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“Come on,” muttered Brighton.

The guard led him briskly through hallways and down stairwells, across a great open courtyard bright with winter sunlight, and finally into the street. Kaerius’s legs burned with the strange exertion, and his breaths felt too fast and unsteady in his aching lungs.

There was an odd sense of height, and it took the Mer prince a moment to understand this strange feeling. Something about the breeze, the way the sounds came from below, and the sense of open space were unfamiliar to him. He was accustomed to the space of water, the familiar pressure full of life, of songs from distant whales that vibrated his bones, of the faint whisper of swells above his head, and of the little nonsense from shrimps and urchins and starfish. This strange emptiness, with the windin his hair and distant birdsong, was not entirely unknown, but he had not spent much time with his face in the air, and the expanse that spread out above him and before him was even more remarkable for having spent the last day indoors.

Kaerius crossed the street to the stone wall on the other side. There was no traffic on the street; it was within the palace compound and used only for those making deliveries to the upper levels of the sprawling structure.

The wall separating the road from the precipice was as high as his elbows, and he leaned on it for a moment, grateful for the support. The icy breeze cut through his shirt, and he shivered. On the other side of the wall, the cliff dropped away a hundred feet or more, and at the bottom was a pale arc of sand, the beach upon which Marin had found him.

The guard stopped some distance away. “Are you all right?” he said quietly.

Kaerius looked at him, then back down at the beach. He sagged against the wall, letting the cold of the stones reach deep. His breathing slowed, and he imagined the ache in his chest as the reassuring pressure of the ocean depths.

“Do you know where we are?”

The prince turned to look up the street, which followed the cliff still further upward to the elegant spire of the mountain palace above their heads. Across the street was the door through which they had emerged, and it was part of the same structure, a huge rambling palace built in many increments over many years, in several styles which did not entirely match. Glass windows gleamed in the sunlight, reflecting the snowy clouds scudding across the blue sky. It seemed a wondrous place to Kaerius, who gazed at it in fascination. When he had seen this part of it before, he had been so dazed with cold and near-drowning that he had not noticed many details of this strange human construction.

“That door up there is where we found you last night,” said Brighton. “From this vantage point, can you tell me where you are from?”

Kaerius pointed out at the distant green swells.

“There is no land out there, Kai,” said Brighton, with long-suffering patience. “Do you mean to say you live in the water?”

Kaerius nodded. He turned to look at the street as it wound down the hill. Scrubby little trees sprang up from between the houses and buildings lower down the hillside, and in the bright, cold sunlight, the stones gleamed white and gray. He ran his hand along the top of the stone wall, noting the gritty mortar in the seams between the stones. The wind blew his hair in his face, a pale gold mess of tangles.

The guard sighed softly. “Come on, then. I’ve got a coat you can borrow, and in the morning we’ll find you some clothes for the reception. For now, let’s teach you how to dance and eat like a prince.”

I am a prince, signed Kaerius, but he did not expect to be understood. He straightened his shoulders and followed the guard down the hill.

By the time they reached the bottom, Kaerius’s legs were trembling with fatigue. When Brighton set off down a wide street that jutted off the main avenue, he sighed and followed. The guard slowed his steps. “How are you holding up?”

Kaerius looked at him in blank confusion.

“My house is not far. How are you feeling?”

Kaerius smiled with all the regal pride he could muster.

Only a few minutes later, Brighton said, “Here we are.” He stopped at a gate, which he unlocked with a key he pulled from one pocket. “This is the garden. In the summer it’s the most delightful enclave, but there’s not much to see now. Do you have a garden at home?”

The prince tilted his head.Of a sort, though I think it is very different. We tend the coral reefs and kelp forests.He followed the guard through the garden, looking about with interest at the evergreen bushes and dormant flower beds, trying to imagine what it would look like in the summer. What would make it delightful for a human? Did little schools of seahorses come through and have their babies under the bushes? Did urchins climb the trees and dance upon the branches in the summer breezes? What sort of land and air creatures would bring life to this space?

He tripped on the edge of a stone and barely caught himself before he fell headlong. The boots made the unfamiliar act of walking even more difficult.

Brighton opened the door to a spacious house with another key, and called, “My love! I’m here with a guest for the night.”

From a distant room, Kaerius heard a female voice, and then the woman emerged from a room farther down the hall.

“Hello,” she said. She had dark hair with a hint of red in it, and a ready smile. She strode closer with long, easy steps.

Kaerius bowed to her, and Brighton huffed a quiet laugh. “We only bow to the princess. Lila, this is Kai. Kai, my wife Lila. Come. I’ll show you to the guest room and you can rest a little before we begin.”

The room was just down the hall, and Kaerius was delighted by its wonderfully human sweetness. On the bed was a quilted coverlet with a design of blue and white stars. White curtains were open, letting in the light from a window which looked out upon a flagstoned courtyard. The walls of the room were whitewashed. Kaerius stepped in to examine the nearer of the two paintings. There was a building of stone, and surrounding it were things he thought might be plants covered in a profusion of blooms. Was that a garden in the world of air?

His legs felt weak and shaky with fatigue. He put one hand against the wall, for everything wavered for a moment, and looked around the room again. There was some sort of wooden cabinet against one wall, and he wondered what it was for.

Brighton said kindly, “Take off your boots and take a nap. You look like you could use it. Just come out when you’re ready to start.”

Kaerius nodded.Thank you.