Midsummer Day before the main court events
The Midsummer Capture
Along the Tropic of Cancer, [Yves de la Croix](entity:character-recall-character-yves-de-la-croix-24aef29127f1)’s galleon finds the sea people gathered to mate. Their song and ecstasy leave them unaware as the ship drives through them and sweeps several into a net.
Yves orders carrier pigeons released to announce his success. His expedition has captured a living sea person for [Louis XIV](entity:character-recall-character-louis-xiv-a22681e5d809), but the hunt has inflicted violence that its scientific victor does not yet understand.
The day Yves returns to France
The Royal Procession at Le Havre
[Marie-Josèphe de la Croix](entity:character-recall-character-marie-jos-phe-de-la-224d525595af) travels to [Le Havre](entity:location-recall-location-le-havre-e27126d3b949) in the procession accompanying [Louis XIV](entity:character-recall-character-louis-xiv-a22681e5d809). She watches [Lucien de Barenton, Count de Chrétien](entity:character-recall-character-lucien-de-barenton-eddb986fa307) move calmly through hungry townspeople, distributing the King’s alms instead of driving them away.
The court’s joking admiration and Marie-Josèphe’s mistaken assumptions about Lucien introduce the gulf between her colonial experience and [Versailles](entity:location-recall-location-versailles-b6a47c263b79)’ elaborate hierarchy. She is also impatient to see her brother, whose expedition has made him newly important to the King.
At the waterfront in Le Havre
The Sea Person Presented
Yves approaches the King with a gilded basin containing a living sea person wrapped in canvas. The creature sings, thrashes, and splashes [Louis XIV](entity:character-recall-character-louis-xiv-a22681e5d809), who confirms that it lives and declares himself pleased with the expedition.
Lucien pays the captain on the King’s behalf, while the captain’s irreverent thanks expose how differently the sailors understand the court’s grand ceremony. The captured sea person is carried inland as royal property, not as a person whose consent matters.
Immediately after the presentation at Le Havre
The Siblings Reunited
Once the procession passes, Yves recognizes Marie-Josèphe and embraces her with the affection of their childhood. She is delighted by his return but quickly discovers that he has brought a captive creature he means to study and that his new duties will keep him from her.
Yves criticizes her court dress and assumes she should have remained safely teaching at [Saint-Cyr](entity:location-recall-location-saint-cyr-26569d6ee892). Their reunion is warm, but their different ideas of safety, ambition, and a woman’s proper life are already apparent.
After the royal procession leaves Le Havre
The Basin Falls
The sailors abandon Yves’s heavy baggage when the captive cries out and frightens them. Lucien recruits barefoot boys to help load the wagons, while Marie-Josèphe imagines the preserved specimen and the living creature that her brother has brought back.
The episode establishes Lucien’s practical kindness and Marie-Josèphe’s scientific curiosity. She tries to thank him and asks whether he has seen the sea monster, but his cool reply leaves her uncertain of his meaning.
That evening at the Fountain of Apollo
The Sea Monster Escapes
At the [Gardens of Versailles](entity:location-recall-location-gardens-of-versaille-2a173b4e6541), Yves’s workers lower the basin into the [Fountain of Apollo](entity:location-recall-location-fountain-of-apollo-632182246a2c). The running fountain startles the captive; she breaks free of her restraints and tumbles into the water, where Yves’s newly constructed cage confines her.
Yves insists that the animal is wild and may not survive. Marie-Josèphe sees it watching her and reaches toward it, while the creature’s escape turns the King’s display into a living, unstable experiment.
During the first night in the fountain
Marie-Josèphe Reaches the Creature
Yves prods the sea monster with a goad, trying to make her surface. Marie-Josèphe objects that he is frightening her and enters the water herself, speaking gently and holding out her hands.
The creature grasps her wrists and pulls her into the pool. Even after she climbs out, Marie-Josèphe insists that the animal is terrified rather than cruel, beginning the bond that will eventually overturn the court’s idea of what the captive is.
