me here as a treat.  I have a lot of work to do back at the palaces and my head hurts like it was sledgehammered.  My work is slow because I feel terrible.  Please tell me you’ve learned something useful from the Hipposyphis.”

“Then I shant disappoint you,” he said drearily.  “The Paris Room is a lie.  It was made the grandest room in the grandest hotel under the sea in order to bring certain VIPs further underwater than would normally be possible.  Everyone important stays here.  I’ve brought you here so that you can meet someone more important than the chair of the Octavian council.”  

He flopped out of the water, beckoned to Jenna with a spare tentacle, and took her behind a large planter.  Out of common view, in a boring part of the room, he showed her a concealed button.  

“You have permission to press that button and take the elevator down.  You have to go all the way down.  When it opens, you will see a long corridor.  The air will be rank.  You will be further down than you have ever been before.  The pressure might be overwhelming and it will smell.  You need to ignore those things and follow the hallway all the way to the end.  There may be stairs going down.  There may be turns and corners.  The journey down may take longer than you like and it may bother you more than ever in your current condition, but you cannot give up. If there are answers, any answers, about your crown, about your jewel they are down there.”

“You’re making this sound really ominous,” Jenna noted, taking a step away from him.

“I’m not happy with what the Hipposyphis did to you.  I tried to get them to remove it, and Jenna, I have never been slapped back in my place more firmly before.  I feel used.”  He sighed.  “But no more used than you have been.  You’ve been used the whole time.  I did get them to agree to allow me to be there for your interview.  I can’t attend, but I can watch from the other side of the glass.  I’ll meet you down there.”

“Thank you and sorry for causing you so much trouble,” she said.  It was a knee-jerk Canadian reaction.

“Don’t mention it,” he said as he spidered his way back to the pool where he dove in.  “I’ll meet you down there.”

Jenna watched him go; a soft flick of his spotted tentacles before he disappeared from view.

“This is so exciting!” Ixy chortled in Jenna’s ear.  “I’m so excited.  Who knew that I’d be able to go somewhere like this with you?  I’m a prisoner in jail, but when I’m with you, I get to go to secret meetings in secret places and…”

Jenna pulled Ixy out of her ear.  “I’m not taking you with me,” she said, holding the earpiece in her hand and talking into it.

“Oh, please!” Ixy begged.  It was a fragment of the sound she could hear when Ixy was securely in place inside her ear.  

“No.  I… I’ll be safe.  Favel knows I’m going down there and you know I’m going down there.  If I’m not back in ten hours, you are perfectly capable of making a few calls to get me rescued.”

“This is because I was excited, isn’t it?  If I’d said absolutely nothing, you would have forgotten my existence.  You would have kept me in your ear and I would have gotten to go to the secret meeting.”

“Maybe,” Jenna agreed.  “Maybe not.  In any case, set a timer.”  

She put Ixy in the dirt of the nearby planter and pressed the button Favel had shown her.  A door opened and an elevator appeared.  Jenna stepped inside of the slick metal space and pressed the only button there was—the one that indicated down.  The doors closed and she felt herself falling.