Page 184 of The Black Witch

“I think I might be able to find out where the skins are kept,” Rafe volunteers. “I know of some Gardnerians who frequent the Selkie taverns—”

“Selkie taverns?” I have a feeling I really don’t want to know what this is.

“It’s possibly where they keep them,” Rafe explains, looking around uncertainly. “I’m not sure how blunt I can be here. It’s not our custom, and I know it’s not the custom of the Elves to speak about certain things in the presence of women.”

“This is foolishness,” Diana scoffs.

Wynter pulls her wings more tightly around herself. “There is nothing you could say that would be worse than what I have felt from her mind. It is...unspeakable.”

“You’re an Empath?” Yvan says to Wynter. He’s looking at her strangely.

Wynter nods at him.

“Tell us what you know of the Selkie,” Rafe encourages Wynter.

Wynter closes her eyes and leans to one side like a small tree bent by a raging storm, her face tense with pain. “She was brought to one of those taverns, along with others of her kind. All of them...undressed. Shown to men.” Her brow knits even tighter. “The face of the groundskeeper looms heavy in her mind. She was claimed by this man. Money given for her. He took her for his own and...abused her. Many times.” She tilts her head. “And there is another face. The face of another Selkie, this one younger, perhaps—captured at the same time. She feels crippling fear for this Selkie. Her thoughts are consumed by these images. It is hard to make out any more. She does not have a language that I understand.”

Everyone is quiet for a moment.

“So we need to find her skin,” Jarod observes, his expression grave. “Perhaps the groundskeeper has hidden it somewhere.”

“Or destroyed it,” Andras remarks.

“No,” Yvan puts in. “It must exist.”

“How can you be sure?” I ask him.

He turns his green eyes on me. “If it had been destroyed, she would be a soulless shell, with no emotion. Like the living dead.”

A chill runs down my spine, and we all exchange dark looks, realizing the stakes are much higher than we thought for Marina, the newly named Selkie.

“Well, it’s settled, then,” Rafe says, his tone light, but his eyes hard as stone. “We’ll just have to find it.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Camouflage

Over the next week Marina the Selkie slowly begins to shed her fear when she’s around Diana, Wynter, Aislinn and me. And new friendships have been formed—Rafe, Cael, Rhys and Andras have fallen into an easy camaraderie and are now hunting together. There’s even been tentative conversation between Yvan and my brothers when they’re discreetly in their lodging.

Yvan stealthily speaks to me now, asking about the Selkie if we have a brief moment in the kitchen alone, quietly helping me with kitchen tasks when it will go unnoticed. I nearly fall over the first time he gives me a warm half smile, my heartbeat turning erratic.

But we have to be careful. Careful not to show that we’re rapidly becoming friends.

* * *

I’ve decided to put my Gardnerian silks back on, wanting to blend in with my people and remain above suspicion—Marina’s life might depend on it.

Marina watches me, her ocean eyes steady as I pull one of my fine Gardnerian-black, silken tunics over my head for the first time in a long time, my jaw clenched with resolve as I tug at the fabric and mentally beat back a swelling nausea. The shock of seeing myself in the washroom mirror sets me reeling even further.

A true Gardnerian—right down to the silver Erthia orb around my neck.

The very image of Her.

I glance over toward Marina, and the Selkie’s trusting gaze sends shame coursing through me. Tears stinging at my eyes, I turn away from her and struggle to tie up the tunic’s laced back, my fingers fumbling.

I hate Vogel, I want to tell her in a way she’ll understand.I’m nothing like my cursed people, even though I look like this. I don’t want to look like this.

The Selkie’s fingers come over mine, gently taking the laces from my hands and deftly tying them tight as tears spill over and streak down my cheeks.

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