Outside, the periwinkle lawns glistened in the rising sunlight as all shapes and sizes of Flickers and Shadows sprang in and out of the bushes, breaking free of columns and sculptures, jumping out of the paintings, tile work, and carpets. The castle itself began to dissolve away down to the simplest framework, as almost all had been constructed—walls, gardens, art, and windows—of stolen and enchanted creatures. A white tiger soared over the grass while a griffin shrieked and stretched its pink wings.
Using her powerful tail, the mermaid bashed down three of the remaining castle walls to free herself, as it seemed the entryway had been constructed around her. They crumpled easily as the vaulted ceiling dissolved away into clouds. Working together, Sami and the Flickers and dozens of Shadow and light beings all helped to carry the mermaid outside, and place her on the lawn beside a sky-blue fountain.
“You have the weight of an Actual being!” Dorsom laughed, shaking out his arms.
“She has the weight of the Nixie inside her now,” Natala said. “That of a thousand stolen souls.”
The mermaid closed her eyes. She stretched and arched on the velvety grass, drinking in the Silverworld sunlight.
Admiring her glowing form, Sami asked, “How will we get her all the way to the beach? It’ll take days for us to carry her, at this rate.”
Ashrafieh tapped the tiled side of the fountain. One of the few remaining castle structures, it was big and round as a gazing pool, bordered by a low wall covered in blue-and-white mosaic tiles. “All waterways on the Bare Isles lead to Mother Ocean.”
“The fountains are spring-fed!” Natala exclaimed.
“How brilliant,” Dorsom said. “And great good fortune for us. No more carrying!”
There was a rattling sound in the bushes and a small pink light being—a sort of cat-dog—came through the shrubbery holding something gently in its jaws.
“Ah.” Dorsom crouched and put a hand on the being’s neck, removing the object from its mouth. “There she is….”
“Oh. Oh my,” Natala said softly.
It was a lifeless amber-colored bat. “No! It can’t be.” Sami gulped, crouching. “Oh, Bat!” She picked its limp form up carefully. “Maybe she’s just knocked out? She survived the first time the Nixie struck her down. Maybe she’s still…”
But Dorsom was shaking his head. “She darted straight into Nixie’s face, when we were embattled—to distract and turn her eyes.”
“She was Shadow-burnt,” Natala said regretfully, then murmured, “bold, brave thing.”
Brave, thought Dorsom. Through and through and through.
Sami flashed on a memory of light whisking and chittering as the Nixie raged full of lightning. Her vision softened with tears. “She was my guide—more than once. She was there when I arrived on Castle Isle, the last steps of the way. She showed me—” Her voice broke off as she dashed away tears with her knuckles.
The mermaid’s big hand closed around the bat, and the small, fox-faced animal transformed into its broken human form, her glowing hair spilling over the mermaid’s arm, pale blue lids shut over her eyes, a single white bolt like a slash of paint crossing her hair, face, and chest.
For a moment there was only the distant sound of Flicker and Shadow creatures celebrating and cheering on the lawns. Then Ashrafieh nodded at the mermaid and thought, In the Actual World, she would be gone and done. But the mermaid believes some shreds of her Shadow hover here still. I feel some force yet as well—though it too has gone very far and will soon be done.
The mermaid turned her diamond eyes to Sami with a bit of caution and delicacy as Ashrafieh explained: She proposes to take her to the Old Kingdom—to see if they would call her back.
“She would do such a thing?” Dorsom asked reverently. “That’s no small matter, the act she speaks of.”
The mermaid touched the tip of a finger to Sami’s face and her tears turned to a sort of powder that drifted away. Ashrafieh translated for the mermaid: I owe the Silverwalker a life and such gratitude.
Sami’s eyes filled again, though this time with joy. “Oh, if you thought you could save her! I can’t even tell you—”
She can’t save her in the manner you’re thinking of, Samara, Ashrafieh cautioned.
“Bat is gone from our Worlds forever,” Dorsom said. “But in the Old Kingdom, her spirit might live on, playing and singing and adventuring, with others gone away. She would know and remember us, and even sometimes she might send us messages from the Kingdom.”
Natala touched Sami’s arm. “And there are yet other obstacles—for you, Sami. When this gloaming is over, the last of the portals will be destroyed—the Nixie’s work is coming all undone.”
“It’s true—the paths between Worlds are dissolved,” Ashrafieh agreed. “It is the work of years to rebuild them.”
“While I would rather keep Sami with us,” Dorsom said, “isn’t it true that the ways between the Worlds become one within the ocean? That in the greatest depths, there is another portal, far away, in the mermaid singing fields?”
“They were the gatekeepers to the hidden Silverskinned—a mirror they called the GlassWater,” Natala added.
Sami remembered Teta telling her of the “silvery mirrors” of desert oases and mirages of water and secret doorways that travelers would stumble after for miles in the hot sand, never reaching them. All reflections—Teta had said—of the same one true doorway, buried somewhere in the sea—the water that all the deserts and desert dwellers remembered and longed for.
The mermaid nodded. She lifted a finger to Sami’s brow, and Sami felt something fizzing lightly around her head and chest. She looked up, startled and delighted. New energy spiraled up from the soles of her feet, winding around her legs and arms and expanding her ribs. Her bones strengthened; she felt clearer and lighter, as if she’d grown feathers—or gills. “Wow,” she murmured. “What was that? I really—I feel different.”
The mermaid flexed her tail, one strong arm slung over the edge of the fountain.
Ashrafieh stroked Sami’s arm. No time for unbelief. The Ifrit must return to water, so you’d best say goodbye to your friends now.
Sami blinked. “Right this minute? We’re going now?”
Come with her now or nevermore, granddaughter, Ashrafieh said. And she shall lead you home.