Brodie showed us the only walkable path to Science Base One.

“Walkable,” to a man with waders, meant any path where the water wasn’t so deep that you were forced to swim. Science Base One was the place he reported to work.

“It’s not that I call it that,” he explained. “That’s what Ayla calls it. Since it’s her base, she got to name it. I mostly call it ‘the yurt.’”

“Is there a Science Base Two?” I asked as I squished my way through the mud.

“No. We’re only allowed one base, and there were a lot of rules Ayla had to comply with before she was given permission to put it in.”

“What kind of rules?” Conrad asked.

Brodie blew his breath up and out, ruffling his hair with his sigh. “Temporary shelter, minimal traces when removed, lockable…” He waved his hand around to demonstrate the implied “etcetera.”

“Lockable?” I said. “I thought no one was supposed to live in this swamp.”

Brodie stopped. “Um, yeah. No humans, anyway.” His eyes darted over to Kappa, still perched on Conrad’s shoulders.

Oh.

We squished on.

I hurried to catch up to him. My wet jeans chafed, but I ignored it. While I was walking beside Brodie, I stuck my hands in my pockets…and realized I’d soaked my phone.

I had to ignore that too.

“Hey, Brodie—do you mind if I call you Brodie?” I asked.

He smiled. “I don’t mind.”

“Oh, good.” My brain let out a mental grunt. That was too much emphasis. Now I’d have to explain. “I mean, I’m okay with Mr. Kohler and all that—respect is always a good idea, blah, blah—but you look more like a Brodie to me.”

His smile widened. I figured my babbling had put him at ease. Goofballs are rarely threatening.

I babbled on: “You can call me Emerra, by the way, since the count isn’t here to be huffy about it.”

“The count?” Brodie asked.

Right! It was about time I got to the point. “Have you guys ever had any problems with the lurkers?”

Brodie stopped again. “No. None. I mean, I think I’ve seen them, once or twice, peeking around the base—they’re really curious—but that’s all.”

A mystified expression crossed his face, but I couldn't tell what had confused him. Was it because they were having trouble at all? Or because they were having trouble now?

Whatever it was, he dismissed the mystery with a shrug, turned, and kept walking.

A few yards further on, Brodie raised his head and said, “Here we are.”

Beyond the line of trees was a shallow hill covered in bushes that were blooming with pale purple flowers. Rising out of the bushes was a roundish burgundy building made of lots of small flat wooden walls. It was set up on thick stilts of various lengths, arranged so that the floor would be level. There were large windows in at least half of the walls, and a flight of plain board steps led up to a white door that also had a large window set in it.

“Let me guess,” Conrad said. “No electricity?”

“We have a few batteries and a small portable generator for emergencies,” Brodie said. “Otherwise, nothing. We have to make sure our laptops are charged before we bring them in each morning.”

“Do your laptops work out here?”

“They do in the yurt.”

That reminded me about the wet phone in my pocket. I had to do some tech first aid on it soon, or it wouldn’t survive being drowned. I turned it off and removed the case, but when I went to dry it on my shirt, I realized my shirt was nowhere near dry enough for the job. Maybe there’d be something I could use in the Yurt of Science.

I jogged to catch up with Brodie and Conrad.

Brodie climbed the steps and opened the door. As he entered, he called out, “I found them in the swamp.”

An amused female voice said, “What? Really? Were they exploring?”

Conrad paused at the bottom of the steps to lift Kappa from his shoulders. He always did that before he went through a door. Kappa wasn’t used to ducking when he approached a threshold.

When Kappa squawked in protest, I put the black plastic box on the outside edge of the third stair and held out my arms.

“Are you sure?” Conrad asked.

I laughed. “It’s not like I have to worry about my shirt getting wet.”

“And the box?”

“We can pick it up on our way out.”

Conrad passed me Kappa, climbed the steps, and went inside. After I settled Kappa on my hip and made sure he was comfortable, I followed.

