Page 17 of Heir of Autumn
Namirah was the first to copy me, followed by Sylvain, then Satchel. He looked down at how his feet couldn’t reach the water and harrumphed in disappointment. Finally Evander approached, sitting crosslegged instead of soaking his feet like the rest of us. Good enough, I guess, if fancy Mr. Skink didn’t want to risk getting his expensive shoes and clothes wet.
“Where are you from?” said another mermaid, her hair in beaded braids, her skin dark and lustrous. She flicked her braids over her shoulder, wanting to get a closer look at Sylvain’s trousers.
His brow furrowed when she ran a finger along the leaves in fascination. He didn’t react, perhaps understanding that the merfolk were only curious about how we looked. The mermaid looked up and repeated her question, smiling. Sylvain opened his mouth to answer, but immediately snapped his lips shut again.
“We’re from Earth,” I said, answering for the rest of us. “The Wispwood, specifically. I’m sure we’re not the first people from the academy you’ve encountered here.”
“Oh, definitely not,” said the first mermaid. “But it’s always nice to have visitors. And it’s always polite to ask where someone is from.” She beamed at me expectantly, her hands folded together.
Namirah cleared her throat and took the mermaid’s hint. “And where are you from?”
“Why, from here, of course.” The second mermaid gestured at the sea. “This is our home.”
I knew the nomadic pixies we met were native to the Oriel of Air, and yet it still surprised me to learn that sentient creatures like themselves and the merfolk could call the oriels home. But they were luminal spaces, I reminded myself, just as the headmasters explained. Different, overlapping parts of the world where the elements converged and concentrated, making them attractive, ideal environments for the nonhuman among us.
“And it truly is lovely to receive new guests,” said the mermaid. “And not only humans this time.” She smiled openly at Satchel, who rubbed his cheek and smiled awkwardly back.
She leaned in toward Sylvain’s thigh, taking a brief whiff of the leaves forming his trousers. His eyebrows shot up his forehead. Was she smelling for something else?
“You,” she said, blinking up at him. “There’s something different about you. You aren’t human.”
My butt clenched. Evander still didn’t know about Sylvain’s true identity. Sylvain looked around, locked eyes with me, and puffed out his chest.
“I am an alraune,” he announced. “A creature of earth.”
“That makes perfect sense,” said the lither and leaner of the mermen, his long hair trailing behind him in the water as he swam closer. “You, however,” he said, addressing me. “There’s something especially different about you.”
He sniffed at me the way the mermaid had sniffed at Sylvain.
“Yes,” the burlier merman said, swimming closer himself, until the two of them were flanking me. “Now that you mention it, there’s a different quality to this one.”
I chuckled nervously, unsure of what was going on. Off to my side I could sense the quiet, simmering jealousy radiating from Sylvain’s skin.
“You guys, I’m only human like the others. Honest. I would know, I promise you.”
The blond mermaid tilted her head, her hand on her chin. “No. You’re different. There’s quite a lot of water in you, isn’t there?”
Evander laughed. “Humans are supposed to be mostly water. You must be detecting all the fluids that run through our bodies. Well, through Locke’s body in particular.”
“Very strange,” said the long-haired merman. “We know of blood and the other vital humors, naturally. But it’s not that at all. Very strange indeed.”
“Well,” I said, “I hope I’m not so strange that you’d consider us unworthy of a little aid. We’d love to ask you for some information, being citizens of the seas. We actually came looking for a unicorn. A water-bound unicorn. Have you seen one in the area?”
The second mermaid frowned. “Now just what in the wide blue ocean is a unicorn?”
Namirah winced and clenched her teeth. How had none of us considered the fact that a water creature would have no point of reference for a four-legged land animal? Unless —
“It’s like a kelpie,” I said, once again calling on what I remembered from Ermengarde Frost’s books. A kelpie was a sort of shapeshifter closely associated with the element of water, but one that most frequently took the form of a horse.
“Oh,” the blond mermaid squealed, clapping her hands. “You mean like a water horse.”
Somewhere off to my side Evander giggled, like he knew how proud I’d been to show off my knowledge of mythology. I’d completely forgotten. Water horses were totally a thing in multiple world mythologies, too.
“Yes,” I told the mermaid, ignoring Evander’s snickers. “So a kelpie, or a water horse, only one that has a very sharp horn in the center of its forehead.”
The merfolk looked at each other, shook their heads, and shrugged. The merman with long hair spoke. “That doesn’t sound like any water horse I’ve ever seen.”
The fifth member of their group added her voice to the chorus.
