Media: when I'm talking about shamans later in this chapter...that's what I'm trying to describe! Let me know if it's anywhere near like it!

With impatience I waited for the last person to finish eating and place down their cutlery. My first meal back in sophisticated society, and old habits of a commoner still ruled over the lady's etiquette of my former life. I'd eaten with gusto, suppressed a belch, and ignored Fabian's suppressed grins.

Somehow, the meal tasted much nicer when I didn't pay too much attention at what angle I held my elbow at. Nautia, it seemed, disagreed, for she looked at me faintly whenever I swapped my fork to my right hand, or spoke to Fabian whilst still half-chewing.

I had awaited execution. Such extremes, if survived, often gave a sense of devil-may-care towards potential in-laws.

In that vein, once everyone had finished their meal, I decided to raise one of the many questions I had. A question that would hopefully lead to more questions, as long as I didn't offend every custom at the table.

A memory blurred at the corners of my mind; as Lady Lumina, I had politely raised an issue of a group of men harassing the Opal townswomen in daylight.

'Mister Almeira, is that right? Ah, yes. Good day, sir. My name is Lumina. How does your business fare lately?'

'My Lady! It...it is quieter than usual, my lady.'

'You are a fisherman, is that not correct?'

'Yes, my lady.'

'Surely there can be no less demand of fish. Angels have to eat.'

'Y-yes, my lady. I thought so too, but, since fall last we've had several families dropping out of their usual purchases. I thought that they might be going elsewhere...but I couldn't find out.'

'If you don't mind my saying, sir, but I've heard some of the women feel grieved to come here. They feel that some of your men harass them, whether they're married or not. Chances are, that's the reason your business has dropped.'

The fisherman had disciplined his men that same day, and with persistence, the harassing of women stopped. His business picked up once more. It had been a simple enough case with a clear cause and effect, but I decided that the same tactic of engaging the Queen in conversation first might have a better result.

I cleared my throat.

Fabian glanced at me, frowning.

'Queen Sirena,' I said, 'Thank you for your hospitality. I have always longed to see the underwater district. Would that be possible?'

Across the table, Niamh looked at me as though I'd grown three heads.

Too late to go back now, I sighed inwardly.

Sirena, too, gave me a look, but hers was of shock. Perhaps the last time someone had spoken to her, and not the other way around, was when she was a babe.

'It is a pleasure to have you and your party here, Princess of Angelica. Sadly, unless you are able to transform, you would die to try to swim underwater, this deep, and without air.'

She spoke as if I were completely stupid. But I held my tongue. Language barriers meant that her wording could be difficult to interpret.

Queen Sirena looked away again, as if my interruption had offended her. But surely, she couldn't expect me to stay here and not ask questions? So much for my method of engaging with her first!

Thankfully, she volunteered more information. 'There are some Shamans who may be able to help you.'

Shamans. I knew, from my rapid lesson with the Mer tutor, that there were three paths for Mer. The Shamans were revered and rare, able to call upon the ocean's spirit to cast spells and charms. Shamans were usually finned but humanoid; their legs and arms, whilst anatomically similar, differed in muscle and texture, and were elongated with fins. Their skin was hard and rough, like a shark's, and gills ran along their neck and torsos.

Shifters, another class, appeared human but could become a creature of the sea.

Scalers had both human and Mer form. At will, they could grow a tail, and vice versa, to legs.

None but a shaman could help me do the same.

The silence grew. By now, the whole table had stopped to overhear our conversation. Sirena took a sip from a golden goblet filled with liquid that looked suspiciously like seawater.

Fabian trod on my toe as he saw my mouth open again. I ignored him.

'Forgive me, but I have a great many questions,' I said, and Nautia's eyes flashed in sympathy. I wondered how difficult it was for a daughter to not be able to openly speak to her mother.

My own mother had been my best friend- until Freya arrived. Then, the three of us were always together.

Now they're both gone.

Now it's just me.

Shaking the thought away, I focused on Sirena's look of puzzlement. 'Questions? About what?'

Ephyra flinched at the Queen's lack of endearment, and her brutal honesty.