When I reached the top of the steps, I stopped.

Just inside the yurt, hugging every wall, was a shimmering blue-purple curtain of magic. It looked as if someone had taken the sparks from a bunch of fireworks, turned them into sequins, and draped the entire room in them.

I didn’t like the idea of walking through magic I didn’t understand, but it hadn’t hurt Brodie or Conrad, and if I asked about it, that would give away the fact I could see it.

I stepped inside, shut the door, and looked around to see what kind of room required a magic veil.

There wasn’t much to see. A cot, topped with a sleeping bag, was shoved as close to the rounded wall as they could get it. Beside it was a cooler. There were three tall, cheap, mismatched tables that were littered with papers, books, and maps. For seating you had your choice of two camp chairs or two tall wooden stools.

The woman I presumed was Ayla Davids was sitting on one of the tall stools in front of a table. Her laptop was open, but she had turned to face us.

The only other person I’d met that called themselves a scholar had been a middle-aged British man who wore tweeds. It had fed my stereotype so well that I’d subconsciously assumed that this scholar would have something in common with him.

Nope.

She might have been in her early thirties, but it was more likely she was in her twenties. She wore ripped skinny jeans that did a superb job of showing off her figure and a loose shirt with a boatneck collar wide enough to reveal the top of her shoulders. Her black bra straps were showing, and I knew, without needing to ask, that she didn’t care. It fit her style.

She was staring at Conrad.

Conrad stood there, waiting.

My heart murmured in sympathy. Conrad hated to be stared at, but he was also used to it. I could see the tell-tale quiver at the tips of his ears that meant he was forcing them to stay in a neutral position.

The scholar would get over her surprise in a second. Everyone did. Conrad knew how to act so he wouldn’t appear any more threatening than he naturally did.

A bright smile broke over the scholar’s face.

“Well, hello,” she said.

I blinked in order to process my own surprise. It wasn't an earth-shattering shock, but it had dunked me from head to toe in bewilderment.

There was no fear in her voice. No hesitation. No awe. If anything, she sounded warm and friendly.

Was anyone else weirded out by that?

I glanced at Brodie. His lips were pressed together, and his eyes were fixed on the floor.

Ooohkaaay. I couldn’t tell if he was weirded out, but I was pretty sure that he’d noticed.

Ayla brushed her long blond hair behind her ear, slid off her stool, and walked over to Conrad. She stood closer to him than most people would have, even if they knew him well.

“You’re a lot bigger than I thought you’d be.” Her smile made her already lovely face glow. She extended a hand. “Ayla Davids. Call me Ayla. Full Torr associate. I’m not from this region, but I got permission to come here to study the lurkers.”

Correction: she sounded very friendly.

Conrad hesitated for an oddly long time, then he took her hand. “You’re a biologist?” he asked.

Ayla’s smile widened when she heard his voice. I couldn’t blame her. I remembered the first time I’d heard that low bass rumble that seemed to roll right out from his chest. Mmm. Gorgeous.

Even when they were done shaking hands, Ayla didn’t let go.

“Technically, they call me a naturalist,” she said, “but the job description is hazy. I specialize in unnaturals.”

“A naturalist that studies unnaturals?”

The edges of her eyes crinkled up. “That’s right.”

Geez. If she smiled any harder, her face would crack.

She finally released his hand. “I heard that we’d be getting a lycanthrope—that’s you, isn’t it?”

I choked back the unbidden scoff that had launched itself into my throat. She was supposed to be a Torr naturalist, but she had to ask?

I chided myself for that bit of jerkiness. She was probably trying to make conversation, and I’d been known to say one or two obvious and stupid things in my time. Maybe stupider. Maybe stupider by a factor of ten.

“Yes. I’m Conrad Bauer.”

“Conrad,” Ayla repeated. “Welcome to our science base. It’s always good to see a new face out here. Small towns can feel stuffy after a while. I’m sorry about yesterday, by the way.”

