Even though I should conserve my cagic, I’m too miserable, and so I create a block of shimmerlight to warm us up.
“How nice,” Fifsa says, leaning toward it. Then, only a few minutes later, she grabs my arm and points a mittened hand. “Look!”
The jagged shape of a nocturne lumbers over a distant ridge. It must be a shareck because of the fins lining its spine. It’s moving slowly too and will probably vanish soon, returning to the unknown realm where nocturnes live during the Bright Month. Fedorie would love to see this. She was obsessed with nocturnes and had memorized all sorts of facts about them. Just seeing one of the monsters makes me shiver, though.
“Don’t worry, we’re safe up here.” Fifsa wraps her arm around my shoulders, and I find her touch slightly more tolerable than before. “I’ve missed you so much,” she adds. “When you were trapped out there on that island, did you miss us?”
“I missed home,” I say, trying to be gently honest rather than bluntly honest.
Surely Fifsa knows what I mean, though. My home is Triumvirate Hall. It isn’t here. She lets go of me and sighs. “When I was young, I used to tell people that the Great Drae kidnapped my sister. Sometimes it still feels like that’s what happened.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I say. “I’m a Shimmerling, and Shimmerlings belong in Kaverlee. The palace protects us, and we have to be there to provide energy for the cityland. Can you imagine what life would be like if there wasn’t any cagic? You wouldn’t be able to charge your shockgun or use a stove and your shelter gates would be useless.”
Fifsa is quiet for a moment, and then she says, “That doesn’t change the fact that strangers took my baby sister. I remember it, you know. I remember Mother and Father crying. I remember Osren telling the Authenticators that if they wanted you so badly, they’d have to fight him. He was only seven.”
That makes me chuckle softly. I can’t imagine Osren fighting for me now.
Fifsa warms her hands in the shimmerlight cube’s soft, blue glow. “I’ll probably have children soon, and what if they’re like you… cagic-touched? What if I lose them?”
I’m sure she doesn’t realize how insulting she’s being, so I try not to get upset. Fifsa just doesn’t understand what being a Conduit means; Drae Devorla lives a life of service and sacrifice. Yet Fifsa’s probably never visited Kaverlee City and rarely left Outer’s Cove. It’s not her fault her perspective’s limited. “I was treated well in Kaverlee,” I tell her. “I liked living in the palace.”
Fifsa’s nostrils flare. “But you were young—so young. What if you hadn’t been authenticated at that age? What they’d taken you at seven or eight?”
I don’t understand what she’s trying to say. “My cagic powers are very strong. There’s no way I would have been authenticated later.”
“I’m not talking about cagic.” Fifsa gives me an impatient look. “What I mean is, if you were authenticated as an older child, you would remember that you didn’t want to leave us. You would remember that you once loved us as much as we love you. But now you never can; they warped your mind in the palace. I thought being shipwrecked might help you see things differently—but it didn’t.”
“No one warped my mind,” I sputter. To think I was beginning to enjoy Fifsa’s company. Still, I think I know why she’s truly upset. “You know it’s not my fault Mother and Father didn’t move to the city. I’m sure you missed out on many opportunities because they stayed here. If it had been up to me, I would have insisted my family move to Kaverlee proper. If you had, Father would probably still be alive.”
I expect Fifsa will continue arguing, but instead she sighs and gazes through the crude window. “The nocturne’s gone,” she says flatly.
It is, and soon—so soon—I’ll leave too.
Yet in the lunar morning, Mother hands me a letter that says otherwise.
“A postgirl just brought it round,” she says. “It came through the code office.”
I tear open the brown envelope and pull out a sheet of lined paper. Chunky black handwriting reads:
Dear Ms. Selvantez.
Delayed. Traveling north to Port Seffen for important possible authen. Will collect you before next Dark Month. Stay where you are.
Sincerely,
Golly Shalvo, C.A.
My hands shake as I reread the letter. Maybe I misunderstood something. But no, the worst has happened. I’m trapped in Outer’s Cove—with my family—most likely for the entire Bright Month.
I squeeze my fingers together, and oddly, the cagic always flowing through me feels wrong.
