Hidden in Sealskin

by Thea van Diepen

“We won’t be doing it inside the mansion.”

  The footman gave a significant glance at the door.

  “Nadin left something inside when he brought me here.”

  “What sort of something?”

  All the saints and gods besides, she was drawing a blank.

  “My wallet. See?” said Nadin, his voice steady as he showed his empty pockets. The footman looked unconvinced.

  “You could have left your wallet at home when you came here now. Why would you even need it at this time of night?”

  “How am I supposed to lock the garage without keys?”

  The footman squinted at Nadin, holding his gaze. Common knowledge held that this could test a person’s honesty, but Adren knew that all it tested was their confidence. She didn’t want to bet on Nadin being a confident liar and be wrong.

  “Nadin, let’s just do our ‘activities’ right now. Seeing as he won’t believe anything else from us,” she took a step towards him. The footman recoiled, his lamp swinging.

  “Go find your wallet. It’s time I went back to sleep.”

  Both Adren and Nadin nodded, and the footman took off. Adren laughed. Nadin just stared at the footman’s quickly receding figure, mouth open.

  “What just happened?” His question only made Adren laugh even more, her sides shaking as she tried to keep silent. Funny as the result had been, Adren’s laughter stemmed more from a release of the tension that had built since she had robbed the lord’s vault. Oh, but the footman’s face when she had made her suggestion had been too perfect. She could not deny she enjoyed getting back at him for his gossip. In the back of her mind, she felt the unicorn wake for a moment, terrified, but it soon returned her amusement and went back to sleep.

  Excitement filled Adren as she thought of the cure the next day would bring, and how she would tell the unicorn this story, but she only allowed herself a moment’s indulgence. She had to remain undistracted if she and Nadin were to succeed. Oh, but what a joy it would be!

  “He thought we were lovers,” Adren told Nadin once she had calmed enough.

  “What?” His face turned a spectacular shade of red.

  “Sssshh! We only have so much time. Questions later.” Nadin followed as she tried to remember the way back to the attic. The mansion held deep shadows at this hour. Near the windows, all the darkness could do was obscure details, but farther away the black couldn't be held at bay. There it engulfed the surroundings, body and soul.

  Aside from that place in her mind, Adren wasn’t afraid of the dark, but she didn’t scoff at those who were. The night could change the shape and character of a place so completely as to make it alien. Even if someone had walked a road a thousand times in the day, they would not know it once the sun had fallen, and so would fear to tread it. Light showed the world as it was, but darkness hid it, made it unknown, made the mind have to invent things to fill the gaps between the light.

  But those gaps did not bring the greatest terror—that honour belonged to when the unseen and seen mixed. Darkness would twist the shapes of what a person could perceive but, when it had the power to manipulate the light, it wouldn’t make those shapes unrecognizable. Instead, it would force the viewer to recognize them; it would hold their attention so that they could not hide from the horror of what they saw: that which they had known and taken for granted made into their enemy. To see with the light something they had trusted and why they had trusted it, even as the darkness revealed how false that trust had been. When the two mixed so constantly that no one had ever seen them apart, how, then, could anyone know what was true?

  And if no one knew what was true, then how could they do anything but fear?

  The moon shone through a window at the end of the hall as Adren stopped to remember how to get to the third floor. If the stairs from the main floor had been there, the kitchen was over there, and they were next to the window, then… then… She kneaded her fingers against her forehead, trying to recreate a map of the floor in her head. If only they could walk through walls. If only she had both hers and Nadin’s magic.

  “Anything?” she asked. Nadin scanned their surroundings.

  “Up that way, I think,” he said, staring to her left, at a place where the wall and ceiling met.

  Adren frowned. Nadin had admitted his magic was patchy, but that didn’t mean she had to like his uncertain phrasing.

  Nadin grinned. “Time for a game of hot-and-cold.”

  “What?”

