by Jean Lee
“I will not deny that many princeborns have desired domination over the other Magic Breeds,” Liam says, eager to let go of this elderly creature with the peculiar, gritty skin. “And I will confess that I served those desires for many years. But since my imprisonment…” he pauses before the smoke. With the merest gesture, Charlotte had cast damage while his own blood couldn’t summon magic forth within the water. “I see now that Velidevour must be different. I must be different, or I will bring all whom I care about to ruin.”
A soft thud behind Liam—Captain has placed a vertebra down behind the merman for a seat. He and Charlotte ease him down, and he smiles with a few worn teeth.
The queen rises, her gaze now upon the blood dagger. Her fin is out to touch, but she hesitates. “Well? Is it the same?”
The merman shakes his head. “No.” A slow sssh-sssh-sssh rubs upon the skin-floor as the sea turtle shuffles over to join them. “No feathers gleamed in the criminal’s steel.”
Dolphin-speak spills out of the queen’s mouth so fast that no other Stellaqui blinks for a full minute. The fallen guards crab-crawl out of her path as she charges up and down the space.
“Told you so.” Liam grabs Charlotte’s wrist and squeezes before she can mumble anything else.
Captain leans against the back wall, and sighs. “So, these are not the murderers.”
“Perhaps we share an enemy,” Liam says, careful not to stare upon the eagle’s peeled talons. Queen Avo slows her tirade. “There are some Velidevour in River Vine determined to kill us. One was part badger, another part snake.”
“Don’t forget Campion.” Charlotte sure can’t. “The bloodthirsty squirrel with a thing for stealing girls from their families.”
“Squirrel?” Queen Avo looks to Obsidian Mouth, whose eyes dart around before he points at the bear.
“No no no,” Captain slides on the sea turtle’s path towards the piles of display cases. She rests her spear against one pile while slipping her fins in and out of another. “Much too big. More like a tree rat. Here.” And with a jerk Captain pulls out a thin case depicting a squirrel, complete with a half-chewed nut in its belly. At least this roadkill under glass wasn’t quite so shocking as the others.
“Lake Ontario?” Charlotte whispers.
“Shut up.”
Queen Avo shakes her head. “No. It was no simple woodland creature who left my brother and sister eviscerated like salmon in a bear’s maw.” She double-blinks, leaving a wet sheen across the stone eyes.
Charlotte looks at the blood dagger, at Liam. His arms are crossed, thumb pressing down on his mark so much the skin around it is turning white. “How do you know?”
“The pearls of their sea-cries had been stolen,” the sea turtle says quietly.
“And not just them,” Captain adds, voice cracking. “More Stellaqui have suffered the same fate. Scattered among sewers and ports bordering the western coast of this—how do you call it—star-spangled country. No one made the connection, blaming humanity’s boats, Earth’s ground-breaks. Only the High Sage realized the truth three centuries ago, long after the war with Velidevour had,” pause, “supposedly ended.”
Liam considers this. What House could possibly see worth in starting a war with the water-folk? Surely, Mother and Father, you are not such fools as to think we can live in this element. “No good can come from such tortures,” he says aloud. “We can no more live in the water than in the cosmos among the Celestine. It cannot be done.”
Queen Avo leans back against the human display, translucent fins hardly a cover for the split pelvis, the layers of scalp and skull. “I confess, I did not expect you to be a voice of reason, especially in light of your lineage. Oh yes,” she adds, smirking, “I know many tales of Bearnard Artair, and his kin.”
Lightning flashes in Liam’s eyes. Charlotte’s sure the queen can’t understand how inner storms move in Liam, how they surge and explode. I gotta stop this before he does something stupid.
“Of their manipulation, destruction—"
“I know it isn’t Liam.” Charlotte takes one step in front of Liam, just enough to break his eye contact before the lightning can strike. “I found his blood dagger sticking out of his back only a few days ago. But you can’t investigate decently without cooperation.” Charlotte breathes deep and lays the blood dagger down along the ashen dots. “Make sure. Rule it out. Please.” She wraps an arm around Liam’s and pulls him a few steps away to wait by the sea turtle.