My drinking glass suddenly explodes in a burst of strange energy.
Mother screams in shock, and so do I. I’ve never seen cagic like that before. It looked like a splash of ink surrounded by glittering blue sparks.
It wasn’t shimmerlight—not at all.
Is there such a thing as shimmerdark?
6
Horselets
The Bright Month arrives with blushing light, frosty grass, and thankfully, no dawn storms.
Mother’s obviously pleased I’m trapped in Outer’s Cove and maybe even a bit gleeful. Her steps are bouncy, she picks everything up with unnecessary flourishes, and she even attempts to tell a few jokes: “Did you hear the one about the woliev who ate too many pies?”
Well, if she thinks my extended visit means I’m staying forever, I need to quickly correct her assumption.
So as Mother, Osren, and I move our belongings from the underground shelter to their Bright Month cottage, I say, “Thank you for letting me stay with you. And don’t worry, I’ll be on my way as soon as the Authenticators arrive.”
Osren grunts dismissively, either because doesn’t care or because he wishes I’d leave sooner.
Yet Mother says, “Of course, Xylia,” and there is an indulgent sweetness to her words. It’s as if she’s a Maternal telling Shimmerlings that the flying wish dolphin really does exist. “Whatever you decide,” she adds, “I’ll support your decision.”
“I have decided,” I say slowly and loudly to make sure she’s really listening. “I’m leaving Outer’s Cove to become an Authenticator.”
“And if you do, I’ll respect your choice,” Mother says far too cheerfully.
“I’ve already made my choice.” I frown as I adjust a basket of linens in the barrow I’m pushing. It was about to topple out. “I can’t stay here.”
Mother smiles. “We’re saying the same thing, dear.”
We’re definitely not, but at least I’ve tried.
After easing our barrows down a steep, bumpy road and through a grove of short, hunched trees, we reach the Selvantez cottage. My family may have aged and changed, but the little house nestled by the sea is exactly the same. Its sloping roof still has warped, mossy shingles, and Father’s Hidden God trinkets still decorate the walls inside. The porch door even makes the same grumpy sound when it swings shut.
I carry crates and baskets into the kitchen while Mother bustles about, opening the heavy Dark Month shutters to let in the chilly, dawn air.
“No sign of nocturnes!” she says proudly. “I keep telling Marsa to scrub her floors with citrus oil before sheltering, but she never listens. Her front door has been smashed in twice by nocturnes, and ours never has.”
“Where do you want these?” I ask, holding up some blankets.
“Actually, take this, Xylia.” Mother hands me a heavy pitcher, but before she tells me where to put it, we hear Osren wail.
“It’s ruined! All ruined!”
“What’s ruined?” I ask as Mother rushes outside.
I put down the pitcher and follow her around to the back of the cottage. There, we find my brother stomping around a heap of splintered wood. It might once have been a small shed. He snatches up particularly jagged planks and hurls them into the long grass, shouting things like, “Stupid!” and “Waste of time!” and “Bile-guzzling nocturnes!”
Mother gasps. “Osren!”
Wishing I w
asn’t related to him, I say, “A tantrum won’t solve anything.”
Osren looks tempted to throw splintered wood at me. “Nobody wants your city opinions.” He then pouts at Mother. “Why do they keep destroying it? Is it the smell? I can’t afford to rebuild it over and over, but I like to keep”—he eyes me suspiciously—“our investments here rather than at Bernan’s. I’m better with them.”
Mother shakes her head. “I’m sorry, Ozzie. Maybe this is a sign that your little project isn’t a good idea. If the labor agents file a complaint, you’ll lose everything.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask. “What project?”
Osren glares at me. “Stop pretending you care.”
I suppose he’s right, I don’t care, but I am curious. “If you need help rebuilding, let me know.”
Osren spits out a puff of air. “You? Help me?”
“Yes.” I nudge the wreckage with my foot. “I did all sorts of hard work on the island.”
“So you say.” Osren narrows his eyes. “Or maybe there never was any shipwreck. Maybe you just didn’t want to visit us anymore. You obviously hated Outer’s Cove, and you still do.”
