She resolved not to panic. She’d think as she sailed. And an answer would come to her.
Across the water, she saw a herd of merhorses rise and fall with the waves. Her breath caught in her throat. Half horse and half fish, they were a magnificent sight. She watched, mesmerized, as they cantered through the water. Their hooves crashed through the waves as their powerful fish tails propelled them forward. Covered in jewellike scales and made of solid muscle, they were the living embodiment of both beauty and strength.Like the sea itself,Kiela thought. One of them tossed its mane, and droplets sprayed up and caught the light—a flash of rainbow.
“Caltrey,” Kiela said.
“Excuse me?”
“It’s an island.”
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“I’d be surprised if you had,” Kiela said. “It’s tiny and remote. Far to the north. It doesn’t fall on any of the shipping lanes. The locals herd merhorses to aid with their fishing.”
Curious, Caz lifted himself up between the crates and perched on one to look out across the ocean. “Why do you know about it? Oh, don’t tell me—you read about it.”
“Actually, no. It’s where I was born.” She heard a hitch in her voice, and she swallowed hard. She hadn’t thought about Caltrey in years—she didn’t know why just thinking of returning would make her feel so jumbled.
Her parents had left as soon as they could afford it, to seek a better life in the capital city—they’d wanted to experience life in Alyssium, and they’d wanted Kiela to have the kind of opportunities they, growing up on a remote island, never had. She’d been barely nine years old at the time, but she still remembered the island with its cliffs and farms and gardens. The sole village on the island, also called Caltrey, was three cobblestone streets wide with a mill by a waterfall and a school that was housed in an old barn. She remembered the way it looked at sunset, with the island’s winged cats perched on the rooftops, and the way it smelled at dawn of fresh-baked bread. In spring, wildflowers sprouted everywhere—the roofs, the cliffs, the fields. In winter, snow blanketed everything in thick white fluff. She used to drink hot milk with chocolate mixed in and watch the snow fall on the sea—
“Uh, Kiela?” Caz prodded.
“I think . . . I have a house there.” She knew her parents hadn’t sold it. So far from the heart of the empire, it wouldn’t have sold for much, and Kiela’s father had wanted to hold on to it, in case they decided to retire there after they’d had their fill of city life, though Kiela’s mother had loved the city too much to ever want to return.I suppose that means I inherited it.Certainly there was no one else who could have. She had no other family. “If no one has moved in. And if it hasn’t fallen down. It’s small. Just a cottage. But . . .” It was beautiful. At least it was beautiful in her mind, preserved in her memory as lovely and fragile as a soap bubble. Now, it was probably infested with bats, mice, and bears, and the roof had most likely caved in. “I just never expected to go back there.”At least not without them.
“Is it nice?”
“Very. I think. It could have changed.”I’ve changed.She’d lost her magenta freckles and the blue pigtails years ago, and she’d gained an advanced degree in library studies and a host of antisocial tendencies.
“Okay then,” Caz said. “Let’s go to your island.”
Catching the wind, she steered the boat north.
“Just to be clear—they don’t have goats, do they?”
“I am sure there are no animals anywhere on Caltrey that eat plants,” Kiela said, as they picked up speed. The boat bounced over the waves.
“Excellent! Wait, are you just saying that to make me feel better?”
“Yes,” she said.
Grumbling, he squished himself back between the crates of spellbooks as they sailed northward, toward their future and her past.
Chapter Two
As the sun stained the horizon orange, Kiela sailed toward a little cove on the island of Caltrey. It was just a mile east of the village and its harbor, tucked behind a veil of rocks and trees. She aimed the boat between the rocks.
“You’re going to crash,” Caz observed.
“I’m not going to crash,” Kiela said. “I’m going to dock.”
Inside the cove, there used to be a wooden dock that belonged to her family’s cottage. She remembered she used to squat on the end and watch the fish dance in the water. At low tide, she’d be able to see crabs scuttling over the rocks, and at high tide, merbabies would swim around the dock posts, before they were called out to sea by their parents—a sighting that locals said was good luck. She wasn’t, of course, entirely certain the dock would still be standing, but she supposed she could drop anchor and they could wade to shore. Or she could just beach the boat, provided she could avoid slicing the hull on the rocks.
One hand on the rudder, she guided the sailboat around the rocks and into the cove. Caz clambered up the mast, using his tendrils to climb, for a better view. With the light so low in the sky, the cove was coated in shadows. The water looked near black, and the trees, with the rocky cliffs behind them, cast even more shadows. It was silent, except for the lapping of the waves on the rocky shore and the call of an unseen bird from one of the pine trees. But despite the shadows, it didn’t feel unwelcoming. As they drifted deeper into the cove, it felt as if the shadows were embracing them, in the same way that a thick nest of blankets did on a chilly night.
Kiela spotted the old dock, right where it was supposed to be. It was more rickety than she remembered, though. About a third of the slats were missing, like the smile of an old man who’d lost some of his teeth. Luckily the posts were there, sturdy but coated in seaweed.
Using the pole, she sidled the boat up next to the dock and tossed a line around a post. Yanking on the line, she dragged them closer and tied a bowline knot. She remembered her mother teaching her how to make this exact knot on this very same dock. It felt both like just yesterday and a lifetime ago. She shook her head to chase the memory away. Clambering over the crates, Kiela pulled the sail down and wrapped it tight against the boom.
Caz was perched on one of the book crates. “I amnotwalking on that.”