But I didn't mind honesty. Honesty I could handle; if everything the Queen told me was the truth, I would be happy.

'You saved me...saved us. For that, I thank you. But I'm desperate to know: why at that moment? How did you know? And why would you want to side with rebels?'

The Queen took another sip, swilling the contents of her goblet with long, webbed fingers of blue and green. She looked bored. 'The Opal Heir has so many questions. Nobody told me she would be this inquisitive.' She placed the goblet down. 'Why that moment: because my son, Fabian, heard about Niamh's message, and asked us to help. Why we chose to help, why we extended a hand in the first place to Steppers...'

At the word, the Queen's nose wrinkled.

'...it was because there's something far worse out there than your sister.'

The Queen didn't elaborate. She stared off into the distance, as if the conversation had grown extremely tiring. I threw a quick look towards Fabian, but he gave an imperceptible shrug.

'If you mean the old King...he's dead, Queen Sirena,' I offered slowly.

A laugh, dry and cold, escaped the Queen's mouth. 'No, I do not mean that old fool. The King was a puppet. Has no one ever told you the reasons for the Curfew the King inflicted? The origins of those monsters that roam the streets at night?'

My throat went dry. I had first met the King's monsters- daemons, they were called- back on Earth, living with Reia at the orphanage. She had vanished into the night, but not before I'd seen her be attacked by a hideous creature of bone and flesh, scarred and deformed. A hybrid of man and animal, the daemons were four-limbed and disfigured, and with leathery wings.

I had met them again, too soon: disguised as an innocent priest, I had turned to watch a horrific transformation. I'd burnt that daemon alive, inside its own shrine.

They were on Angelica too. The reasons for Angelica's curfew, I thought, was because the daemons roamed.

And the daemons, I had been told, came from the King.

But when I said so, the Queen laughed condescendingly. 'No. Stepper, ask me the right questions.'

Another cutting remark. No matter; I took a deep breath.

'Alright. What is this worse fate, and where does it come from?'

Sirena's lips curled into a sneer. 'Better. Well done. I will not be your tutor, Princess. But I can tell you this: Angels and Mer do not originate on a floating island. The floating island was simply our escape pod. Where we came from, we left for a reason: and that reason is finding a way back.'

'There's a world where the Angels and Mer originated from? Where?'

'Beyond this Earth, we observed humans from our own plane. Like crossing a border, there are entrances from this world to ours that have since been sealed up.' Now, the Queen did look angry. 'That man took our home from us, forced us to move here. And now, he wants to return. He just needs the gems that forged the barrier, the gems that power this island and its districts, to open the borders once again. And then human, Angel and Mer shall die.'

I shivered. The Queen was filled with a cold fury, and only now was she difficult to interrupt.

'I want no alliance with Steppers, Princess, I'll admit, but I do not want that man back in this Kingdom. For that end, I'll do anything. Even support a rebel cause to achieve the crown. If you get that Sceptre on Solstice Day, Lumina Fawcett, the wards that protect this island will rise anew.'

'The sceptre?' I said, 'What does that have to do with anything?'

'The sceptre isn't just a symbol. It contains the Binding Gem, the Lapis Lazuli, which focuses all of the other gems' powers. Just taking that gem can use all of the others to open the barriers.'

Sirena paused, looked at her goblet, and took another angry sip.

'Why me?' I whispered.

'I don't care which girl takes the Sceptre, as long as they leave the Mer Kingdom in peace,' Sirena said scathingly. 'But if you'd died that day, there would be one person less to protect our whole goddamned island.'

I shivered; Sirena seemed very angry towards Angels. And yet she was being forced to work with us, because our spell, and our rule, affected the whole island.

It didn't bode well.

'And secondly, I didn't want my son getting any ideas,' Sirena said.

Fabian sat up, bewildered. '...me? About what?'

We looked at each other, baffled. Fabian's eyebrows had risen into his hairline, making him look comically cute. Across the table, the four girls had looked towards their own goblets, as if they knew an embarrassing topic was coming up.

The Angels further down the table had no idea either; we were all woefully unprepared for the next topic.