“Osren!” Mother cries. “That’s enough.”
But I don’t get angry—not this time. I certainly don’t want that strange shimmerdark appearing again, and perhaps it’s better to show Osren that I’m not spoiled. So I take a deep breath, smile, and turn to Mother. “We have time for another trip to the shelter before supper. Let’s get the barrows.”
It takes two lunar days to fully move Mother and Osren from the shelter to the cottage, and then we spend a third day helping Fifsa’s in-laws move too. During our final trip to the shelter, I wryly think of how frustrated I was carrying my trunk through the subtrain station. Little did I know I’d soon spend hours hauling all sorts of belongings.
I must admit it’s nice being in the cottage, though. I settle into Fifsa’s old room over the porch, and something about the crisp sea air and watery dawn light gives me hope; maybe it’s a good thing that the Authenticators aren’t here yet. Now I have plenty of time to practice transference.
Mother and Osren resume their work for a local labor agency, and while they weed the nearby fields, I take advantage of being alone. I wake when Mother and Osren do, put on my warmest clothes, and eat a quick breakfast—usually sliced pearettes and bread. Then I wade through the long grass to the shore, where the land seems to tear away like ripped fabric. And there, in the briny, frosty air, I try to improve.
I quickly learn that kneeling is easier than standing on shimmerlight discs, and once I figure that out, I’m able to travel short distances before my eyes darken with cagic-blindness.
Sometimes I lose my nerve and the energy softens and dissipates beneath me, other times I move the cagic discs too quickly and I fall off, but after a week of hard work and several painful crashes, I can travel ten feet in any direction clear-eyed. Such simple movement won’t impress the Great Drae, but it’s encouraging progress.
When it’s too rainy to practice transference, I read. Father had several volumes of Hidden God folktales, Osren seems to enjoy murder mysteries, and then there’s Mother’s scrapbook. I pretended I wasn’t interested in it when she first showed me her collection of newsreader clippings about me, but later, when I was alone in the cottage, I flipped through the stiff pages. She’s saved stories about my Predrae selection, which are less interesting than I expect. But there are also stories about the shipwreck. I scour those for signs that the Great Drae was sad or worried about me, and all I find are impersonal statements like, “Triumvirate Hall considers the loss of Predrae Xylia Amoreah Selvantez deeply regrettable.”
Some of the articles mention Clicks and his wife Bermy too, referring to them by their proper names, Lord Calvolin and Lady Bermilia Nelvaso. But only one article includes Fedorie: “The Predrae’s travel governess was also lost.” And there’s no mention of Kary at all.
Thinking about Bermy always makes me sad. Clicks rarely talked about his wife when we were on the Grimshore, but Fedorie once told me that Bermy refused to climb into the rowboat we used to escape the ferry—she panicked. To save at least some of us, Clicks had to leave her behind.
Mother also kept a story about Tah Roli Miri’s official Predrae Induction, and that irks me a little. The writer mostly unenthusiastically describes what the new Predrae wore to the many official ceremonies. Yet at the end of the clipping is a quote that gives me hope: “I believe Tah Roli Miri will be a dependable asset to Kaverlee,” says the Great Drae. “But no one will ever replace Xylia.”
No one will ever replace Xylia.
I carefully peel the clipping out of Mother’s scrapbook, an easy task because the glue is brittle and dry, and then I hide the scrap of paper in my trunk.
At the end of the day, when the moon sinks down to the horizon, I often help Mother in her garden. She’s growing fast crops there: crisscross squash, stretcher beans, and snowflake berries. It seems unfair that she can’t have a larger garden and grow heartier slow crops—she certainly has room for one—but the labor agencies have harvest rights for certain plants. Some evenings, though, I walk to the village market with Fifsa or help her search the grasslands for her friend, Tury. He’s still missing, although a lot of people think he crept onto a subtrain and ran away. Apparently, the Authenticators coming to meet me were also planning to evaluate him, and he was dreading it.