Later that night
The King Sees the Captive
[Louis XIV](entity:character-recall-character-louis-xiv-a22681e5d809) arrives while Marie-Josèphe is still soaked in the fountain. Lucien shields her from the King’s view with his cloak, then continues concealing her as the King inspects the creature and orders Yves to proceed with his work.
The court admires the live capture but treats the sea person as a specimen and possible spectacle. Yves is promised royal favor, while Marie-Josèphe must remain hidden to avoid a breach of etiquette.
The following dawn
The First Feeding
Marie-Josèphe returns early to feed the captive, but the creature rejects dead fish and seaweed. When the workers bring fresh seawater, a live fish enters the pool; the sea monster catches and eats it.
Marie-Josèphe realizes that the animal needs live prey and begins patiently winning its trust. The discovery matters both to the creature’s survival and to Yves’s standing with the King, who expects the captive to be healthy enough for display.
That morning at the fountain
The Coachman Raises His Whip
A frightened driver lashes at the sea monster when she grabs at his ankle through the bars. Marie-Josèphe intervenes, and the driver threatens her in his panic until Lucien catches his wrist with his walking stick.
Lucien dismisses the driver and makes clear that Marie-Josèphe is responsible for the King’s creature. His intervention protects both her and the sea monster, while earning him her gratitude and strengthening her sense that his care is more than courtly performance.
The first morning after the capture
The Missed Awakening
Absorbed in feeding the sea monster, Marie-Josèphe loses track of time and fails to wake Yves for [Louis XIV](entity:character-recall-character-louis-xiv-a22681e5d809)’s morning ceremony. Yves is distressed, but he spares her blame and asks instead whether the creature has eaten.
Her success with the live fish makes the mistake easier to bear, though the episode exposes the strain between her new responsibilities and her obligation to help her brother. Yves later attends the King and receives a warning to observe court routine.
The next public gathering at the fountain
The Public Dissection Begins
Yves begins dissecting the dead male sea monster before the King, the royal family, and gathered visitors. Marie-Josèphe records each stage in drawings as the live female sings and cries from her cage.
Yves explains the creature’s skin, muscles, and fat as features of a natural animal. The performance earns the King’s attention, but the living sea person’s distress makes Marie-Josèphe question whether scientific display can be separated from cruelty.
During the public dissection
A Curtain for the Singer
The captive’s cries disturb [Louis XIV](entity:character-recall-character-louis-xiv-a22681e5d809) as Yves cuts into the carcass. Marie-Josèphe suggests that the cage be screened; Lucien has silk hung across its bars, and the sea monster’s cries subside.
The King rewards the dissection with praise and orders that the work be published and commemorated with a medal. Yet he delays further examination until his schedule permits, leaving Marie-Josèphe worried that the preserved body will decay before Yves can finish.
After the first dissection
The Sketch Is Burned
While feeding the sea monster, Marie-Josèphe hears her imitate the word “fish.” She also notices that the dead male’s tangled hair contains glass and gilded fragments arranged like a halo, and asks Yves what they mean.
Yves dismisses the objects as debris, takes her drawing of them, and burns it. His action suggests that he fears what the image might imply, though Marie-Josèphe does not yet understand why he is suppressing evidence.
During the celebrations for the papal visit
The Pope Arrives at Versailles
Marie-Josèphe attends the extraordinary reception of [Pope Innocent](entity:character-recall-character-cb51d1931172) at the [Palace of Versailles](entity:location-recall-location-palace-of-versailles-dfd6f9568f53). [Louis XIV](entity:character-recall-character-louis-xiv-a22681e5d809) and the Pope greet each other as political allies, and the court celebrates their reconciliation with [Rome](entity:location-recall-location-rome-3ec0a741c1f4).