“Yesterday?” Conrad said.

An expression that mimicked regret bounced on and off Ayla’s face. “Lily Carver told me you’d be coming and that I needed to pick you up”—she waved both hands around—“but then I got busy, I wasn’t looking at the clock…” She laid her fingers on Conrad’s arm. “You know how it is.”

Kappa glanced at me. I made a silly face to show him everything was okay and rehoisted him on my hip.

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

Why had the word mimicked crossed my mind?

Ayla went on, “Did you make it to the motel okay?”

“Eventually,” Conrad said.

This time it was my turn to smile. No doubt Ayla was a good-looking woman with charm to spare, but if she wanted to get anywhere with Conrad, she’d have to contend with his bluntness.

Ducking my head to hide my amusement must have drawn her attention. Ayla looked at me for the first time since I'd entered the yurt—but her interest didn't last. The moment she noticed Kappa on my hip, I was once again forgotten.

Conrad stepped out of the way as she moved toward us.

“What do we have here?” she said.

She leaned over to get closer to Kappa. Her eyes, bright with interest, moved over him. He leaned away but didn’t try to hide.

“This is Kappa,” I said.

“Are you the scholar trying to decipher their language?”

At first, I couldn’t tell if she was talking to me—she hadn’t even glanced up—but when I realized she was, I laughed.

“What? No!”

Her eyes rose to mine.

Still smiling, I said, “I’m no scholar.” A lightbulb—and since I’m no scholar, it was probably a dim one—lit up above my head. “Wait. Does that mean they have a language? Like, their own language?”

“Gladwyn told me that he’d found a lurker that could talk,” Ayla said.

“He can. But he just talks. In English.”

Brodie’s head jerked up. “English?”

Ayla looked back down at Kappa.

I nudged him. “Do you want to say anything?”

Kappa shook his head.

I sighed and looked at Ayla. “Sorry. He’s shy around new people.”

Ayla tilted her head as she inspected him. “What colony is he from?”

“Uh…we don’t know.”

“How did he survive?”

My brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve never heard of a colony that tolerates his mutation.”

I pulled Kappa closer to me. “What mutation?”

Ayla stood up straight. Now that I had her undivided attention, I wasn’t sure I wanted it. For some reason, her easy, confident manner made me bristle.

“I’m surprised you don’t know,” she said.

I didn’t answer.

She pointed to the largest blue patch on Kappa’s body, which happened to include his nose. He twitched it.

“Do you see this blue mottling in his pattern?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said.

Kappa used both hands to cover his nose.

“Lurkers aren’t supposed to be that color,” Ayla explained. “His body isn’t producing the proper pigment. Blue and yellow would normally make his skin look green, but without the yellow pigment, the skin looks blue. It’s fairly common—for a mutation—but most of the lurkers born with it are killed young.”

Lines of heat crept up my neck, and when I spoke, my voice was louder than it needed to be. “So what you’re saying is that we got the deluxe, super-ultra-colorful, special-edition bog-monster?” I hoisted Kappa higher and held up my free hand. “High-five, little man!”

Kappa smiled and gave me a slimy high five.

It had taken me a week to teach him that trick, but, man, it was worth it.

I leaned my head down so I could stick my nose against his beautiful blue one. “I always knew you were special.”

We both looked at Ayla. It would’ve been easy for someone to think my eyes meeting hers was a bit…intense—but it wasn’t like I was glaring! It was more like a challenge. A polite one. Something that might be offered between new acquaintances.

Okay, maybe it wasn’t that polite.

Ayla didn’t seem to notice.

“Can I take his blood?” she asked.

The question was so unexpected that it took two full seconds for me to understand what she was asking. When it finally registered, my mouth opened, but before I could say anything, my brain intervened, clamping it shut faster than the speed of stupid.

Ayla may have asked me, but I didn’t have the right to answer.