  “You know, hot-and-cold.” Adren shook her head. “The children’s game?” Again she shook her head. Nadin sighed. “Never mind.” He rubbed his hands and started down the hallway, Adren following.

  They kept their footsteps soft, Adren alert to all other sounds, in case the footman wasn’t the only person to prowl the mansion at night, and if the lady started sleepwalking. Would Nadin be able to detect her before she came? That depended on which magic he could see, and which the lady had.

  Despite the diversity of magical creatures, there were only two kinds of magic. The first only gave abilities, like Adren’s invisibility and Nadin’s ability to see through it, and it was predefined and limited in scope. The second involved raw magic living inside the creature, the material from which spells could be created, or magical objects, or abilities given to another non-magical being. In living things, this living magic always came with the other, but abilities could exist in a creature without it.

  Nadin had said he could find magical objects, which meant he could see the second kind, and which meant he would be able to find the jewel, but there was also a chance he could find the lady. Adren prayed she was right about the lady’s magic, and that Nadin wouldn’t be able to see it.

  They had reached the third floor when Adren heard a door open on the floor below them, somewhere near the bottom of the stairs. She and Nadin stiffened, listening to the footsteps as they travelled away from the staircase. Before long, they faded, and the two relaxed.

  “At which point they both wondered if the mysterious walker only needed to relieve themselves,” whispered Nadin with a grin.

  “I didn't,” Adren said. Nadin shrugged as his smile fell.

  “Do you know where we could go? I think I lost track of the magic.”

  She considered kicking him for letting the walker distract him that much, but it would have done them little good.

  “This way.” She went past him, having reoriented herself by this point. He muttered something to himself, but she ignored him. Conversation would only distract them further, and silence gave Adren more peace than talk ever did. Nadin could squirm all he wanted if the quiet bothered him. He would never know the beauty of a clear, ordered mind if he insisted on filling every spare inch of his life with words, but that wasn’t her problem.

  They had nearly reached the attic ladder when a noise came from behind. Nadin shoved her into a nearby room, closing the door and, with a thunk as his back hit the wood, stood in front of it. Adren’s heart started to race. Close as the room already felt in the dark, she could swear the walls were pressing inwards, a sensation that made her skin crawl. She was about to swear at Nadin, but his voice stopped her.

  “My lady.”

  Sweet saints. Had they walked by her without seeing?

  Chapter Five

  Several courses of action occurred to Adren, not the least of which was bursting through the door and out of this room. Was there a clock inside? She thought she heard a tick-tock-tick-tock from the corner, a mockery of her own heartbeat. With a deliberate breath, she tried to get herself under control. The unicorn remained asleep, off in the forest, and it needed to stay that way. Besides, forcible escape would only harm their chances at finding the sealskin. With the lady’s condition being what it was, there was no way to predict how she would react to Adren’s presence, and Adren wasn’t in the mood to find that out. She opted for another path and pressed her ear against the door, listening intently.

  “Your… lady?” a second voice said hoarsely.
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br />   “Yes, you are my lady. Lady Watorej.”

  “What does that mean, ‘Watorej’? It cannot be my name if I know naught of what it means.”

  “Certainly it could. I don’t know what my name means, but I’ve never held that against it. My lady, why are you here?”

  “I thought the ocean had risen from the shore to carry me away, but now I perceive neither where it has gone nor if it ever came. I dearly wish for water again.” The lady’s voice had a singsong cadence, which Adren hoped signified sleepwalking.

  “Maybe if you went back to your room, you'd find it.”

  “But it is my room that cages me, keeps me locked from the other half of my being.” A pause. “I see your meaning. Even if the ocean came, I could not run away with it. I am naked.”

  Adren’s breath caught. She knew now what the lady was.

  “My lady, I assure you that you’re not… naked. You must just be cold and wanting to return to your warm blankets.”

  “Mayhap, but methinks not.” But her quiet footsteps indicated she had left.