The ceremony also displays the rigid hierarchy that shapes Marie-Josèphe’s life. The Pope receives honors as a powerful prince, while [Marquise de Maintenon](entity:character-recall-character-7b6a81e0edd6) must occupy a publicly diminished position despite her influence over the King.
After the papal reception
Lotte Teaches Marie-Josèphe
In private, [Lotte](entity:character-recall-character-lotte-d134350b5f56) explains sexual customs and the meanings of words that the convent had kept from Marie-Josèphe. The lesson unsettles her carefully taught belief that intimacy is only painful, sinful, and obligatory within marriage.
Marie-Josèphe learns how thoroughly religious discipline has restricted her understanding of the world. Her curiosity remains strong, however, and the conversation prepares her to question the moral rules that later threaten both her work and her friendships.
That evening at the Palace of Versailles
The Nightly Court Entertainment
At [Louis XIV](entity:character-recall-character-louis-xiv-a22681e5d809)’s entertainment, Marie-Josèphe meets the young [Domenico Scarlatti](entity:character-recall-character-730599098072) and recalls the tune she once composed. Her instinctive music and the court’s Arabian story create an unexpectedly daring performance.
When the King learns she wrote the piece, he praises her talent and asks for a cantata about Yves’s sea-monster hunt. The commission gives Marie-Josèphe a public artistic role, but [Pope Innocent](entity:character-recall-character-cb51d1931172) condemns women’s music and calls for her silence.
Immediately after the performance
A Cantata Commissioned
[Louis XIV](entity:character-recall-character-louis-xiv-a22681e5d809) rejects the Pope’s demand to censor Marie-Josèphe and commissions her to write music for his anniversary. He frames the work as an honor to her parents and as a celebration of the sea-monster capture.
Yves is angry that she accepted a separate artistic task and worries that her composing will distract from his research. Their argument exposes how his protective authority can resemble the confinement from which she has only recently escaped.
Late that night
Innocent Summons Yves
[Pope Innocent](entity:character-recall-character-cb51d1931172) privately admonishes Yves for neglecting religious duties and for pursuing worldly natural philosophy at court. He considers sending the Jesuit to a monastery for a year of silence and reflection.
Yves fears that resisting the Pope would cost him the King’s patronage and his scientific work. The threat tightens the conflict between Church authority and inquiry, while foreshadowing the compromises he will make to protect his position.
The following night
The Secret Dissection
[Louis XIV](entity:character-recall-character-louis-xiv-a22681e5d809) privately attends a further dissection, accompanied by [Pope Innocent](entity:character-recall-character-cb51d1931172), Yves, and Lucien. Yves finds a peculiar lobe in the male creature’s lung, unlike the ordinary air sacs, but cannot explain its purpose.
The King sees the organ as a possible key to immortality. Yves insists that natural philosophy requires evidence, while Louis presses him to search for the legendary organ anyway, turning scientific uncertainty into a matter of royal ambition.
The next public day
The Sea Monster on Display
[Louis XIV](entity:character-recall-character-louis-xiv-a22681e5d809) opens the tent to visitors, who crowd around the fountain demanding a sight of the captive. Marie-Josèphe lures the sea monster out with live fish and teaches her to appear before the audience.
The creature’s leaping and feeding delight the spectators, but Marie-Josèphe increasingly recognizes that their entertainment treats a frightened being as an attraction. Her ability to earn the captive’s trust gives her influence, but it also makes her responsible for what the court asks the creature to do.
During the royal picnic at the Menagerie
The Musicians’ Performance
At the [Menagerie of Versailles](entity:location-recall-location-menagerie-of-versail-0e6fa32302ce), [Louis XIV](entity:character-recall-character-louis-xiv-a22681e5d809) asks Marie-Josèphe to play. Though nervous and out of practice, she performs her music on a harpsichord, letting the sea monster’s song shape the melody.
