Excerpt of The Golden City by J. Kathleen Cheney

The river's surface above her was dark. Before her Oriana saw shapes floating in the water, more traps like the one she'd just escaped. Oriana kicked away from her prison, trying to grasp the bigger picture of what she was seeing. In the nighttime waters she could make out two neat rows, stretching on for some distance. There must be more than twenty of these prisons under the river's surface.

It was The City Under the Sea.

Oriana had read of the great work of art being assembled beneath the surface of the Douro. The newspapers often opined about it, ever since the pieces began appearing in the water almost a year ago. Each was a replica of one of the great houses that lined the Street of Flowers, the street of the aristocrats.

Oriana looked back at the house in which she'd been imprisoned. It was a replica of the Amaral mansion, Isabel's home.

Had Isabel been killed merely for the sake of this . . . artwork? Had others woken in the darkness only to realize, like Isabel, that their death was seeping in about them?