Page 34 of Tidal Creatures

“You drown in there?” calls Isabella from the hall, and she knows she’s been in the bathroom long enough; the day here may not follow the ebb and flow of the days in the lab, but she still has duties to perform and marks to meet. That’s almost comforting.

“I’ll be right there!” she calls, and she means it. She has somewhere to be, with someone who wants her there, and she’s not completely adrift in a world she doesn’t understand, she’s not. She’s a part of something. Maybe it’s not the something she always thought she was a part of, but it’s something all the same, and that can be good enough for her.

That has to be.

She leaves the bathroom in a cloud of Summer Berry Medley Dream–scented fog, and Isabella wrinkles her nose at the sight of her. “I should have realized,” she says. “Of course you don’t have anything else to wear.”

“I thought my clothes were better than your pajamas,” says Kelpie apologetically. “I can’t borrow any pants that button or zip. They don’t have space for my tail.”

“No, and it isn’t the right weather for dresses.” Isabella looks Kelpie frankly up and down. “Well, at least you don’t look too abnormal.”

Kelpie, who has worn a button-down white shirt and khaki pants every day of her life so far, is baffled by that examination but doesn’t say anything about it. Some things are beyond all understanding. “Most people can’t see my tail, you said.”

“That’s right.”

“So what will they see if they look at me from behind? Will my pants just have a hole in them for no reason?”

That gives Isabella a momentary pause before she shakes her head and says, “When the coronation was on, we had potential monarchs slaughtering each other all across the continent, and it mostly didn’t make the papers. People would remark on how strange it was, the way Miss Kinsey’s boy died, and then they’d just move on, tragedy dismissed. No gossip, no evidence, no footprint on memory. The magical world knows how to conceal itself from people who don’t want to see it. Will a hole in your pants count if it’s there to allow for something most people won’t realize or admit exists? I don’t know. I suppose we’re going to find out together.” Isabella picks up a purse from the table at the end of the hall, brown leather in a shell of knotted beige twine, and slings the strap over her shoulder. “Isn’t this going to be fun?”

“Yeah,” says Kelpie, unenthusiastically. “Fun.”

She follows Isabella out of the apartment, noting the way the woman stays between her and the decoy apartment, making it harder to see her from the windows. She doesn’t think anyone’s looking. If they were trying to find her, surely they would have done so already; surely there’s something baked into the foundations of her that would lead them right to her location.

The thought is unexpected, and sends her stomach swooping toward her ankles, dropping hard and fast and brutal. She slept in Isabella’s living room last night, only a closed door away from Luis and Bobby, and they could have come for her at any moment. She almost stops walking, but manages not to. Stopping here would leave her visible from the window. Stopping here would leave Isabella in danger.

She manages to hold her tongue until they’ve exited the apartment complex and made it down to the sidewalk, where true to Isabella’s word, no one seems to notice her: the people continue to walk, the cars roll down the street, and no one stops to stare, no one runs into anyone else. Only then does she stop, grabbing the strap of Isabella’s purse to make her stop as well. She turns to look at Kelpie, expression somewhere between irritated and amused.

“Penny dropped, eh?”

“They could have come in the middle of the night! You could all be dead right now! I know you’re an hechicera, but that’s not bigger than a master alchemist like the one who killed Margaret! You let me put you in danger!”

“All right, first off, keep your voice down, all right? Yes, most people can’t see the magical world, but they can hear just fine, and if you go hurling certain words around, you might attract attention. Yeah, nine out of ten will think you’re some college kid LARPing or whatever, but that tenth will tell a funny story about a yelling blonde woman, and that could reach the wrong ears before you know it. Part of why I’m happy to be an hechicera instead of a bruja is that almost no one in this country knows what that is, while ‘bruja’ is a word that makes them stop and take notice.”

Kelpie blinks, then nods, looking down at the sidewalk. “I’m sorry,” she says, voice much softer.

“Don’t be sorry for wanting to protect my family, all right? If you need to be sorry, be sorry you didn’t trust me to have thought things through. You’re right. An hechicera, even a very, very good one, isn’t a match for what you call a master alchemist. They cheat. They’re not more powerful—they’re as human as I am—but they have all the other alchemists in the world to borrow toys from, and they have no shame. They’ll burn a whole building to ashes because they feel like one person inside it insulted them, and then they’ll brag about how no one saw the fire until they wanted it to be seen. An hechicera doesn’t cheat. We work within the world, not against it. That means I started to take precautions as soon as I realized what you were. By the time you went to sleep, that apartment was warded so tight that they could ring the bell and try to sell you cookies without realizing who you were, as long as you didn’t go outside.”

“So why bring me with you now? Wouldn’t it be safer for me to stay in the apartment?”

“Call it a test.” Isabella reaches out and gently tugs her purse strap out of Kelpie’s hand before she starts walking again, letting Kelpie follow.

“For who?”

“Everyone, I suppose. We’re testing whether I’m as good at hiding things as I think I am, and how good a job you can do of dealing with the world outside the lab. You’re getting top marks so far, by the way. I thought you were going to see your first car and have a complete meltdown, but you’re doing really well.” Isabella’s smile is wide and sincere. “And it’s a way to see how many of the ladies in my coven are exaggerating their own sensitivity to the hidden world, since if they can’t see how damn weird you are, they sure as hell can’t see the auras they claim to find everywhere. You’re my Karen detector.”

Kelpie has no idea what that means, but she only shrugs as she keeps walking. “I know what a car is. Margaret showed me videos.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah. I didn’t think they’d be this big, or this smelly, but the general concept, I get. Oh, do you think we might see a bus? I’ve always wanted to see a bus.”

Isabella laughs. “You’re delightful. It’s like having a really big puppy that can talk. Yes, Kelpie, we’ll probably see a bus. Probably more than one. You can learn to love and resent them the way the rest of us do.” She turns sober as they walk on. “It’s interesting that she showed you video of cars, though. It means she expected you to leave the lab someday.”

“Well, yeah. She was working on a way to reverse the lab accident so I could go topside and rejoin the world. Or that’s what she said, anyway. I guess maybe she was just looking for a way to make me look more normal so she could use me as an embodiment without the Alchemical Congress catching on. I don’t know why she didn’t like them. They gave her a lab, and all the assistants and materials she needed, and room to do her work. She couldn’t have made me if not for them.”

“People are complicated. I’m sure she had her reasons,” says Isabella. “Love and hate are kissing cousins, after all.”

Kelpie looks confused, and Isabella laughs again, and they walk on, following the sidewalk as it transitions from somewhat run-down residential neighborhood to a tree-lined street filled with small brick buildings, each one split between two or three stores with big glass windows displaying their wares to the world. True to Isabella’s word, no one looks at them twice. Kelpie is bright orange, and they don’t seem to see her at all.