The King calls the performance charming. The moment confirms that her musical ability can command royal attention, even as her work remains vulnerable to the prejudice that women should not compose or perform publicly.
After the Menagerie picnic
Odelette Claims Her Freedom
[Chartres](entity:character-recall-character-chartres-47c701b82e30) assaults [Odelette](entity:character-recall-character-odelette-f4780fd54fb4) in Marie-Josèphe’s room, mistaking her for Marie-Josèphe. Odelette is furious when Marie-Josèphe intervenes, because she had hoped a royal lover might acknowledge and free her.
Marie-Josèphe realizes that she has never asked what Odelette wanted. She declares her free and promises to treat her as a sister, while Yves objects that the family cannot afford to lose its servant. The conflict forces Marie-Josèphe to confront her own participation in enslavement.
That night after the public display
The Sea Woman’s First Warning
During a nighttime feeding, the sea monster presses Marie-Josèphe’s hand beneath the water and sings urgently. The contact frightens Marie-Josèphe, who pulls away without understanding that the song is a warning about danger on land.
She later sees an apparition of Yves wounded and bleeding, then finds him alive in his room. The experience marks the first time the sea woman’s communication reaches Marie-Josèphe as more than animal sound, though its meaning remains unclear.
During a later dissection session
The Female Lung Is Revealed
Yves opens the female body’s corresponding lung and confirms the anomalous lobe, but does not reveal its function to the assembled scholars. Marie-Josèphe understands that the captive can remain underwater and prevents the Academy’s visitors from entering the cage to inspect her.
She claims the sea woman is deliberately demonstrating her ability to breathe beneath the surface. Yves admits that the organ exists, and the scholars accept that more study is required, but he is alarmed that Marie-Josèphe knows more than she should.
During a public storytelling session
The Atlantis Story
Marie-Josèphe translates the sea woman’s first extended story: sea people once met the people of [Atlantis](entity:location-recall-location-0244f33343b6) as friends, exchanged songs and stories, and visited their island city. A volcanic eruption destroyed Atlantis and killed their human companions.
The tale moves the human audience, but the sea woman rebukes Marie-Josèphe for ending it too soon. She insists that stories must be completed, making their shared storytelling a relationship governed by trust rather than a performance for the crowd.
During the anniversary celebrations
Lucien’s Past and Juliette’s Departure
Lucien ends his relationship with Juliette de la Fère, unwilling to promise marriage or children. He believes his dwarfism and chronic pain make fatherhood cruel, and he has vowed not to pass his affliction to a child.
Marie-Josèphe gradually learns that his apparent distance conceals a history of exile, military service, and intimate friendships. His refusal to marry is not simply a lack of affection; it is a conviction shaped by pain and responsibility.
A night during the celebrations
The Dead Tiger Apparition
After riding [Zachi](entity:character-recall-character-zachi-90c49bf55139) with Lucien, Marie-Josèphe sees what appears to be the King’s tiger attacking them, though the animal has already been killed for the royal banquet. She flees at Zachi’s urging and meets Lucien at the Menagerie.
Lucien believes she saw something, even while pointing out that no tiger could have been there. The unexplained apparition deepens the connection between the sea woman’s songs and Marie-Josèphe’s altered perception of the world.
Before dawn after the apparition
The Sea Woman’s Songs Become Speech
In the glowing fountain, the captive shares images rather than words: her family, her birth island, the dangers of the sea, and the care surrounding a newborn. Marie-Josèphe sketches the visions as she experiences them and finally understands that the creature has been telling her a life story.
The sea woman also reveals that Yves captured three sea people and that one died. Marie-Josèphe recognizes the captive as a thinking person, but she knows that revealing the truth could endanger her brother and the creature alike.
After the sea woman shares her history
Marie-Josèphe and Lucien Confess Their Feelings
Marie-Josèphe tells Lucien that she loves him, but he warns that he will never marry or father children. He believes his physical condition and constant pain make a shared life and family impossible.
