There's something out in the water tonight.

The moon's reflection on the Emerald Sea makes it hard to see where it is, and while there's no movement but the rolling of the waves, a few glistening strings in the weave of the ocean shimmer and strum. A tan hand reaches forward, fingers calling to those strings, tugging on them ever so slightly.

A fin cuts through the waves. It moves in curving lines, slow and leisurely, until it reaches the boardwalk. Then, breaking the surface of the water, a fish with sparkling scales pokes its head up into the air.

"Hello," Malina murmurs. She bends down, fingers still holding loosely to the strings, balancing on the balls of her feet. "Aren't you a pretty thing?"

The fish treads water, mouth agape, gills flapping beneath the surface of the waves. Its scales shine brighter than jewels, a silver that outrivals the very stars in the sky. With her free hand, Malina caresses those scales, marvelling at how smooth they are, and how they leave no slime behind on her skin. Its eyes, so brown and dark, hold a strange sort of warmth.

This isn't a regular fish, she decides. This is something else.

The wood of the boardwalk creaks behind her. Reluctantly, Malina lets the fish's threads slip through her fingers. Her spell of command broken, the fish dips beneath the water, fin disappearing last, only the remnants of ripples left to suggest it was ever there.

"I was wondering when you'd find me," she admits.

"I see that you've finally learned that you can't hide from me."

Malina sighs and stands, throwing one last look at the ocean before turning.

"I wasn't trying to hide from you, uncle."

They're not so similar despite their relation. While he's dark and deft, with wide shoulders and a cleft chin, she's paler and fleeter, tall and willowy with hair the colour of old blood. Only the shape of their eyes are alike: wide, heavy-lidded, with an Eastern tilt- but while one of hers is a startling silver, both of his are black and crowded with shadows from every corner of the world.

"Are you sure?" her uncle Paolo inquires, voice deathly quiet.

Malina frowns, leaning up against the railing of the boardwalk. Behind her, the dozens of ships in the harbour creak in time with the waves. "Almost."

"The man we saw yesterday. The merchant. You used him."

"And what if I did?"

"Did you pity the Tondan man he killed?"

"Shouldn't I have?" It had all been so sudden, after all: the merchant's drunken stupor, the missteps of his Tondan aid, the flash of a gun, the spatter of blood. "He was like us- a Tondan in a land of conquerors."

"You could have used someone else," Paolo tells her. "Someone more skilled. Do you know that he's dead?"

"I know that he was shot and taken by Sentinels, yes."

"And that means nothing to you?"

"I'm trying not to bother myself over it."

"Malina." His sigh is heavy, like he's exhaling honey instead of air. In these rare moments, she thinks that he might actually be feeling something. "You killed him."

She sweeps past him, tugging her cloak about her shoulders. The streets are quiet this time of night, having been swept and emptied in preparation for tomorrow. She can think of no street in her home country of Tondo that looks nearly as immaculate, save for the ones in Muros- so named for the stone walls that separate the Edeirans from the natives. A Tondan in a land of conquerors. She feels the truth of those words within her, just as well as she feels the beating of her own heart.

"Don't ignore me," Paolo calls after her, and Malina knows she's not imagining the shadows that creep up to her back.

"You wouldn't understand." Her footsteps are silent on the cobblestone street, with no company but the stores and stalls that seem to collapse in on her with every waking moment. "You Arbiters are all the same. Human suffering doesn't blind you like it does to the rest of us."

Paolo's answering sigh is even heavier than the last, but his voice is the same flat monotone as always. "You are not an adjudicator. Don't pretend to be the judge. You- as a Tondan- can never be impartial."

She whips around. "And you can? You're a Tondan too. You saw that merchant shoot the Tondan man. You saw him when he settled back down into his seat, deep in his drink, never stopping to wonder whether the person he shot would live. You saw the Sentinels nearby turn a blind eye when I called for help. You saw, uncle, and you turned away. Tell me why I should have used another man for my own ends. Tell me why I should have used an innocent, when the Tondan that merchant shot is now dead."

He stares at her. There's something ageless about his face; it's unlined by wrinkles, brown and ordinary, but his stare is that of an old man's. Finally, in a voice like the whispering wind, he says, "Your efforts were for nothing. The king is in Covigo, out to meet his new bride."

Malina huffs. "It's like you don't hear anything I say, sometimes. The gods didn't bless you with ears. They only gave you eyes." She quiets, squirming under her uncle's dark gaze. "Their eyes."

"You speak like they didn't touch you, too." He raises a hand, pointing to her face. "Like they didn't reach out and mark you there."