  Adren opened the door and left the room with a shudder. How open the hall was! She jabbed Nadin, who was staring down the hallway, in the shoulder. He rubbed it, shook his head, and focused on Adren. She pointed at the attic ladder and he followed her up.

  In the attic, they set to work; Adren opened the boxes and chests as quietly as possible while Nadin checked everything for magic. Lord Watorej kept some of the strangest things. One box contained nothing but bent nails, and another held only a seashell. Nearly half the chests had one doll included among their contents, no matter what the rest was. A few chests appeared to be made of what were originally the planks of a ship, a few with barnacles stuck to them. By the light coming in from the window, Adren could make out words painted on some. And, as much as she searched with dedication, Nadin seemed distracted. He kept going through the same boxes. She had to remind him multiple times to move on to the next.

  “Do any of them contain anything magical?” she asked, exasperated. He paused, cocked his head as if to listen, and then shook it. Adren could hardly believe it. They had already searched at least two dozen containers. “You were planning on telling me this when?”

  He shrugged, then paused. “The lady isn’t human.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I think she’s a selkie. What she said about the ocean and being naked… I don’t know why I never noticed her magic until now. I just thought she was a little out of her head. You’re getting the sealskin for her, aren’t you? So she can escape and turn back into a seal? And the magic thing inside of it is just that: magic.” His voice was low, thoughtful.

  Nadin was right, for what it was worth. Lady Watorej was a selkie. No wonder the lord had a doctor giving her treatments so that she would act human—many in this part of the country held views about what the saints taught about the intermarriage of humans and magical creatures that would create problems for his reputation. “It’s not hers. Someone else owns it. I don’t know where hers is.” Adren readied herself for the possibility that Nadin might try to stop her. A jewel case that doubled as a decoy sealskin… Lord Watorej was more paranoid than she had expected. Or more controlling.

  Nadin frowned. “But it has to be hers. Why else would Lord Watorej keep it in his mansion?”

  “For the thing inside of it,” Adren said through gritted teeth.

  “Which is what, exactly?” Nadin crossed his arms. “I’m not going any further until you tell me what you’re really doing here. There is no way I’ll help you harm Lady Watorej in any way.”

  “But you’re willing to steal from your lord?”

  “You said he’d stolen it from someone else. I thought I was helping get it back to its rightful owner. What’s really going on?”

  Nadin may have been part fairy, but his ties to humans were close. Telling him that the unicorn was vulnerable would only open it to more harm. Especially with his mother so ill… even if she told him now and the unicorn was cured the next morning, what would stop him from finding it before then and using it against its will? But suppose he decided to wait until the unicorn was sane again and suppose that the potion maker’s cure ended up being powerless, or a fake. Adren wasn’t sure how well she would be able to defend the unicorn from him if he brought allies and didn’t hold back with his magic.

  “I don’t trust you,” she finally said.

  Even in the shadows, Adren could see that Nadin wrestled with something. His hands had become fists, clenched until his knuckles turned white, and he chewed his lip.

  “Adren, I don’t want to hurt you.” His eyebrows shot up and he nodded to himself. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  The sentiment was nice, perhaps. It was also what someone said to blame their circumstances for the eventual pain they would inflict. Or they blamed the person they hurt. The truth was that no one ever did what they didn't, on some level, want. Adren wanted to toss the statement aside, and Nadin with it, except for the sweetness that spread across her tongue.

  “Do you really believe that?”

  “Yes.”

  Was that all it was? That she could sense the truth when the person who said it also believed it, deeply? It couldn’t be. It couldn’t. She didn’t want to trust Nadin. Not with this. She hadn’t trusted anyone with this since…

  But there was no other choice. She needed him on her side.

  “There’s a potion maker in town who needs the magic jewel hidden in the sealskin in order to make a cure for madness. I need that cure for the unicorn.”

  Nadin nodded. “But I’m still concerned about my lady. If she’s a selkie, then Lord Watorej trapped her here.”