He nevertheless treats her trust seriously, explaining the truth about desire and pleasure rather than repeating the convent’s prohibitions. Their affection grows through candor, even as Lucien initially insists that love cannot change his decision.
During a later audience with the King
The Birth-Island Massacre
The sea woman describes a galleon attacking her people’s birth island. Men of land kill and capture sea people, carry them away, and torture them; Marie-Josèphe’s drawings reveal how the Church’s campaigns against alleged demons also destroyed human lives.
The testimony changes Lucien’s understanding of his own family history, since the account of a dwarf child drowned with its mother echoes the danger his own birth concealed. The story makes the sea people’s near-extinction an immediate political and moral fact.
During the fireworks night
Lucien Reveals His Parentage
On the [Palace of Versailles](entity:location-recall-location-palace-of-versailles-dfd6f9568f53) roof, Lucien tells Marie-Josèphe that his mother was Queen Marie Thérèse and that his dwarf father exchanged him for a newborn girl to conceal the danger to the royal line. He warns her that revealing the secret would threaten both families.
Marie-Josèphe promises to keep it. Their conversation deepens her understanding of Lucien’s guardedness and gives him a rare confidante, even as they remain divided over whether she can safely love him.
In the sea woman’s account of her people’s past
The Midsummer Massacre
[Sherzad](entity:character-recall-character-sherzad-52cade28d296) recounts how a storm drove a human ship into the sea people’s [Midsummer](entity:time-recall-time-midsummer-a3e406d30a0c) mating haze. The sailors mistook the gathering for demonic activity and attacked with explosive casks, killing many while young survivors watched their families die.
The massacre explains why the sea people can no longer safely gather in daylight and why Sherzad’s capture is part of a recurring history of human violence. Their mating customs are presented not as monstrosity but as communal life and pleasure.
On the eve of Versailles Carrousel
The Treasure Bargain
With [Sherzad](entity:character-recall-character-sherzad-52cade28d296) facing death, Marie-Josèphe proposes that she offer [Louis XIV](entity:character-recall-character-louis-xiv-a22681e5d809) the treasure of a sunken ship in exchange for her life. Lucien supports the proposal, and the King grants them until midnight at the end of Carrousel to find it.
Louis does not promise to free Sherzad, only to consider the outcome. The bargain converts a private plea into a test of royal power, while leaving Marie-Josèphe and Lucien aware that the King may still choose the creature’s death.
Before Carrousel
The Grand Canal Escape Attempt
[Sherzad](entity:character-recall-character-sherzad-52cade28d296) tries to escape through the [Grand Canal](entity:location-recall-location-grand-canal-758500d53ed6), believing it leads to the sea. She discovers that its grates and waterways do not offer freedom, and the attempt leaves her injured and more desperate.
Marie-Josèphe tends to her and learns how poorly the captive’s body is holding up. Lucien warns that defying the King could bring imprisonment, accusations of witchcraft, or renewed confinement, but Marie-Josèphe refuses to abandon her friend.
During the King’s next audience
The Sea Woman Testifies
Before [Louis XIV and Pope Innocent](entity:relation-recall-relation-louis-xiv-and-pope-i-a8203e48f3f7), [Sherzad](entity:character-recall-character-sherzad-52cade28d296) tells how a ship bearing the cross destroyed a gathering of sea people. Marie-Josèphe interprets the account, including the sea people’s mating haze and their horror at being attacked while they were vulnerable.
[Pope Innocent](entity:character-recall-character-cb51d1931172) hears the story but insists that the captive must come under Church authority. Louis orders another day of life, allowing the story to continue while keeping control of Sherzad’s fate in his own hands.
At a subsequent audience before the King
A Friend’s Death Is Revealed
[Sherzad](entity:character-recall-character-sherzad-52cade28d296) tells the story of her dead companion and the ruby ring she had meant to return to him. Yves recognizes that he stole the token from the dead sea person and had concealed the truth from the court.