Malina touches her fingers to the skin beneath her right eye. She diverts her attention to the side, catching her reflection in a nearby shop window. Blackness surrounds her; her reflection is hazy at best. The only thing that seems to show itself properly through the dark cloud is her right eye, a surging, otherworldly silver.

When she looks back at her uncle, the ghost of a smile twists his mouth, lit only by the warm glow of the gas lamps lining the road. Malina flinches at the sight of it.

"Imagine what the rest of the world would give to be like you, Malina." He sounds almost tender, almost fatherly. "Monarchs the world over would kill for your power."

She looks up and away from uncle Paolo, into the distance. Beyond Migos' tiled rooftops and the lazy Dividir river that bisects the city, towering spires and domed roofs have made their name as Solaris Palace, wondrous and magnificent even in darkness. Some of its windows emit light; the orange-yellow colour winks in the night. The king should've been there today.

Malina's lips twitch at the corners. "They already have."

A sudden scream cuts through the near silence. Malina's heart skips a beat as she squints down the wide avenue, searching for the source of the cry. She finds it as it turns around a corner. It's a boy carrying a lumpy bundle in his trembling brown arms, dark, shifting eyes wide with fear. The boy trips, the bundle tossed out of his hands by the force of his fall. Vials clatter out of the burlap, dozens of them. He glances behind him, whimpering, stuffing as many vials as he can back into the sack before taking off again.

Paolo yanks Malina into the shadows before she can breathe. He presses her back to his front, one hand clamped over her eyes.

"Uncle-" she begins, but he doesn't give her the opportunity to say another word. His other hands moves down over her mouth and nose, tight enough to hurt.

"You can't interfere," he whispers. "This isn't your battle to fight."

"But he's a Tondan," breathes Malina. "He's a Tondan, like us, and you won't even let me help him?"

"Some things are better left undone, do you understand?" He holds her firm when she squirms in his grip. "Do not forget this lesson, child."

Footsteps pound on the street. The boy screams again, this time louder than before, searching for help where none can be given. Malina listens, helplessly, as another person yells at this top of his lungs.

"There's nowhere to run, little indio!"

Malina clenches her fists, body shaking. She knows the language of Tondo's conquerors well, and she understands the distaste behind that word. Indio. It's a word to describe her people. The natives.

The conquered.

"Tackle him!" another voice roars.

The boy screams one last time before Malina hears the vials shatter. She bites down on Paolo's hand hard enough for him to release her, catching a quick glimpse of the scene. She takes a headcount of the men- eleven of them, including the one that's just forced the Tondan boy to the cobblestone- all dressed in blue and silver, rapiers and pistols at their hips. Sentinels, she thinks to herself. The king's dogs.

"Please," the boy whines, his Edeiran thick with an accent. "Please, I just- my sister, she's sick-"

"And so you stole them," says one of the Sentinels. His brown hair and brown eyes look washed out in the moonlight. "Do you Tondans have no concept of money?"

"We don't have money!" cries the boy.

"Which explains why you refused to pay in the first place. The question is, how do you plan on paying now that we've caught you?"

Paolo yanks Malina back, one large hand over her mouth, the other clamping her hands together behind her.

"If you go out there," he hisses to her, "you can't go back. You will be resigning yourself to all that happens afterwards."

"Buenaventura," comes a soft voice from the back of the group. "Don't toy with him. Let's just get this over with."

Buenaventura, the one with the brown eyes and hair, whips around. "Don't presume to tell me what to do, Tudor."

The soft-voiced man- or rather boy, as he appears to look- with his round brown eyes and face full of freckles, frowns. The strings that connect him to the weave glitter and shine. There's a mess of them. He's connected in places that most others aren't. He's too connected, in fact. Too... human.

It would be a nightmare if someone like him touched her. She'd combust coming into contact with someone that connected.

"I'm your superior," Tudor replies. He speaks Edeiran oddly, with a musical, lilting accent.

Buenaventura snorts. "In name only."

Tudor takes a step closer to his colleague. There's a great disparity in height between them; while Buenaventura is stocky, Tudor is as lanky and tall as a string bean.

"Should I inform Don Valentine of your insubordination, or should I keep it to myself?"

"You'd tell that poor little boy? He's a puppet. If it wasn't for his blood, he'd be just like the rest of us. The king does him too many favours, and one day-"

"I think I will tell him about this."

Buenaventura strides the last few steps that separate them and grabs Tudor's collar. Tudor stares blankly forward, head lolling to the side.

"Insubordination," Tudor says. "Assault. Violation of the chain of command." He looks down, shaking his head. "You want to add another charge?"

