“You three are as close to Gardnerian royalty as you can get,” Cael points out. “And this uncle of yours, he raised you to be so...subversive. It’s amazing he’s still alive. He must be a very clever man.”
It’s an odd choice of words to describe our bumbling, bookish uncle Edwin, who spends his free time making herbal teas, hunting for mushrooms and playing with my cat. Who often goes looking for his glasses when they’re sitting on his head.
“Seems to me you two are bucking tradition a little yourselves,” Rafe says to Cael, “with your support of your sister.”
“Maybe we should get back to talking about the Selkie?” Jarod suggests diplomatically.
“She needs to be named,” Diana points out. “We can’t keep referring to her as ‘the Selkie.’ It’s insulting. She deserves to be named.”
Rafe’s look of amusement disappears as he studies Diana. “You’re right.”
“Marina,” says Wynter quietly. “It means ocean. It’s where she wants to go. Where her family is. I think that should be her name.”
“It’s beautiful,” I tell Wynter as she wraps her wings tightly around herself.
Rafe is looking around, gauging everyone’s response. “Well, if we’re all in agreement,” he says, “Marina it is. Now, my understanding is that Yvan has brought us some books from the archives that contain information about Selkies.”
Yvan leans over to pull two leather-bound volumes from a sack next to him.
“It’s not much,” he says, “but it’s all I could find. I think the main problem is finding her skin. Unless it is in her possession, she can’t return to her seal form. It must have been stolen from her when she was captured, or she wouldn’t be so weak. A Selkie with her skin is as strong as a Lupine.”
Diana straightens, always pleased with Lupines being used as the strength standard.
“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.
When I emerge from the washroom, Ariel catches sight of me and flinches back as if struck, then gives me a scathing look of pure hate.
“I have to fit in,” I try to explain to Ariel, my palms out in surrender. “I have to dress like them. You know I’m not like most Gardnerians. But we’re hiding a Selkie,” I gesture toward Marina. “It’s important that I fit in. You must see that.”
A wave of guilt washes over me as Ariel ignores my words and scuttles clear across her bed, huddling against the wall and glowering at me. Her dark look is only mildly assuaged by Wynter taking a seat beside her, murmuring soothing words as Ariel buries her head against Wynter’s chest, the Elfin Icaral’s dark wings coming protectively around them both.
Wynter’s eyes rest on Marina for a moment, the Selkie taking a seat on the floor by the fire, next to Diana. Wynter turns to me, takes in my garb, then nods once, her silver eyes full of steeled understanding.
Diana casually throws her arm around our Selkie and looks me over, a shrewd gleam lighting her gaze. She raises her amber eyes and gives me a wide, sly smile of approval, baring her teeth.
I take a good deal of comfort from this—I can count on my Lupine friend to fully understand strategy in a fight.
I pick up my new white armband and turn to Diana. “Would you help me put this on?”
Her dark, knowing smile doesn’t flinch. Diana gets up and strides toward me. She takes the Vogel band and cinches it securely around my arm.
*
Priest Simitri smiles broadly when I come into his History class early, pale rays of wintry light spearing through the windows. He takes in my conservative attire, complete with a white Vogel ribbon pinned around my arm.
“Ah, Mage Gardner,” he observes with obvious relief. He’s been dismayed for weeks by my dark brown, barely acceptable woolen garb, his vocal support for Vogel mirrored by his own ribbon. “You stand now in courage,” he tells me. “Even though you have been forced to labor with Kelts and Urisk, and to live with Icaral demons, you have the courage to stand apart. To let your dress proudly declare both your faith and your support of our beloved Priest Vogel. I applaud you.”
It’s not courage, I think darkly, my stomach now a constant knot. It’s camouflage.