The sea turtle tilts its head as though to get a better view of Charlotte’s face. Gah, that hasn’t gotten any less weird. So Charlotte leans on Liam’s bare shoulder…without thinking about its bareness. Still scabbed, yes, and a bit inflamed, but the muscles themselves are so damn solid that the touch turns Charlotte’s legs to jelly. She breathes deep to steady herself, but just takes in more of him and his quiet smell, the semi-sweet earthiness of a wild meadow beneath a wilder sky.
“You’ve curious eyes,” says the sea turtle. The merman still sits opposite the queen, but he’s looking upon Charlotte now, stroking what little chin he has with his blotched fin.
Charlotte glares. “What, you planning on ballooning my eyes next?” she says with a little sneer at the sea turtle. “Don’t even.”
Liam squishes Charlotte’s little toe with his big one. “My apologies,” he whispers behind her neck, “She’s not much for civility.”
“I can hear you, you nob.”
“Oh, it’s quite all right.” The sea turtle sssh-ssssh-turns away from the queen and guards, now in a low hum of dolphin-speak. “I don’t think her majesty expected you to hold yourselves so well with her created display. She chose subjects she knew to walk around River Vine. I think she hoped the forms of these these beasts would be similar to your own.”
Liam can’t help but glance once more at the eagle’s split beak and tongue. “She chose one well. The She-Bear is of a different nature.”
“Bear?” The dolphin-speak ceases, the merfolk huddle disperses. “Yes, that is another point on which we must speak.” Queen Avo returns to her seat behind the human display and folds her fins together on top of his ribs. “Explain the bear cub ensnared upon the lake’s border. Or did you have nothing to do with that as well?”
Captain scoffs.
“You said you know my lineage.” Liam’s voice grows heavy and low, like a fog. “Who could have helped trap the cub in your element, your highness?”
“Insolence!” Queen Avo’s mouth swirls into the star-shape, she breathes deep and pulls back to unleash—
“It’s a valid point,” says the sea turtle.
Queen Avo coughs her mouth back to normal and clicks angrily at the High Sage, but he merely shrugs. The sea turtle continues, “Miss Charlotte Gill-less Meatbag is the first I’ve ever seen to use land magic underwater. Now as she is, by my limited observation, a mortal creature, she could not have been the one to ensnare the cub three hundred years ago.”
The queen steadies herself, uncertain whether to glare at the voice or body of the High Sage. “But surely someone of land magic succeeded in crossing the elements. The Royal Records describe kingborn Velidevour destroying stellaqui cities with their fire.”
Liam folds his arms. “We’ve our own Kingborn Histories, and none speak of blood weapons of such power. However…” his brow furrows a moment, and Charlotte’s not sure if he’s lost in a memory, or just stalling for time. “My teacher once told me Aether unleashed the world’s heart upon land and sea.”
World’s Heart? Like, that’s magma core type stuff—oh! “You mean volcanoes.”
“Whatever humanity calls it, it is Aether’s Fire, and beyond control of any Velidevour, be it kingborn, princeborn, or commoner.”
Queen Avo’s mouth swirls into a star-shape, and the lips slowly blossom open to flaunt their teeth. With a grunting curse of clicks, her mouth changes again and she says, “And Aether is responsible for the cub’s absence as well, I suppose?”
“That was wo
uld you stop staring?” Charlotte throws her head back and slams a stink eye down at the sea turtle. “I swear, I’m gonna find some ooze and set you loose in a sewer to fight crime. Gah, just” —one, two, take a breath before you say something even more stupid, Charlie— “That was us. Me. Him. Blood dagger. We hacked that black seaweed of yours and gave the cub back to its mom.”
“My black seaweed?” Queen Avo’s voice, already delicate in air, tinkles like broken glass. “I may be a hard leader. Cruel, even. But I would never, ever wage war upon the young, even the young of an enemy. Unlike them.” She spits some sea-speak curses in Liam’s direction.
A strange grinding fills the air. Down on the first floor, the dome’s opening a window to the lake outside. Two of the queen’s guards jump through the bubble, and with a flash of shimmering spirals they’ve got tail fins whipping them off toward the Library’s entrance.