Louis asks where the ring went, and Marie-Josèphe lies to protect her brother, saying a sailor took it. The King grants Sherzad another day, but Marie-Josèphe understands that her lie may make the reprieve fragile.
During the Carrousel festivities
Yves’s False Immortality Claim
Under pressure from [Louis XIV and Pope Innocent](entity:relation-recall-relation-louis-xiv-and-pope-i-a8203e48f3f7), Yves falsely claims to have proved that the anomalous organ can provide immortality. His statement gives the King a reason to preserve his hopes and risks making [Sherzad](entity:character-recall-character-sherzad-52cade28d296)’s body the object of a royal experiment.
Lucien recognizes the claim as a lie but cannot immediately expose it. Yves’s decision reveals how fear of losing royal favor has compromised the evidence-based principles he once defended.
During the Carrousel festivities
Yves Is Acknowledged as the King’s Son
After the performance, [Louis XIV](entity:character-recall-character-louis-xiv-a22681e5d809) privately tells Yves that he is the King’s natural son and that his mother was Marie-Josèphe’s mother. The revelation explains Yves’s royal protection and sudden rise, but it reaches him at the moment he is most ashamed of deceiving the King.
Yves accepts the King’s public affection while struggling to confess the lie about immortality. The new knowledge deepens the stakes of his conflict: his work, his family, and his royal identity now depend on choices he can no longer treat as abstract.
The main day of Versailles Carrousel
Carrousel and the King’s Gifts
[Louis XIV](entity:character-recall-character-louis-xiv-a22681e5d809) stages an elaborate Carrousel, riding at the head of competing teams and presenting lavish gifts to visiting rulers. The spectacle asserts French magnificence despite war and financial strain.
Lucien rides for the King, but the celebration becomes inseparable from the deadline for [Sherzad](entity:character-recall-character-sherzad-52cade28d296)’s execution. When the Pope receives exotic animals instead of the sea woman, Lucien’s hope that Church custody might save her briefly rises and then collapses.
At midnight during Carrousel
The Escape from Versailles
As the deadline approaches without news from the treasure ship, Marie-Josèphe prepares to flee with [Sherzad](entity:character-recall-character-sherzad-52cade28d296). Lucien obtains a wagon, and Yves joins them after realizing he cannot leave his betrayal unchallenged.
They race toward the [Seine](entity:location-recall-location-1c99276eafb3), guiding Sherzad along the [Grand Canal](entity:location-recall-location-grand-canal-758500d53ed6) before loading her into the wagon. Their escape is desperate and poorly planned, but it gives Sherzad a chance to reach open water rather than die at [Versailles](entity:location-recall-location-versailles-b6a47c263b79).
Before dawn after the escape
Sherzad Is Recaptured
The King’s riders catch the fugitives near a bridge over the [Seine](entity:location-recall-location-1c99276eafb3). [Sherzad](entity:character-recall-character-sherzad-52cade28d296) leaps into the river, but nets, pikes, and the Queen of Nubia’s hunting cheetahs stop her escape; she is hauled back alive.
Louis treats Lucien as an opponent who has broken his parole, while Marie-Josèphe and Yves are bound and taken into custody. The failed escape costs Lucien his place at court and makes the King’s anger unmistakable.
At the King’s court after Carrousel
The Treasure Saves Sherzad
Louis orders [M. Boursin](entity:character-recall-character-m-boursin-72b3c0267210) to butcher [Sherzad](entity:character-recall-character-sherzad-52cade28d296), but carrier pigeons arrive with jewels and a message confirming the treasure ship. The King reads the proof and cancels the immediate killing.
He grants Sherzad her life in exchange for the treasure’s value to [France](entity:location-recall-location-france-f5cafc8a8ad4), but refuses Marie-Josèphe’s demand that he set her free. The reprieve therefore saves Sherzad from the banquet without ending her captivity.
