“So, I have a lot of questions. Would you mind if I asked you a few of them before I embarrass myself in front of royalty?” Jay had to talk loudly to be heard over the crowd; this part of the city was a market, where vendors called out their wares and storefronts saw constant turnover. He was keeping his eyes mostly on the ground to keep from tripping. Jenn had taken him by the wrist to lead him through the mass of people… although people here did not always mean human. He knew better than to stare (his parents had taught him that lesson early), but his first sight of what Jenn called Seafolk almost made his eyes pop out of his head.

  The two of them had only been a street away from the inn when one of them appeared, walking in the opposite direction. They were bipedal, and stood about the same height as Jay, but that was where the similarities stopped. The Seafolk was covered in glittering blue scales, which faded at the hands and face to reveal a mottled gray that might have been skin (Jay wasn’t an ichthyologist, he didn’t know if fish had skin, although this wasn’t a fish, probably). Their eyes were a milky white with no pupils, a stark contrast to their skin. They were slim, with small fins on the backs of their hands and neck, their cheekbones higher than a human’s, not a single hair on their head or face. They wore a wide brimmed hat, a sash secured tightly around their waist that jingled with shells and metal rings, and not much else.

  Jenn, who seemed to have a sixth sense for when someone was embarrassing her, pulled Jay to the side and hissed at him furiously as the Seafolk passed them. “Do not stare, Seafolk hate it when people stare at them. Listen, this city is filled with races of all kinds, so just keep your eyes to yourself. Not everyone cares that you’re an Outsider, and if I have to fight in this dress I’m going to be really upset.” Jay nodded, apologizing, and the two of them had continued on.

  Now, Jenn looked back at him with a raised eyebrow, which made her look exactly like her mother (though Jay would never tell her that). “I’ll do my best to answer them, but you should wait until we’re in a better place. It’s not a good idea to stop here. Do they not have markets where you come from?”

  Jay shook his head no, and Jenn made a noise of surprise, but that was all the interaction they had until they had made it to a much less crowded street. The two of them stopped in the eaves of a garishly decorated building that might have been a house. Jay gave Jenn a questioning look, and she nodded. He took that as his sign to ask. “The, uh, Seafolk. This is going to sound dumb, but do they live in the ocean? Are we near an ocean now?”

  The girl’s lip quirked up into a smile, but she didn’t make fun of him. “They do, and we are. The one that we saw was in their land form, which their people take outside of the water. The Southern Salt Sea is to the west of us, but not very far west, so we see a lot of Seafolk here. They have a city in the sea near the coast, which I hear is beautiful, although much smaller than Hydrena. That’s this city, by the way.”

  Jay took a minute to stretch his back; these new clothes were wonderful, but the sandals left something to be desired in the realm of support. The air was warm but not humid, and feathers of wind constantly took the sweat from his brow. He had never been one for warmer weather, but in this place, he could see the appeal. Jenn watched him, and as he continued his stretches, he asked another question. “You said there were a lot of races in this city. It’s not just the Seafolk that are, uh, not human?”

  She laughed, adjusting the scarf on her shoulder, her bracelets clinking gently as she moved. “No, they are not the only ones, but I can’t tell you about all of them or we’ll be here all day.”

  Jay acknowledged this as fair, straightening, and before Jenn could hurry them off again, he asked, “Do you have magic? I saw your father and your mother use different kinds; is that common here, for everyday people to have magical powers?”

  She stiffened, glaring at him with sudden anger, as though he had offended her. Shit. I probably could have asked that in a better way.

  After a second of tense eye contact, she sighed, and her shoulders slumped. “I haven’t been able to use any magic yet, no. That’s why I still don’t have a Crown.” At Jay’s blank look, she explained, “The leaves that are in my mother and father’s hair show that they can use magic at a brass level; the leaves are their Crown, a sign of their magic. Brass is the second weakest kind of magic user, but I would take it in a heartbeat over being without magic at all. You don’t have any magic right now, but you can work your way into having some. I’m just unlucky.”

  She looked deeply unhappy at this statement, and also angry, and that combination of emotions was something that Jay did not want to touch with a twenty foot pole. He settled for nodding in what he hoped was sympathetic understanding, and Jenn seemed to take it as such. They stood there in silence for a minute, shoulders almost touching, before Jenn walked away and Jay followed.

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  -----

  The castle was fucking gigantic.