Charlotte stands with her fists on her hips. “And why should we believe a bunch of swimming banshees who can scream magical stuff into smithereens?”
Queen Avo mouth swirls into a star, and she inhales—
“ENOUGH!” Liam yanks Charlotte around and behind his back. “You want to punish someone? Punish me. You said yourself you want to cut a princeborn open—here I am, unarmed. Charlotte may have a foolish mouth, but I happen to like that foolish mouth and will not see it harmed.”
You DO have a foolish mouth, you know, the Voice says with a kick to Charlotte’s ribs.
But Charlotte’s too flushed to retort.
The two guards return with the messenger in a ruckus of clicks and squeaks. The flurry of noise, the constant stone-blinks, the half-bears stuck kissing—why the hell am I thinking of kissing right now?—it all presses down on Charlotte’s temples.
Queen Avo takes a deep breath and stands facing the Library’s center, silent, her fin stroking the pearl amulet. Charlotte reaches instinctively for her father’s pendant that once hung around her own neck, but that had been lost to the black seaweed when they freed the bear cub.
Captain leans against the human’s display case and lets out a long, low squeak. Liam turns to her, whispers, “What has happened? I wanted to propose contacting the She-Bear. She’d verify our story.”
“That’s just it,” Captain says, slowly, still not taking it in. “She was on the shore, waiting for us. She requests your return.” Obsidian Mouth waves his fins low to the ground in a strange running motion. Captain notices, explains, “And the cub walks with her, hale and whole.”
Charlotte bites her lip as she steps toward the queen. Don’t get all accusatory on her ass now, Charlie. “So, you didn’t help make that black seaweed that held the cub?”
A pause. “No.”
“Oh.”
“I suppose you think me a liar.”
Charlotte strokes her own sternum with her thumb. “No.”
Queen Avo wraps her fins around her silver kelp crown and lifts it from her head. “The moment that dreadful thing appeared, I evacuated any and all who resided in Lake Aranina. Librarians and soldiers alike have studied that snare these past three centuries, have assisted the bear’s family in any way possible, but that abomination always dragged the poor child under water if one got too close. All we could do was ensure nothing else harmed the child.” She glares in accusation at her own crown. “It is a terrible thing, to have all magic within an element at your command, and still be utterly powerless.”
Charlotte gives a slow nod. Mom curled up among moldy dolls, Anna running off with Uncle Mattie to the mall…. “I was kinda hoping something that black seaweed took ended up here. A necklace. Family thing.” She traces it on her skin—the cool diamond shape, the white rose and silvery petals set against a crimson background.
“A family thing.” Queen Avo looks away. “I am sorry for its absence. I would have seen it restored to you.” Then, with a curt nod, she says, “Ready our transport, Captain. Princeborn, retrieve your weapon. It is time we return you ‘travelers’ to your element.”
Captain grins, and leaps through the membrane to join the other guards and messenger.
Liam bows, and walks over to retrieve the blood dagger on the ground.
A weak clapping from the High Sage, followed by the sea turtle saying, “Oh that’s too bad. I was hoping to study your eyes some more, as they looked so familiar.”
“What?” Charlotte’s gut reels, but the Voice laughs inside her chest.
“Never mind.” The sea turtle’s beak prods Charlotte’s hand again, then proceeds to tug the strips of seaweed off and munch. “Do you always wear vegetation when injured?” The sea turtle nudges Charlotte’s broken hand towards the old merman’s blotched fins.
“Plants often help strengthen healing spells,” Liam explains as he slides the blood dagger into the sheath. “You do not require it here?”
The High Sage folds his fins around her hand as though in prayer while the sea turtle opens its mouth. “Not at all, Princeborn,” the sea turtle says as the old merman winks. “All one needs is the right tune.”
The sea turtle sings.
At least, Charlotte thinks it a song. It slides with strength like whalesong, but it floats, too, like jellyfish, and it’s soft, like a water lily. But there’s a tingling that flows beneath it reminiscent of Liam and Arlen’s Gaelic, a tingle that swims fast through every finger, up her arm, down her neck.
When the song is over, Queen Avo says with sad smile, “It has been a long time since I’ve heard your sea-song, High Sage.”