After the treasure is confirmed
The King Punishes His Former Favorites
[Louis XIV](entity:character-recall-character-louis-xiv-a22681e5d809) sends Lucien and Yves away under guard and orders Marie-Josèphe to attend the banquet. He gives Lucien’s reward to Lorraine, making the public transfer of favor as painful as the loss of office.
[Madame and Lotte](entity:relation-recall-relation-madame-and-lotte-d541fcb250eb) comfort Marie-Josèphe, and Lucien sends her a silver gown and a note promising they will see each other again. Their intimacy persists even as the King separates them and makes their future uncertain.
During the royal banquet
Innocent Takes a Seat Beside the Outcasts
[Pope Innocent](entity:character-recall-character-cb51d1931172) leaves the high table and sits beside Marie-Josèphe, Yves, and Lucien, accepting the position the court treats as disgraceful. He questions Yves about the alleged immortality organ and learns that Yves has no proof and lied about testing it.
Marie-Josèphe argues that [Sherzad](entity:character-recall-character-sherzad-52cade28d296) is human, while Innocent insists that women must be silent and obedient. The Pope’s decision to sit with the accused signals a change in his response, but he still refuses to accept her claim without a religious reckoning.
After the banquet
The King Orders History Erased
[Louis XIV](entity:character-recall-character-louis-xiv-a22681e5d809) condemns Marie-Josèphe, Yves, and Lucien for defying him, then assigns each a punishment. Yves is given to [Pope Innocent](entity:character-recall-character-cb51d1931172) and ordered to obey; Marie-Josèphe is forbidden to compose music and is told she must marry Lucien.
Innocent orders Yves to destroy records of the sea people, including books, letters, chronicles, paintings, and myths. Yves burns the decree and other evidence, accepting the task of erasing the history of the beings whose existence the Church once labeled demonic.
Immediately after the King’s judgment
Marie-Josèphe and Lucien Are Married
[Louis XIV](entity:character-recall-character-louis-xiv-a22681e5d809) gives Marie-Josèphe a dowry and orders her marriage to Lucien. Lucien offers to let her live apart, believing that he has lost his title, lands, and wealth and cannot give her children.
Marie-Josèphe tells him that she chooses him over status and accepts that their marriage may not include children. Yves, meanwhile, embraces his appointed task of preserving knowledge through what he calls intelligent obedience rather than simple destruction.
After the judgment and marriage
Haleed Leaves for Turkey
[Haleed](entity:character-recall-character-haleed-a16abe823d8e) secretly visits Marie-Josèphe and prepares to leave [France](entity:location-recall-location-france-f5cafc8a8ad4) for [Turkey](entity:location-recall-location-c27b19c1bfda). She explains that she and Marie-Josèphe share the same father, who fathered her through an enslaved woman, making them sisters by blood as well as by choice.
Marie-Josèphe is shaken by the revelation but does not reject her. Haleed leaves with pearls and the hope of finding her family, while the sisters part knowing they may never meet again.
After Versailles Carrousel
The Flagship Sets Sail
[Louis XIV](entity:character-recall-character-louis-xiv-a22681e5d809) takes Marie-Josèphe and [Sherzad](entity:character-recall-character-sherzad-52cade28d296) aboard his flagship to find the promised treasure. Lucien is kept aboard as well, despite severe seasickness, while Yves remains under the Pope’s authority.
The King uses his control over Lucien and the captive as leverage until Marie-Josèphe can guide the expedition. Sherzad is still treated as an instrument of navigation, and the voyage tests the loyalty that the court’s punishments have failed to break.
During the search along the coast
Sherzad Is Hung from the Figurehead
When Louis orders [Sherzad](entity:character-recall-character-sherzad-52cade28d296) released so she can guide the ship, the sailors instead tighten the net and suspend her beneath the bowsprit. Marie-Josèphe protests, and Lucien tries to intervene, but both are held at gunpoint.