I took a step back to get some space. “Kappa, Ayla wants to take some blood from you. Is that okay?”

“Like Doctor?” Kappa said.

Behind us, Brodie muttered under his breath, “My god.”

I kept my eyes on Kappa. “Kind of like that, yeah.”

He thought for a moment, then shook his head.

Dr. Belliston might have had a chance at drawing Kappa’s blood, but he was already friends with Kappa, and he was wise enough to bring a bribe.

I turned back to Ayla, but I didn’t get a chance to say anything.

She said—still talking to me—“This is a rare chance for me and the magical community. Are you really going to refuse?”

My cheeks flushed. “It’s not my place to refuse. It’s not my blood. You can try asking him yourself, but I don’t think it’ll change his answer.”

“I thought you were in charge of him.”

“You thought wrong.”

“If you aren’t a scholar and you aren’t in charge of him, then why are you here?”

She wasn’t being cruel, or snippy, or bitter. Her tone made it sound like an honest question.

Too bad that honest question happened to stomp over ninety percent of all the trauma triggers I had. And there were a lot of them.

It felt like a mountain giant had excavated my innards in one clean blow using a two-ton frozen pick ax. I was severed from myself, standing there, empty, cold, and feeling too hollow to be ill.

Why are you here, Emerra? No one wants you. No one needs you. Useless. Worthless.

I started trembling.

In a haze, I half saw, half felt, Conrad walk up to us and take Kappa out of my unresisting arms.

“You ready to go, buddy?” he said.

Brodie stumbled forward a step. “You’re going?”

“Mera!” Kappa cried.

“She’s coming too,” Conrad said.

Ayla let out a weak, baffled laugh. With a furrowed brow, she said, “Sorry, did I do something wrong?”

Conrad put his arm around me. The weight of his hand on my shoulder felt like the only real thing in the world. “Come on,” he said softly.

I closed my hands into fists and dug my nails into my palms until it hurt.

Aside from the pain, every other sensation my senses were feeding me felt as if they were coated in static, like I was stuck in some kind of analog TV alternative dimension. But if that’s where I was, that meant that I was a character. And I knew what my character was supposed to do.

I took a breath. The air in Static TV Land was thin. “No. It’s all right. We’re here to help, aren’t we? It’d be dumb to leave now.”

When I turned to Ayla, I focused on the spot between her eyebrows. I wasn’t sure what would happen if I tried to meet her eyes. “It’s probably best you think of me as an interpreter,” I said. “I understand Kappa. You don’t.”

Ayla crossed her arms. Her lips tightened.

Conrad said, “You’re sure?”

At least I could look him in the eyes. “Of course.”

A second later, he nodded.

I faced the middle of the room, inviting anyone and everyone to answer my question. “I understand there have been some problems with the colony of lurkers?”

Brodie took the initiative. “Yes.”

He walked over to a table, unburied his laptop from the papers around it, and opened it. He typed while he spoke.

“The lurkers have been going into Fort Rive during the night. At first it was only one or two of them, and they didn’t go far. But the problem’s gotten worse over time.”

Conrad and I walked over to join him at the table. Ayla followed us. To my relief, she stood so that Conrad was between us.

Brodie went on. “We’ve managed to get some GPS tracker anklets on some of the lurkers.” He tried to shrug, but it looked tight and uncomfortable. “Quite a lot of them, actually.”

Several mouse clicks later, we were looking at a screen with a black background broken up by a bunch of thin wavy gray lines. Thanks to Conrad, I could recognize it as part of a topographical map even though nothing was labeled. Two thicker neon-green lines started on the right side of the map, went left, zig-zagged around, then returned to their starting point.

“This was three months ago,” Brodie said.

I leaned in to get a closer look. “In January?”

Brodie nodded.

The flood of emotions and the buzzing static receded as I talked. “Don’t they get sluggish in the winter?”