  Jay was staggered at the number of towers and pillars and windows and flags. How many of each of those things could one building contain?

  In the castle’s defense, it seemed to be made of many buildings, not just one, although this was a flimsy defense that did nothing to alleviate the sheer amount of stuff everywhere. Jay couldn’t help but stare, mouth open and head back, trying to take it all in. The two of them were shoulder to shoulder, Jen’s hand locked around Jay’s wrist to make sure they didn’t get separated in the crowd that had assembled outside of the castle walls.

  Well, these weren’t the castle walls; these were the walls that guarded the outer grounds. There was apparently another set of gates that guarded the inner grounds, and a final set that led into the castle itself. Jay learned all this from a man explaining it to his child, who was sitting on his shoulders and not paying attention at all. He didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but the man was speaking loudly to be heard over everyone else, and his booming voice was right in Jay’s ear. He didn’t mind one bit; he was, in fact, grinning ear to ear in a way that probably made him look stupid.

  “The outer gate is the Knight’s Gate,” the man continued, “and it’s the plainest of the three gates, but it’s not meant to be pretty. It’s meant to be the first thing that an enemy sees when they try to raid the castle. Would you want to raid the castle if you saw this, Duncan?” He bounced his son up and down playfully, and the boy laughed, pulling at his father’s straw blonde hair in delight.

  Jay had to agree with him; the gate was pretty imposing to stand in front of. The walls were built of stone blocks about as big as a car that rippled with veins of black and white. They were stacked at least twenty feet tall and probably about that thick, which was a damn good deterrent if Jay had ever seen one. The gate itself was wooden, although it looked as tough as the stone next to it, and it seemed to open outwards (although it was closed right now, a fact that sent a lot of grumbles and complaints through the crowd). To either side of the gate rose towers made of the same stone as the walls, dotted through with arrow slits and covered in banners and flags that bore the same symbol that Jay had on his arm.

  The towers were topped with an odd structure that looked like a metal sphere that had been half disassembled. It had vertical strips removed from it at even intervals all the way up and down. He had no idea how it was held together or what it was, and when he had exhausted every idea, he leaned in to ask Jenn (it was more of shouting at Jenn and hoping she understood him, but semantics were for losers). She shrugged, barely glancing up to look at them, and Jay hesitated only a moment before turning to the father beside him and asking the same question.

  The man, looking pleased that someone was listening to him, nodded in excitement. “Those are where the battlemages stand when they fight! They don’t do it often, but they used to hold demonstrations back when I was younger, and—”

  He was cut off by the noise of the gates slowly opening. They ground against the gravel beneath them, some hidden machinery straining to push them, and even before they were fully open the crowd had started to pour inside. This seemed to be what Jenn had been waiting for, and she pulled Jay forward before the man could finish his explanation. The two of them managed to be some of the first people past the gate, emerging into a series of cascading gardens that stretched to either side; Jay guessed that they went all the way around the castle. The two of them continued straight on, approaching the second set of gates that stood between them and the castle itself. They stopped a good fifty feet from them, turning towards each other, Jenn letting go of Jay’s wrist at last.

  This was as far as Jenn could go, Jay remembered, and his stomach twisted at the thought of leaving her, but it wouldn’t do any good to try and negotiate her passage along with him. He smiled at her, bowing slightly from the waist (which felt a little ridiculous but made her snort, which was a win). “Thank you for taking me here, Jenn. I wouldn’t have found it without you. Make sure to thank your parents again for me, and tell them that if they ever need anything, I’ll do my best to get it for them. That extends to you, too; if you need me, I’ll be there.”

  The girl before him gave him a smile, a real smile, and he thought again that she looked very much like her mother. “Outsider Jay, I am glad to have met you. Thank you for answering my questions, and treating me like an adult and not a child. If you do happen to meet my Auntie, I think you two will get along very well.” She pointed towards the inner gate, and Jay saw for the first time that there was a door in it, cut into the gate itself and no taller than a regular door. “That’s where you’ll have to knock. Try not to stare at the Queen too much, okay?”

  They both chuckled, and with a final pat on the shoulder, she was gone, headed somewhere for something that was now not Jay’s problem. He was kind of sad about that; he would have spent a lot more time at the inn if he had a choice. But I don't; this is what has to happen, so let's get that ball rolling. He took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and headed for the door in the gate, ready for whatever lay beyond it.