"He's getting away!" someone bellows.

The Tondan boy has grabbed a single vial and, tripping and stumbling, he runs towards the sea. Buenaventura gives one last venomous look to Tudor, before he lets go of the latter and they both move in pursuit.

"You have to let me help him," Malina pleads. "They're going to do horrible things to him. He's only a child."

"They have their own justice, just as you have yours. If you are to be impartial-"

She turns her head, hissing, "I will not be impartial. I will not stand by and watch. Not even the gods can stop me."

Uncle Paolo's black eyes surge with strange, sinister silhouettes before closing. His head rolls on his neck, as if he's shaking a particularly irritating insect from his earlobe. The strands of dark energy around his body twist and turn before stilling.

When Paolo's eyes open again, they are clear of the shadows that were plaguing them earlier. Something in them has shifted. They narrow, shining in the meagre light. His lips part like he might say something, but he never does. Slowly, his hand loosens its grip on her wrist.

Malina runs headlong out of the alley. The hood of her cloak tears from her head, and every strand of her unruly auburn hair tumbles out. She moves forward, hands poised in the air before her, fingers already tangling in the weave. Her feet pound on the cobblestone. In their frenzied pursuit of the Tondan boy, the Sentinels have no idea what's coming.

She counts them off. One. Two. Three. Four. Then she reaches for the next set of strings, wrapping them tightly around her index finger. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. She grabs the last two, twining them deftly around her littlest fingertip. Ten. Eleven.

Gritting her teeth, Malina pulls.

The Sentinels come to a halt, their bodies freezing in spectacular fashion. One falls over, crashing to the ground, lying stock still in the dirt. The Tondan boy, startled by the sudden pausing in the Sentinels' pursuit of him, looks behind him and nearly stumbles over his own feet. He stares at the tableau behind him. His eyes go wide. His lips part. He finds Malina with his gaze, slack-jawed with awe.

Malina's fingers ache from the pressure of the strings. There's an intangible vice around her skull. Her eyes water, not with tears, but with blood. She's never gotten used to this feeling: the feeling of being in control, absolutely, with no one to stop her except her own weak, mortal body.

The blood streams down her cheeks. The vice around her skull presses firmer.

"Run," she tells the boy, but she can't speak loud enough. "Run!" she says again, and it's barely over a whisper.

He trembles, legs shaking. Malina holds tight to the strings and tries one last time to tell him to run. This time, though, her voice falls silent. Her knees give out, scraping the ground when she falls. She wonders what she must look like to the boy: half-crazed and strange, holding on to something he cannot ever hope to see. Maybe he thinks she's a monster, or even a spirit. No real Tondan girl, after all, would have a head of red hair.

She reaches out for another string, calling it forward, the air she breathes like knives in her lungs. She searches for uncle Paolo, briefly, to find him standing at the mouth of the alley, enrobed in the cover of night. He doesn't bother helping her to her feet- she'd asked for this, anyway- and the pensive set of his jaw, his cheekbones, his eyebrows tells her that he would not help her even if she begged.

She turns her attention away, back to that last string. So be it, then. Her middle finger grabs it tight and pushes that string forward.

The boy goes rigid. He's still for only a moment before his limbs seize, moving for him, away from the revealing gaze of the street lamps. Malina pushes harder, forcing his knees to bend, and he breaks out into a sprint.

The world tilts when she falls over into the dirt, hands still grasping at the weave. Her body twitches aimlessly, and when she coughs, she coughs up red.

Her fingers slacken and loose from the strings. The Sentinels around her come to their senses, shaking out their arms and legs. They swivel around, bewildered, shouting, all of them unaware of the threat- or former threat, now- that lies under their noses.

Black eats away at the edges of Malina's vision. She draws a ragged breath.

The one named Tudor spots her first. He runs her way, calling something to her, hands reaching forward. Malina wants to scurry away, sure that his hands will feel like fire on her skin, but his eyes are so, so brown and wide- with concern?

Somehow, she feels a twinge of guilt for this one. Maybe he isn't as vicious as his regalia implies.

Still, she touches the weave one last time, forcing them all to their knees. Even Tudor falls to the cobblestone.

Everything goes quiet. The Sentinels lie still.

Gentle hands pull her up. Her head rolls back to look. It's Paolo, hands underneath her arms, tugging her away. As shades of light and sky fade, her uncle takes her into his wiry arms.

"It begins now, child," he murmurs. "The wolf awaits."

Dread tugs at Malina's stomach, but she's falling and she can't hold on much longer.

"The wolf..." she repeats, senseless, before letting go.