Ayla said, “They get sluggish, yes, but they don’t go into hibernation or anything. The average low for this area is around forty-six degrees. If it drops below freezing, they’ll sleep through that day, but otherwise, they stagger their sleep schedules so part of the colony is awake at all times.”

“Why?” Conrad asked.

“It’s a form of protection,” Ayla explained. “If someone’s awake, they can warn the others if there’s danger. They survive as a society, so they’ve learned behaviors that keep the colony safe.”

While they talked, Brodie clicked his mouse a few more times, bringing up a new screen. It showed a whole mess of neon-green lines, all of them disappearing off the left side of the screen.

“And that’s this month,” Brodie said. “So far.”

“How many are going out?” Conrad asked.

“It ranges from twelve to twenty-five per night.”

Ayla added, “But those only represent the ones that are wearing trackers. There could be more.”

“About how much of the colony has a tracker?” I asked.

Brodie glanced at Ayla—nervously, I thought—before he answered. “About fifty percent.”

My head jerked back. “Oh. Wow.”

“What is it?” Ayla demanded.

I squirmed my way through a shrug. “I don’t know anything about studies and stuff, but fifty percent sounds high. It’s impressive.”

Conrad pointed to the left side of the screen. “I take it that Fort Rive is over here.”

“Yes,” Ayla said, “and that’s the problem. The colony is supposed to stay in the preserve, and they always have before. There’s no record of this kind of behavior from this or any other colony. They find their territory, and they stay there.”

“I assume they’ve been spotted by non-initiates?”

“Oh, yes. At least five times that we know about.”

Brodie said, “It’s started some rumors in town—”

Ayla interrupted, “You mean it’s started more rumors.” She turned and leaned back on the table with her arms crossed. She looked up at Conrad through her eyelashes. “The good people of Fort Rive are extremely superstitious and mostly uneducated.” With a sarcastic smile, she added, “Bless their hearts.”

I glanced at Brodie—one of those good people of Fort Rive. He frowned but didn’t correct her.

“Has anything been done about it?” Conrad asked.

Ayla let out a short laugh with zero mirth in it. “By who?”

“Anyone. What about you?”

“It’s not our problem, is it?”

“It isn’t?” I said.

Ayla shrugged. “I’m a researcher. All I’m supposed to do is watch things happen and write it down. It’s not my swamp, and it’s not my town. If I tried to do anything, I’d get in trouble.”

Brodie said, “But if this goes on much longer, something bad might happen.”

“What kind of something?” I asked.

“The lurkers can be violent if they feel threatened,” Ayla said. “If one of them gets cornered, someone could get hurt.”

“Or one of them might get caught,” Brodie said. “That would expose them to the whole town. The Torr would go a long way to prevent that.”

Conrad said, “Do you know if the Torr has done anything?”

Ayla shrugged again.

Brodie hesitated, then mumbled, “I’ve tried to contact a few people, but it’s hard for me to get information.” He rubbed the tip of his nose. “I’m barely an initiate. The only people I know in the Torr are my case handler and Mrs. Dean. She’s the one who got me this job.”

“Could they tell you anything?” I asked.

“Mrs. Dean said the Torr knows about the problem and they’re working with the local government to solve it.”

Conrad and I shared an uneasy glance. Kappa looked at both of us and scowled so he’d fit in.

“Local government” probably meant Mayor Gladwyn, and he’d fetched us.

It's a terrible thing to look around for a responsible, intelligent person to come solve a difficult problem, only to discover that responsible and intelligent person is supposed to be you.

It had to be worse for Conrad. At least I could rely on him. The only people he had to work with were me and Kappa—a girl who still wore bunny slippers and an amphibious toddler who happened to be good at swimming.

Conrad might have been thinking along the same lines.

He sighed and turned to Ayla. “I don’t suppose you happen to know what Mayor Gladwyn was hoping we could do here?”

Ayla’s face broke into a disbelieving grin. “He didn’t tell you?”