Louis breaks Lucien’s sword after reminding him of his parole. The King’s false promise shows that the treasure bargain has not made Sherzad safe and that royal power still governs the expedition’s terms.
That night
Sherzad Grounds the Flagship
[Sherzad](entity:character-recall-character-sherzad-52cade28d296) finally guides the flagship toward the cove, then leads it onto a jagged rock. The vessel is damaged but not destroyed, and the crew leaves her hanging in the net while they wait for the tide.
Marie-Josèphe had trusted Sherzad’s apparent promise to cooperate, but the deliberate grounding reveals that the sea woman is resisting a captor who has repeatedly broken his word. The wrecking attempt brings her close to freedom without yet releasing her.
Before dawn after the flagship grounds
Sherzad Cuts Free
As the crew sleeps, Marie-Josèphe uses Lucien’s broken sword to cut the net. [Sherzad](entity:character-recall-character-sherzad-52cade28d296) drops into the sea and disappears, escaping the immediate restraints of the flagship.
Louis takes Marie-Josèphe into custody and says he cannot hear the sea woman’s distant song. Yet Sherzad continues communicating through the water, promising to lead the expedition to the treasure despite the King’s betrayals.
The following morning
The Aztec Treasure Is Recovered
[Sherzad](entity:character-recall-character-sherzad-52cade28d296) leads the ship’s divers to a cove containing a sunken treasure ship. The exhausted men return with jewels and gold, fulfilling the ransom she had offered for her life.
Louis accepts the treasure and orders the flagship back toward [Le Havre](entity:location-recall-location-le-havre-e27126d3b949). Marie-Josèphe has succeeded in proving the value of Sherzad’s promise, but she cannot yet know whether the King will honor the life he has granted her.
On the return voyage toward the Caribbean
The Privateer Is Sunk
After leaving the French court, Lucien and Marie-Josèphe sail with a Breton crew toward the Caribbean. A pursuing ship closes in under the full moon, threatening to capture them as spoils or kill them.
Before the two vessels can fight, the sea people attack the pursuer from below, split its hull, and pull it under with the aid of a giant octopus. Their intervention reveals that [Sherzad](entity:character-recall-character-sherzad-52cade28d296)’s promise of war against the men of land is already being carried out.
The following Midsummer season
The Lovers Reach the Caribbean
Marie-Josèphe and Lucien land on a small cay and wait for [Sherzad](entity:character-recall-character-sherzad-52cade28d296) beneath the full moon. She returns with her baby and her surviving family, healthy after escaping captivity and rebuilding a life in the sea.
The sea people welcome Marie-Josèphe and Lucien, share their treasure, and adorn them with jewels. Sherzad’s reunion with her friend offers a future beyond the court’s control, though the sea people now avoid gathering in daylight because of the human threat.
Midwinter after the return to France
Yves Preserves the Forbidden History
Yves keeps a secret library of material he was ordered to erase, including an illuminated account of the sea people, Marie-Josèphe’s music, [M. Boursin](entity:character-recall-character-m-boursin-72b3c0267210)’s cookbook, and [Madame](entity:character-recall-character-madame-e4b986404c22)’s letters. He preserves the male sea person’s skeleton in a richly made reliquary.
He intends to protect the surviving people through secrecy for now, but not forever. His private archive makes his apparent obedience a form of resistance and leaves open the possibility that the erased history will someday be restored.
At Midsummer on the return voyage
The Sea People Strike Again
[Sherzad](entity:character-recall-character-sherzad-52cade28d296) and her family pursue another ship that is hunting the Breton vessel. They disable it with narwhal spears and the focused force of their voices, then ensure that its sailors cannot return to the surface.
The attack confirms that the sea people have begun a war against human ships. Sherzad’s survival has not restored the old peace; she and her family now defend their own against a history of capture, persecution, and near-extinction.
