consistently than other Old Races had. Increasing enough that some of the more daring left their native shores to explore the world beyond.
Memory skittered, pulling Alban far away from the village below, until in the distance of his mind it seemed he hovered above a world pinpointed with water-blue light. Along coastlines where the children of selkie explorers had settled, bright spots gleamed then faded away, legend in the making. Within the bodies of continents another series of sparks lit up, earthier brown, and faded more rapidly.
Then bloodred tinged the whole of the world and Alban’s focus was drawn down to a single representative village again. The waters turned brown with pollution, waste from human settlements. Human towns and villages encroached on selkie territory, driving them farther into the sea, farther from fishing areas, farther from sustainable life, until the soul of what they’d once been was diminished to little more than stories carried on the waves. Sorrow colored the telling of memory, one death after another, until a single old man stood alone on a windswept beach. Alban alighted beside him, settling into the comfortable crouch that was a gargoyle’s hallmark, and waited.
'Thank you for coming. I know it’s been a long journey, and now I have so little time before dawn.' He gestured toward the east, where the sky already brightened with the first promise of sunrise.
'You’ve aged.' The voice was not Alban’s, the scrape of granite on granite, but something smoother: stone so hot it flowed, warmth emanating from every deep word. Confusion laced that comforting warmth now. 'We do not age, my friend. The Old Races do not age.'
'My mother was human, Eldred.' The old man turned from watching the horizon and encroaching dawn to smile unhappily at the expression of shocked revulsion Alban felt shape his face. 'I have stayed behind to tell you this. We are dying.' He looked eastward again, shaking his head. 'All of us are, we Old Races, but perhaps we selkies fastest of all. Is it so terrible?' He put his hands out, studying lines of age and thickened veins. 'Is it so terrible to do what is necessary to ensure survival?'
'Humans.' Disapproval roiled in Eldred’s liquid voice. 'Humans weaken what we are.'
'And yet you never suspected.' Glendyr lifted a still-strong chin, gentle defiance in the action. 'Centuries of friendship and you’ve never imagined me to be anything less than one of our peoples. I prefer to let history judge us, rather than the passion of new knowledge. We’re dying,' he repeated. 'With sunrise I go into the sea to join my family. We will not return. The selkies will live or die apart from the other Old Races, so that we might honor our living and our dead without censure from all. But history should know. Remember us, Eldred. Remember my people.'
Glendyr bowed, fluid movement of a creature born to water’s weightless environment. His smile, as he straightened, was a thing of regret and love. Alban lowered his gaze, undone by the selkie man’s grace, and Glendyr put a hand on his shoulder, brief easy touch. 'Goodbye, Eldred.'
He stepped back, scooping a seal fur from the sand and swirling it around his shoulders as he strode into the sea. Gray predawn gave him soft shadows as water drank his calves, his thighs, and then he dived forward into the small waves. A seal’s head popped up in the first colored rays of morning, never looking back as Alban curled a hand against his thigh, last motion before sunrise swept over him. His words lingered on the gold- drenched sea, and he hoped that Glendyr heard him before the waters closed over his head forever.
'Goodbye, my friend.'
With the whisper, memory shifted again. In the two centuries hence no gargoyle had more than glimpsed a half-blood selkie, nor did any other of the Old Races come bearing tales of selkie survivors. Their desperate, hateful attempt to save themselves had wiped them out as surely as straightforward slaughter. Better to have died cleanly, lay the undercurrent of thought within the memories. Better to have gone the way they all would, with pride of people if not, in the end, the length of years.
Alban exhaled, eyes closed heavily as memory sloughed away. Dawn was dangerously close, the excursion into the whole of a race’s history more time-consuming and draining than he’d feared. Too late by far to return to Janx; the story of selkie ruin could wait until evening. Even Grace’s hideaway was too far to reach safely before sunrise took him.
Twice. Twice in a quarter year he’d been caught outside at daybreak, when for centuries past he’d hidden away safe from discovery during daylight hours. There was no blaming Margrit this time, but Alban lifted his eyes to the horizon with a smile regardless. The human woman was a bad influence, driving him to impetuosity that was wholly against his nature. He must relearn caution, or pay its price. And he would.
Later.
Stone took him.
Discussing the possibility of a job change with anyone, even Russell, was premature until she’d made sure the offer still stood. Margrit hadn’t slept well, most of the night spent staring at the ceiling in the darkness, looking for a way around allying herself with Eliseo Daisani. Morning had come with only one other answer: Kaimana Kaaiai.
That thought still nagged at her as she pressed the button for the elevator she’d always taken up to Daisani’s offices. It chimed pleasantly, but the doors didn’t open. Margrit made a fist and thudded it against the seam with great care, as if she might discover an inhuman strength within herself if she let go of caution.
The fact that she stood in Daisani’s building and not Kaaiai’s hotel told her she’d made her choice even if her thoughts still ran in circles. Kaaiai had offered her more freedom within the context of her position amongst the Old Races than anyone else, but he’d also drawn Tony into their world, even if only superficially. Margrit had no doubt that Daisani would use her friends to manipulate her if he found it necessary, but so far he’d played a more honest hand than that.
The regards he’d passed on to her mother more than once suddenly struck her. He’d made no attempt to use that connection to encourage Margrit to work for him. She bounced her palm off the elevator doors more forcefully, then pulled her phone out of her purse to dial the vampire’s number. 'Your elevator won’t let me in,' she said irritably when he answered. A surprised silence followed by, 'Do forgive me. I’ll have security override the lock,' greeted her.
A moment later the doors opened and Margrit took the lift up to Daisani’s offices, where he met her with an expression of restrained interest. 'Miss Knight.'
'Mr. Daisani. I never needed a security override before.'
'I’ve expected you in the past, or have had an assistant between myself and the public. May I take your coat?' Daisani slipped it onto a hanger, settling it in a discreet closet before turning to examine her. 'You look nearly as fine as you did at the reception. For me?'
'I’m in court forty minutes from now.'
'Really,' he said, clearly surprised. 'I thought under the circumstances you might not be prepared for court.'
Margrit glanced down at herself, taking in the trumpet skirt whose slender lines helped lend the illusion of height and femininity, and the cream silk blouse that played up her cafe-latte skin tones. Dangling earrings swung at the corners of her vision, though no corkscrew curls came loose from the low chignon she wore. 'Circumstances? If you mean my clothes…' She sighed. 'You’re right. I’ll be changing into something more formidable. Yes, for you.'
Daisani’s eyes lit with curiosity and he crossed to lean against his desk, arms folded across his chest as he studied her without speaking. Uncomfortable, Margrit returned the regard, then examined his office. Morning sunlight colored the sky behind him, glowing through floor-to-ceiling windows that ran the length of the room. Heavy red velvet curtains, fully open, hung from automated tracks at each end. Daisani’s desk sat off center, making room-as if the enormous office might be cluttered otherwise-for a set of soft and comfortable couches facing the windows. Bookcases lay just beyond the seating area, arranged with hundreds of volumes and a handful of extraordinary knickknacks. Margrit’s gaze slid to where a pair of selkie skins had been briefly pinned, glad to see an empty spot there. A bronze-cast bronco rider on the shelves caught her attention before she looked back at Daisani. 'You’ve replaced the Rodin.'
'Vanessa had chosen it. I have enough reminders, day to day, of her absence. You didn’t come here to discuss the artistic decisions for my office, Miss Knight. I’m frankly bewildered as to why you are here, this morning of all mornings.'
Margrit curled her water glass toward herself. 'I need to know something that you’re probably not going to tell me.'