That surprises me for several reasons. Why would anyone not want to be evaluated? Also, it’s rare for boys to be cagically gifted. Even though in Midnith most Shimmerlings are boys, girls are usually more talented. There were only two male Shimmerlings at Triumvirate Hall when I was young, and they didn’t live in the Courtyard of Youth. And if Tury is the same age as Fifsa, he’ll be winking out soon. Why would the Authenticators even bother?
“If he died in the wild during the Dark Month, you won’t find a body,” Osren tells us. “The nocturnes eat people whole, you know. One gulp and gone.”
As for Osren, if I’m feeling extremely patient, I help him rebuild his stable. Osren is very exacting about its construction, and whenever I do something wrong, he clucks his tongue and says, “Just as I expected.”
Ever so slowly the Bright Month passes. The lunar days grow warm and then unbearably hot as the sun climbs to the top of the sky. Bugs endlessly rattle and buzz, shadows shrink, and we end each day with a swim in the ocean. To preserve my traveling clothes, I borrow outfits from Fifsa. Her stolas and cloth hats aren’t flattering, but at least they’re comfortable in the stifling, mid-month heat.
On one airless, sticky day, I have the horrible realization that I’ve been in Outer’s Cove for three weeks, and if the Authenticators are going to collect me, they’d better arrive soon. At this time of year, the Bright Month is only five weeks long.
The thought of spending an entire Dark Month in Outer’s Cove makes me so gloomy I can’t focus on transference. So instead, I spend the morning giving Osren’s hutch a final coat of paint while he’s at work.
When Osren comes home, he doesn’t say thank you, but the next morning he appears on the bluffs where I’m practicing.
“I need to talk to you,” he shouts over the nearby waves, surprising me.
The cagic disc I’m sitting on dissipates in a spray of blue-green sparks, and I tumble to the ground.
“Talk to me about what?” I say crossly, blinking my vision clear and brushing blades of grass off Fifsa’s stola. I expect him to criticize my painting.
But instead, Osren nods at something he’s cradling in his woolen palliumcoat.
As I walk over to him, a narrow, triangular head noses its way out of the fabric.
“Is that… a tiny pony?” I say softly, for the question seems too ridiculous to ask at a normal volume.
“It’s not a pony,” Osren says as if I’m an idiot. “It’s a horselet. The stable we rebuilt is for my herd.”
“A horselet,” I say, shocked that my off-puttin
g brother could own something so sweet. “May I hold it?”
“Only if you’re careful,” Osren says.
I take the small animal into my arms, and it feels like I’m holding a bundle of warm sticks wrapped in a velvet blanket. The creature certainly is horse-like, but its tummy is rounder, and its eyes and pointy ears are overly large. And just when I don’t think it could be any cuter, the little animal makes a high-pitched neighing noise. “It’s… it’s adorable.”
“Of course you’d say that.” Osren rolls his eyes.
His hard tone makes me think about how we had to eat everything we caught on the Grimshore no matter how appealing it was. And although horse meat isn’t common in Kaverlee, it is in some citylands. “You’re not selling these for food, are you?” I ask.
Osren scoffs. “Don’t be stupid. They’re too valuable. The Mighty Sharn bred them, and they’re popular pets across the Silkord Sea. My friend Bernan and I bought four from a smuggler, and once we have a big enough herd, we’ll sell them in Kaverlee City.”
The Mighty Sharn is Highland Tilber’s cagic conduit, just like the Great Drae is ours. I know she experiments with the natural world because Drae Devorla used to complain that her creations were reckless.
“These horselets must have been expensive,” I say. “Where did you get the money?”
I expect Osren to say it’s none of my business, but his mouth slides sideways and he says, “Triumvirate Hall gave Mother and Father some sesterii when you were shipwrecked. Compensation, I suppose. Too little too late, I say. Anyway, after Father died, Mother invested in my business.”
I hope she hasn’t wasted her money. “I think he wants to be put down.” The horselet is squirming in my arms. “Will he run away?”
“She’s a mare, and of course not,” Osren says. “She’s well-trained.”
So I put the horselet into the grass. She prances around us on her tiny hooves and sometimes nibbles on wildflowers, but Osren’s right, she doesn’t wander off.
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