  “I know. I already figured that out. We can’t do anything about that until the unicorn is cured.” Adren fidgeted, restless at all this talk when they could be using the time to find what they needed. She started down the ladder.

  “Yes we can. We can find both sealskins, give the lady hers, and get the other to the potion maker.” Nadin stood at the top of the ladder, but didn’t make a move to go down it.

  “What if hers isn’t in the mansion? If we cure the unicorn, it can help us find it and rescue her,” said Adren as she motioned for him to follow. He didn’t budge.

  “We’ll just have to keep on looking for it after we’ve found yours. I can’t sit and wait for you and your unicorn if I can help her right now.”

  “And I can’t wait if I can help the unicorn right now,” Adren said, letting steel enter her voice.

  “Lady Watorej has been held captive here for five years and is being made to pretend she’s human. No one's helped her. No one's even known she needed help. It’s our duty to do all we can the moment we can.” He sat down, arms crossed. Adren felt about ready to grab him by the shirt and drag him after her.

  “The unicorn has been trapped by madness for as long as I can remember, maybe even longer. I am the only one who has ever cared enough to help it. I will not abandon it. Not ever.”

  Nadin shook his head. Never mind dragging him; Adren wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake him to pieces. How could he not see? She would never abandon the lady. The unicorn came first, it always had, and once it was healed, she could come for the lady. Five years was long, true enough, and waiting would be hard, but the unicorn needed the help more than the lady did. Adren paced, trying to find a way to convince Nadin out of his stubbornness. There had to be something in his life that compared…

  “If you had a cure for your mother, would you waste any time in giving it to her? After having worked so long, would you make her wait any more?” Nadin rubbed his nose, his expression softening. “I’ve put everything I’ve ever wanted in life aside to find a cure for the unicorn, and it has taken me years to get to this point. I won't let anything get in my way. The lady has to wait.”

  “Only if we at least try to find her sealskin while we’re looking for yours,” said Nadin, one of his knees starting to jiggle. Adren held back a smile.
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  “Fine. But we go once I have mine.”

  Nadin nodded and climbed down the ladder.

  “Where to next?” he asked. Adren resisted the urge to shrug.

  “Depends on what you see.” Nadin stared at her, eyes wide. “Get going.”

  “I can’t. I’ll lose it again and then we won’t be able to figure out anywhere to go. Please, just give me a starting point.”

  Excellent. Adren understood that his magic required him to be alert and relaxed, but she didn’t have the time for this.

  “No. Find it again.”

  “What if I can’t?”

  Ugh. Nadin really needed to work on this lack of self-confidence thing, no matter how common a problem it was for humans his age.

  “Magic doesn’t leave because you have difficulties using it. You either have it, or you don’t. And you do.” Nadin opened his mouth. “Don’t argue. Find something.” He closed his mouth and bit his lip, but he scanned the area.

  “Right there,” he said, pointing.

  Not long after, Adren stared at the clock in the library.

  “This?” she asked, jerking her thumb at it. Nadin nodded. “Then how do we open it?” He shrugged. Glaring at him, Adren ran her fingers along the sides of the clock’s body, starting where she had left off earlier that day, but the only seam she could find was where pieces of wood had been joined. She stepped back.

  “Maybe I’m wrong and it’s in the next room,” Nadin said, rubbing his neck.

  “Or you’re right and it’s here, but needs magic to open it.” Considering Lord Watorej’s insistence that his possessions be cleaned as often as they were, Adren doubted he would have hid such a valuable item where servants could get at it when they needed to oil the gears. She made a noise of displeasure, at which Nadin gave a nervous glance.

  “What kind of magic does it need?”

  “I don’t know. An enchantment of some kind. You’re going to have to do it.” When he and the unicorn had first met, he’d attacked it with magic, for which reason Adren was fairly certain he had raw magic. Which she didn’t. Having him around had come in more handy than she had expected.