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“I’ve been wanting to tell you something,” she muttered, holding his stare. “I’m not supposed to tell anyone. I’m not sure why, but I think it may explain why my voice makes you sleep.”

Nathair tilted his head, and the white light of the moon glistened off his dark horns.

“Do you know about the humans who can use magic? We call them Priests and Priestesses, since they don’t share anything about their identities, not even their faces.”

“Yes.” His following dark chuckle said he found humour in this for some reason. Once more, he refused to take his arms from around her and forced her to read his signs backwards. “They are all over this world. Many of my fragments have seen them and their m-a-s-k-s – masks. Why?”

“Well,” she grumbled, fidgeting by playing with the seam of her dress.Come on, please be a loophole.She clenched her eyes with hope, and stated, “We are descendants of them, on my mother’s side.”

Oh wow! That was so easy.She really thought her lips would lock and she’d appear like she was throwing a silent tantrum.

Realising how easy this was going to be, the words spilled from her lips with excited enthusiasm. “Apparently my great-grandmother used to be a mask-wearing Priestess because she could wield magic, but my grandmother didn’t have any power, so she wasn’t allowed to stay with them. My people made her their leader because we have an excellent relationship with the masked occult.”

“Are you saying that you think you carry magic in your voice?” Nathair asked, his hands slow, and somehow they looked... weighted. They sagged after each word.

“Maybe? I do think my mother has magic, since she’s able to tend to plants better than others. I think it’s why she became a doctor and a herbologist to begin with,” she stated, squinting one eye as she lifted an arm to shrug. “Maybe as descendants, we have powers that aren’t strong and come out in subtle ways that are unnoticeable. I just... I don’t think it makes sense any other way.”

Her brows furrowed deeply when he seemed to wince. His orbs shifted to dark blue, and he turned his skull away. As he stared off to the side, there was a forlorn way his shoulders drooped, and his body tensed subtly around her.

Even his hand resting upon his tail wall fisted.

“Nathair... what’s wrong?” She thought stating all this would be helpful, like giving him an answer he may have sought.

“Nothing,” he signed without even looking at her.

Linh lifted up and cupped the sides of his skull. She turned his bony face to her, and she moved her palms to hold the undersides of his segmented jaw. “Please tell me?”

He stared for a long while, gauging her. He sighed, and the strength of it billowed stray hairs back towards her high pigtails and the thin set of braids she’d wrapped around their bases for extra design.

“Those people are not human. They are not even from this world. They are called...” He paused, his fingers twitching. It was the first time she’d truly observed them appearing unsure. “I don’t know how to properly spell it, as it has a special symbol in it.”

He twisted until he laid his stomach over the wall of his tail. Then he wrote the word ‘Anzúli’ in the sand, with the pronunciation ‘An-zoo-lee’ along with it.

“Anzúli? If they’re not human, then...” Her frown returned, deeper than ever. “Then who are they?Whatare they?”

He twisted back to her before snapping his head to the side with a hiss. Linh froze when she looked in the same direction to see the Demon had dared to come closer while he was distracted. It backed up and up until Nathair’s following growl ceased. She noticed a few sets of eyes coming from the dragging waves in the water, and she gulped.

She gave him her attention so he could explain.

“They come from another realm.” He pointed an index finger upwards on either side of his skull, showing her a new gesture. “E-l-v-e-s are the reason for Demons being here, and they acquired the help of Anzúli” – she guessed the sign via context – “to aid humans as a form of sorry. All their people wield magic, and by the souls I saw of them in Tenebris, they only look partially human. It’s why they wear masks.”

“So, they wear masks to hide their inhuman features?” she asked, gaining her a sharp nod. “What do they look like then?”

“They have glowing eyes, and a third one upon their forehead.” He tapped a claw against his brow.

Her lips parted and then drew back into a cringe. She cupped her forehead with horror. “Are you telling me I could have been born with three eyes?”

“They are mating with humans to keep their numbers. Unless you were to breed with another of their kind, I doubt those features will return.”

“Okay,” she rasped with widened eyes, brushing her stray hairs back. “That’s kind of freaky.”

Linh eyed him cautiously and considered pointing a finger at his bony face and telling him to stop spinning wild stories to bully her. He liked to play pranks, so that wasn’t out of character for him.

He isn’t joking.What he said made sense, and now that she thought on it a little deeper, their secrecy became more telling.They didn’t share their names, their faces, nor allow anyone bar themselves into their small temple within her village.

But all this, none of it answered her original question, and she realised he’d only told her to... distract her.

“Why were you sad, Nathair?”