“I’m too slow to be of much use on the embittered fringe, I’m afraid,” the sea turtle says with a sigh. The merman unwraps his fins, and Charlotte finds her fingers can wriggle and waggle once more.
Liam cups her hand in his, fingers running along every knuckle. His eyes shine as sunlight breaks the storm clouds. “Impressive, Sir. Thank you.”
Obsidian Mouth jaunts over in a flurry of clicks, fins slapping his melted face, and bends forward for the High Sage to inspect.
Charlotte and Liam turn towards Queen Avo to see a netted bubble approaching the ledge guided by Captain with the other merman on nautili behind her. A few librarians swim around nearby, one with crossed arms and a furrowed face. She slips back through the membrane, rope in hand. “All is ready, my queen.”
The grumpy librarian knocks another’s armful of needles loose into the water.
Captain catches this. Double-blinks her focus back on Liam and Charlotte. “We, er, probably should hurry. The staff are rather disappointed.”
Charlotte smacks her own forehead and whirls on Captain. “Lake Superior!”
“Shut UP!”
9
Friends Ashore
Three large nautili maneuver through the rusting graveyard.
“Did you know there are over five hundred wrecks down here?” Charlotte’s curled next to Liam on the floor of the bubble. Without any water-folk, the two gill-less find it easier to sit together at the bubble’s center than to stand precariously. The nautili swim with many halts and starts, like horses unhappy with their road. “They must have built the Library on the Shipwreck Coast. It’s this stretch of super-nasty coastline. Like, two hundred ships are crammed into this stretch alone. Pirates, Native Americans, fur traders, steam ship crews, the lot.”
A sharp jerk sets Liam and Charlotte on their sides. Captain’s eyes glare-blink through one of the net openings. They swim on.
“We’re getting closer to the portal, I think,” Liam says, still on his back. His heart’s fire yearns for sun and earth, yet when he looks at Charlotte, already upright and talking about some sort of locomotive discovered on the lake’s floor—what could the humans be thinking, running combustive engines underwater?—he sees the flickering lights in the forests of her eyes. No more shadows, no more belts, no more cackles behind closed doors. She has returned, my warrior queen of the tower, fearless and blazing. Her cheeks are kissed with a light blush as her healed hand strokes the leather of his harness. I will have to t
ake it back, I suppose. But I will make another for her, my sharer of this magic.
Another swift jerk, and Charlotte is thrown onto Liam. Her forehead knocks his chin with a quick thock.
The bubble’s net wilts back just enough for Captain to press her head through the bubble. “For the love of UnderSky and every Sea-Song, for your land and whatever you gill-less care about, pleeeeease, stop, TALKING.”
“All right, all right. Jeez.” Charlotte says this more to Liam’s neck than anything.
He does it. He can’t help it. Just…one quick press of his lips, like a feather brushed, on her forehead. No more, not with Captain’s annoyed clicking and Charlotte still going on, albeit in a whisper into his neck, about her own father’s near-wreck in an ocean’s storm.
Liam ignores the story as Charlotte’s taste still buzzes on his mouth: earth, lilac, fire. Perfect.
“I don’t think they’re much for conversation.”
By the timely jerk of the net, Liam presumes Captain agrees.
“Phooey. Maybe if they’d taken a sec to learn what was on all those boats, they wouldn’t let their elderly swim around and get copper poisoning.” But Charlotte does finally cease her naval history and rises up on her knees to see the little orbs of light gathering around the portal. She frowns a moment, then glances at Liam—his bruises, his injury, but not his face. “You okay enough for this?”
Liam takes hold of her hand. Holds it tight.
“Yes,” Liam breathes her in as he speaks. “With you, yes.”
Through the sea-scream, the surge, the aquatic fireflies unspooled and dancing, they find themselves once more on the other side of the old, broken wall with the seaweed floating peacefully, like a hag ever-watchful of those who visit their home. Queen Avo’s words still fresh in their minds, Charlotte and Liam look at the remains of homes and no longer see a forgotten, rotting mess.
“They must have had a town out here and everything,” Charlotte whispers as they float past the last of the hollowed structures with nothing but old seaweed to claim for its own.