The Queen sighed, as if she'd explained this a hundred times already. 'Your father, of course.'

My cheeks flamed red. This really didn't seem like the appropriate time to bring up who Fabian's biological father was! Especially not in a room full of people, at a dinner table!

But Sirena looked as if she were discussing the weather.

Fabian made a choking sound, as if he were trying not to shout. He settled on a semi-urgent cry, 'You never mentioned my father!'

'Well, of course you have one...unfortunately.'

Still exasperated, the man next to me continued to press questions, his silver wings flexing in distress. 'But nobody ever knew my father! I was left in Lumina's district, and was raised in their household!'

Had he been left with me? How old had I been? When had we met?

My brow furrowed. No answer enlightened me.

Why can't I remember anything of Fabian? Memories of Scarlett, Mother and Father have started returning. Even memories of Freya, though I try hard to shut them out, crop up sometimes.

But I've sensed nothing about Fabian.

'You couldn't stay in our district, my son. You inherited your father's legs, sadly.'

I badly wanted to ask questions. Nautia had legs. Niamh now had legs- and I'd seen her with a tail, in the sewers of Ruby. Was Niamh a Scaler? Was that how she changed?

What was Nautia? And Ephyra? And Earwyn...?

I kept my tongue. Fabian was hearing about his father for the first time...with that in mind, legs could wait.

'My father's legs? My father was an Angel?'

Sirena gave him a flat look. 'You are as senseless as she, it seems.'

Fabian blanched, but then a fiery look in his eyes returned, and his cheeks reddened. 'I know there aren't many male Mer. Look at me. Mer Babies are usually born female.'

'You are not female.'

'I know...' Fabian looked at me, frustrated by his mother's inability to speak plainly. In his eyes, I could see him pleading with me to speak up.

'Who is Fabian's father?' I asked.

Lip curling once more, Sirena answered curtly, 'Carnelian.'

She spoke the name with acid mixed with trepidation, as if speaking the very name might summon him.

And perhaps it would. The room was so silent with everyone waiting on this news. Even the Queen's daughters had raised up their eyes with interest; it seemed they didn't know who Carnelian was, either.

Unabashed, the Queen continued.

'Carnelian came with the purpose to mate with me. I did not ask why. Our Mer population is dwindling on this island. Carnelian was a prince of noble birth...I agreed it was a suitable match.'

I tried hard not to wince. Queen Sirena talked about "mating" as though she were shopping for a pair of shoes to match her ballgown.

Carnelian, to her, had been an exquisite pair of shoes...just for one night.

From Fabian's expression- slightly paled, like sour milk- he was feeling even worse about the situation than I was.

'I did not realise until later what Carnelian's reasons for being in Angelica were. He possessed the last King, corrupting his once-good rule, killing the Queen and causing his daughter, the princess, a most disturbed childhood. It is because of Carnelian that the King's power began to manifest as turning Angels into those daemons.'

Fabian swallowed. 'So my father caused the King's terrible rule? My father, through his control, destroyed the Opal City?'

And before Sirena could answer, his gaze flickered back to me. 'My father killed Lumina's father and mother, and then forced her to flee.'

It was a blow; his face crumpled. Sat in the seat next to him, I lifted a trembling hand to his. He grasped my hand gratefully; his fingers were warm, sweating, feeling.

Queen Sirena looked bemused by our hand-holding, as though it were an angelic sentiment that Mer didn't understand.

'Yes,' she said, matter-of-factly. 'That is correct, although inadvertently. It was only through controlling-'

'...I think he gets it,' I murmured, cutting across the Mer Queen pedantically explaining the semantics of Fabian's father. Sirena looked perturbed, but I added another question to distract her.

'You said Fabian's father was of noble birth. A prince. A prince of where?'

How many Angel kingdoms could there be? If he was a prince of Angelica, that would make him the King's brother.

Alas, he was not a prince of Angelica. Sirena looked as if the answer was obvious, although when she spoke the whole table looked astounded.

'Carnelian was a Prince of the Demon Kingdom, of course.'

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