“Morgana?” her familiar voice answered, and my shoulders sagged in relief. “Morgana, don’t come up here.”
At the top of the stairs, I found her curled in the corner on the dusty floor. Her dark hair had slipped from its bun, strands clinging to tear-streaked cheeks. She was clasping an old sheet, tattered and torn, around her, but she was alive.
Relief flooded me as I took her in. She hadn’t drowned and ended up on SSJones’s Lady.
“Get away from me.” She held up her palm to shield herself from my gaze as Aranare burst up the stairs behind me.
I rushed over, kneeling on the dusty concrete beside her. “What happened?”
“Don’t come near me,” she cried, pushing herself further into the brick wall.
“Skye, it’s me.” I searched her eyes but found only fear staring back at me.
“Just tell us what happened.” Aranare knelt on her other side, and she shrank against the wall, pressing herself as far from us as possible.
“I’m sorry I went on the yacht.” Her eyes filled with tears.
“It’s okay.” I took her hand. It was cold, and some acrylic nails had fallen off.
“Parker, he—” She gestured to her neck, and I noticed the bruises onit and more around her eye. My teeth gritted, and Aranare blew out an angry breath.
“I fell overboard into the ocean.” Skye burst into shaky sobs.
“We’ll take you to the hospital, and after that, you can stay with me. You never have to see him again.”
She shook her head frantically, continuing to press herself against the wall.
“You’re safe now,” I said as I squeezed her fingers. “Let’s get you home and warm.”
“Get away from me,” she screamed, yanking her hand from mine.
“You’ll get hyperthermia.” I reached for her again.
“I said, don’t touch me!” Skye’s brown eyes blazed gold, and with a sweep of her hand, a surge of wind slammed Aranare and me against the opposite wall.
“What the hell?” I spluttered as I picked myself up.
Skye’s eyes widened in horror, and she stared at her hands. Then she scrambled to her feet and rushed to our side. “I’m so sorry. I told you to stay away—it’s not safe. I... I’m a monster.” Her voice broke as she collapsed into trembling sobs.
“You’re not a monster.” I turned to Aranare, who was watching the scene unfold with a look of calm contemplation in his eyes.
“I am!” Skye wailed. “I’ll show you.” She stopped sobbing and stood in the center of the lighthouse, her eyes scanning the space until they landed on a plastic bucket that must have been used to gather water from a leak in the roof. She raced over to it, plucked it from the floor, and emptied it over her head.
“Skye—” I reached for her but then froze, my breath hitching, as scales blossomed across every inch of her body, ripping the old sheet further as they slithered across her full breasts and over her torso. They werebeautiful, the scales. Baby blue fused with pink and aquas, like the inside of an abalone shell.
I knew I needed to say something—after what I’d seen, this was nothing—but I couldn’t find the words.
A single tear rolled from Skye’s eye, and my mouth fell open as wings sprouted from her back. She cried out, her face contorted in pain as the wings grew, feathered like something pulled from an angelic painting, but like the scales, they shone in greens and blues and were spanned with what looked like webs.
“See?” Her hazel eyes dimmed. “I’m a monster.”
“You are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” Aranare said, his voice hoarse. The words snapped me out of my shock.
He was right; she was.
“So, what happened after you hit the waves?” I chewed on my lip as I took her in. The water she had doused herself with had started to dry, and her scales were disappearing.
“Well, I blacked out from the punch, and when I came to, I was sinking. The water was in my lungs, pushing me down and suffocating me. I couldn’t breathe. That was it—I knew it. My heart slowed, and peace overcame me. I was dead.” Skye’s wings vanished, and she startled, then sank back onto the sandy stone floor, wrapping the torn sheet around herself as the rest of her scales faded. “Then a woman appeared to me. She told me her name was... it was something strange, like ‘a cup—’”
