made of luxurious, dark Ironwood rise up around me, the progressively wider upper stories supported by richly carved ebony columns. Curling emerald trellises thick with lush, flowering vines flow out over the rooftops and down the buildings’ sides.
I close my eyes and breathe in the rich Ironwood. It’s traditional for our homes to be made of this wood and styled in designs that look like forests and trees—a symbol of the Ancient One’s creation of my people from the seeds of the sacred Ironwood Tree, giving us dominion over all the trees and all the wilds.
We pass an open-air restaurant, dining tables spilling out onto a promenade surrounded by decorative fruit trees, all of it lit by diamond-paned lanterns. The smell of rich food wafts into the carriage—roasted lamb, sautéed fish, platters of herbed potatoes.
A small orchestra plays beneath a plum tree.
I turn to my aunt, thrilled by the beautiful music. I’ve never heard an orchestra before. “Is that the Valgard symphony?”
Aunt Vyvian laughs. “Heavens, no, Elloren. They’re employees of the restaurant.” She eyes me with amused speculation. “Would you like to hear the symphony while you’re here?”
“Oh, yes,” I breathe.
There’s an endless variety of shops, cafés and markets. And I’ve never seen so many Gardnerians together before, their uniformly dark garb lending an air of elegance and gravity to their appearance, the women’s black silken tunics set off by glittering gems. I know it says right in our holy book that we’re supposed to wear the colors of night to remember our long history of oppression, but it’s hard to keep such somber thoughts in mind as I look around. It’s all so wonderfully grand. I’m seized by a heady excitement, coupled with a desire to be part of it all. I glance down at my simple, dark brown woolen clothing and wonder what it would be like to wear something fine.
The carriage lurches, and we turn sharply to the right and make our way down a narrow, darker road, the buildings not as lovely as the ones on the main thoroughfare, the storefront windows mysteriously harder to see through, the lighting a moody red.
“I had my driver take a shortcut,” my aunt says by way of explanation as she flips through more Council papers, the golden lumenstone in the carriage lantern growing in brightness in response to the dark.
I marvel at the lumenstone’s rich, otherworldly light. Elfin lumenstone is incredibly expensive, the golden stone the rarest. I’ve only seen swampy green lumenstone in the Gaffneys’ outdoor lamps back home.
Aunt Vyvian lets out a sigh and pulls down one of the blinds. “This isn’t the best part of town, Elloren, but it will shave quite a bit of time off our journey. I suggest you close the window. It’s not an attractive area. Frankly, it should all be razed and rebuilt.”
I lean forward to close my open window and draw the blind as the carriage slows to a halt. It’s been a constant stop and go ever since we reached the city because of the heavy street traffic.
A split second before I’m about to pull the cord, something hits the window with a loud smack—a white bird’s wing, there and gone so fast, I swear I imagined it. I press my face to the window and try to locate the bird.
They’re not just birds, they’re Watchers! Sage’s words echo in my mind.
And that’s when I see her—a young woman only a few feet away from me.
She is, by far, the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen, even dressed as she is in a simple white tunic. Her long, silver hair sparkles like sun glinting off a waterfall and spills out over translucent skin so pale, it’s almost blue. She has a lithe, graceful figure, her legs folded together to one side, her weight supported by slender, alabaster arms.
But it’s her eyes that are the most riveting. They’re huge and gray as a stormy sea. And they’re filled with wild terror.
She’s in a cage. An actual, locked cage, only big enough for her to sit in, not stand, and it’s placed on a table. Two men stand staring at her while engaged in some private conversation. On the other side of the cage, two boys are poking at her side with a long, sharp stick, trying for a reaction.
She doesn’t seem to even register that they’re there. She’s looking straight at me, her eyes absolutely locked on to mine. Her look is one of such primal fear, I pull back from the sheer force of it, my heart beginning to pound against my chest.
The woman lunges forward, grabs fiercely at the bars in front of her and opens her mouth. My head jerks back in surprise as slender rows of silvery slits on both sides of the base of her neck fly open, her skin puffing out around them.
Holy Ancient One—she has gills!
The woman lets loose a high-pitched, earsplitting croak, the likes of which I have never heard before. I have no idea what she’s trying to scream, what’s happened to her voice, but still, her meaning is clear. She’s crying out for my help.
The men jump at the sound, put their hands over their ears and shoot her a look of annoyance. The boys laugh, perhaps thinking they provoked her cry. The boys push the stick into her once more, harder this time. Again, she doesn’t flinch. She just keeps her eyes locked on mine.
My eyes dart to the sign on the storefront above her. Pearls of the Ocean, it reads. Suddenly the carriage lurches forward, and she’s gone.
“Aunt Vyvian,” I cry, my voice strained and high-pitched, “there was a woman! With...gills! In a cage!” I point to the window on the side where she had been, my heart racing.
My aunt glances quickly in the direction of the window, her expression one of mild disgust. “Yes, Elloren,” she says, sighing. “It was hard to miss the screeching.”
“But, but...what...” I can barely get the words out.
“Selkies, Elloren, it’s a Selkie.” She cuts me off, clearly not wanting to discuss it further.
I’m stunned by her nonchalance. “She was in a cage!” I point again at the window, still not believing what I just saw.
“Not everything is how it appears on the surface, Elloren,” she says stiffly. “You’ll have to learn that if you’re going to be part of the wider world.” She peers over at me and studies my troubled face, perhaps seeing that a longer explanation is unavoidable. “They may look like humans, Elloren, but they aren’t.”
The very human-looking, terrified eyes of the young woman are burned into my mind. “What are they?” I ask, still shaken.
“They’re seals. Very fierce seals, at that.” My aunt pauses to lean back against the elaborately embroidered cushions. “Long ago, the Selkies were enchanted by a sea witch. Every full moon they come to shore somewhere on the coast, step out of their seal skin and emerge in human form. For many years they caused a great deal of havoc—attacking sailors, dismantling ships. It was terrible.”
“But she looked so frail.”
“Ah, it’s like I just said. Appearances can be deceiving. Selkies, in possession of their skins, are stronger than the strongest Mage, and like most seals, they are very dangerous predators.”
“And without their skins?”
“Very