“Not exactly.”

Not at all, I added in my head.

“Sorry,” Ayla said, “I’m not really involved, so he’s never talked to me about it. And it’s not like he’s in charge of me. He’s not even in charge of the swamp.”

“Who is?” I asked.

Ayla’s face scrunched up in a why-would-I-care expression. She shrugged with one arm.

Brodie said, “The Torr technically owns and oversees the swamp, but Mayor Gladwyn and Mrs. Carver are on the committee that helps manage it. They represent the town. They help decide the rules, how they’re enforced, and how the resources are distributed to care for it. They meet once a quarter to talk, but they can call an emergency meeting if there’s a problem. That’s what they did here.”

Knowing how rude my question had the potential to sound, I made my voice meek: “How did you learn that?”

“I, uh…I asked Mrs. Dean.”

Conrad said, “So Mayor Gladwyn is in charge?”

“He has some authority,” Brodie said, “depending on how you define it.”

My eyes darted over to Ayla. It didn’t look like she cared much that she’d been wrong. I got the feeling that if she found out I was in charge, she still wouldn’t have cared.

Brodie continued, “A big part of our problem is that we don’t have a reliable way to communicate with the lurkers—but now that you’re here, we might be able to learn why they’re going out every night. If we understand that, we might be able to talk them out of it or figure out how to stop them.”

His hopeful eyes moved from Conrad, to Kappa, to me.

“Can you talk to them?” he asked.

“We can try,” Conrad said.

I added, “No promises on how well it’ll work.”

“No, no,” Brodie said, “I understand. Anything would be helpful.”

“Do you know how we can find them?” Conrad asked.

Ayla raised her hand. “I can help with that.” She pushed off the table, walked over to where she’d been working before, and moved the top layer of papers to reveal a large map. “There are a few spots where you can almost always find a lurker. They aren’t the main nesting area, but they’re a lot more convenient and you’re less likely to be attacked when you show up—”

“Attacked?” I said.

“Barging into their main nesting site would probably make them feel threatened. There’s too many of them to hide. If you go out to these sentry points, they get to choose whether or not to show themselves.” She stopped what she was doing and looked up at Conrad. “Do you know how to read a map?”

“Yes,” he said.

Conrad passed Kappa to me and walked over to stand by Ayla. She stepped closer and leaned toward him as she pointed to a place on the map.

I didn’t hear what she was saying. She had lowered her voice, and a sudden flood of noxious emotions caused a froth of white noise to slosh around my ears, making them feel dull.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, trying to shove all my ugly feelings back into the Cage of Banishment.

“Mera?” Someone was saying my name. Conrad. The noise was clearer, but it still sounded muffled. “Mera?”

I looked up. The wolfman had turned away from Ayla. Everyone was watching me.

Embarrassment slipped out between the bars of the cage.

“Are you okay?” Conrad asked.

He sounded concerned, but his eyes were locked on me with more intensity than sympathy, and his ears were edging forward, on high alert.

It was the same kind of attention that I got from Jacky, Olivia, and Darius when I was coming out of a vision.

My cheeks flushed, and I looked away. I did not want to explain to him that, while it might look like I was earning my keep as a seer in the service of death, I was, in fact, freaking out because I have the emotional maturity of a hungry five-year-old who’s missed nap time.

I tried to sound casual. “You know, I’m worthless with maps. Why don’t you get the directions from Ayla, and I’ll take Kappa outside. We’ve been inside for a while.”

I was proud of myself for coming up with that line. It implied an excuse without stating one, and every word of it was true—depending on whether or not you were willing to define “a while” as “maybe eight minutes.”

Conrad watched me for a second, then said, “You’ll stay nearby, right?”

As I crossed over to the door, I called out, “You’ll come find me if I get lost, right?”

The last thing I saw as I closed the door was Conrad smiling and shaking his head as he turned back to Ayla.