A few hours of splashing around later, we climb out of the water. While my siblings and I stand there unaffected, Sareena immediately starts shaking from the breeze on her skin. I look around, calculating the distance between here and the house. But when Doe offers her the only thing she has – a shawl – Sareena shakes her head. We all raise an eyebrow at her.

“I said I’d learn to be like you, and apparently to do that, I have to be able to withstand the cold long enough to get to clothes.” She speaks with strength despite looking embarrassed at her own defiance.

We all exchange various looks. She’s strong. This comes from Anasofia (usually called Elly), Annamaria’s twin sister. Doe gives a tiny smile and the barest of nods. Stronger than she knows. We should respect her decision, but get her to the house as fast as possible.

We all turn to Sareena, who seems to know she’s been left out of something. Despite her shivering she flashes us a grin and asks, “So what’s going on? What are we doing next?”

I see Mom raising an admiring eyebrow and I resist another smile. “Now, Pixie, we’re getting you some clothes.”

We all slip through the village as quietly as cats on carpet. Even Sareena has picked up that ability – she doesn’t make a sound as she pads along next to me. We make it all the way to the house before Sareena asks, “You guys don’t live in the palace?” We all turn to her and I can see her struggling to contain her blush at the attention.

“Palace?” Andrew asks. “You mean the courtroom? The Sumna’s office is in the center of the island, made out of plants, and considerably more grand than the rest of the buildings, but it’s not a palace. No one lives there; we live in the same house our family has lived in for generations.”

“Oh, sorry,” Sareena says. She seems to have missed Andrew’s affronted tone – either that or she’s just ignoring it. “I didn’t know. So which one’s yours?” She asks, flashing him a smile.

Damn, she’s good. She just totally took the wind out of your offended grumbling, I send at Andrew.

He glares at me, then sighs internally. Yeah, I guess she did. Apparently she knows how to get people to leave her alone.

I turn to Sareena, who seems totally oblivious to Andrew’s exasperation. “We should go in. I’m sure Grandma will be happy to meet you.”

I’m proven right the second we open the door. My grandmother, Anne, the current Aklumna, rushes right up and looks her over. “My, you’re pretty. Come in, come in. Let’s get you a towel and some clothes.” Turning to us, she adds, “You all know where your rooms are, go on. I’ve put an extra bed in your room” she looks straight at me “and some spare clothes that ought to be about the right size for her. You should come with; you are her Gralentra after all.” I nod and follow them down the hall.

Grandma leads her to the shower room. “Any injuries you had should have been fixed up by the stream, but I take it Cat forgot that you needed a shower.”

I roll my eyes. “Sorry. It wasn’t shower time anyway.” I look at Sareena. “Usually, we bathe in the river. There are some plants that grow along the banks that serve as shampoo and conditioner. However, since I forgot, you’ll be bathing here today.”

Granma nods and sets about helping Sareena untangle her hair. “My goodness, child! When was the last time you brushed your hair?”

Sareena reddens slightly. “Before the storm.” Her eyes shimmer slightly. “Please don’t cut it. I’ve never had it cut.”

Grandma meets Sareena’s eyes in surprise. “Most girls here follow the traditions and don’t cut their hair until marriage or after. Typically, they only cut their hair if it’s damaged or uneven in some way. I didn’t expect anyone to live that long in the outside world and not cut their hair.”

Sareena tries to laugh. “I usually keep it in a braid, but right now even that’s a mess.” She swallows. “Do you think you can get the knots out?”

“Of course, sweetheart.” Granma smiles at Sareena. “Just hold still.”

Half an hour later, Sareena is untangled, clean, and dry. Grandma escorts us to my room and holds up one of the training uniforms. “They may be a bit big on you, little one. I’ll see if I can get you something a little more fitting. Until then, wear the robes and try not to get into any fights.”

Sareena chuckles a little nervously. “Is that likely?” she whispers anxiously in my ear.

I shake my head. “All right Granma, I’ll take it from here. Go get some rest.”

“She was nice,” Sareena remarks. She wiggles into the loose-fitting shirt, pants, and robe and looks at me expectantly. I’m already dressed in my armor. “So what now?” she asks, sounding excited.

I look at Lea. How about a birds’ eye view of the island? she suggests. I mean, she couldn’t see it from the top earlier, so what if we show her now?

I frown and ask silently, But she doesn’t know about our abilities yet. If we freak her out too fast, Andrew will be right and she’ll need an insane asylum.

Andrew predicted that? Wait, of course he did. Her lips twitch. We can’t hide it from her. You’re right, we’ll have to start slow, but maybe freaking her out is the only thing that will work.

I suppress a sigh. Unfortunately, you’re probably right. Thankfully, she’s pretty strong. She might be okay. I turn to Sareena, who doesn’t seem to have noticed our silent conversation. “All right, Pixie. Are you prepared to be thoroughly freaked out?”

She laughs nervously. “I didn’t know I could get any more scared than I already am, but okay.”

Lea and I share a smirk and we each grab one of her arms. Then we slowly levitate off the ground. She doesn’t notice at first, but it’s pretty obvious when she does. “Holy crap! How are you guys doing that?!” she exclaims with a gasp.

We laugh under our breath and I tease her gently, “I thought you said you were at your scared limit.”

She doesn’t respond, but her face says she’s terrified. We take her up to a ledge a few feet below the hole in the roof and let her catch her breath before she looks at the ground. “Wow, we’re really far up,” she remarks calmly. Then her eyes light up as they shift away from the lake and examine the rest of the island. “It’s beautiful! How are there so many different climates in one place?”

“Some areas are heated by the earth, others cooled by the sea,” Lea informs her. “Some get less daylight than others. But mostly it’s because of magic.”

“Magic?” Sareena sounds a bit skeptical, but her face says she knows we’re right. “I thought magic didn’t exist.”

“That’s what the Anacogi say,” Lea starts. “They think their science can explain everything, but there are still phenomena they don’t understand.”

“Like where the subjects of popular folk myths went,” I say. “Or how people made up stories about things they couldn’t have ever seen because nothing like them has ever been found on the planet, even in fossils.”

“Or why any ship that comes near here is met with a storm that, according to satellites, came out of nowhere; also, of the nine places on the map where an anomaly interrupts most signals and kills nearly all Anacogi technology, only two of them are natural,” Lea continues. “The rest correspond with the locations of the seven Grashien tribes.”

“Okay, wait a second.” Sareena sounds like she’s on information overload. “There are seven tribes? And who are the Anacogi?”

I try not to laugh. “Yes, there are seven tribes. We split up so we could more easily monitor the doings of the Anacogi, who – I thought you would’ve guessed this already – are human beings; you know, the ones you grew up with.”

Lea adds, “The other six tribes don’t really matter at the moment. The point is, yes, magic exists. You might do well to think of those movies where the people tap into the balance in nature to move things or sense things with their minds.”

“Star Wars,” Sareena says. “Right. Okay. So you guys are… what? How do you do magic?”

I exchange a look with Lea. “Pixie, we’ll come back to this later; I think if you hear any more right now, you’ll go into overload shock. Let us tell you about the island instead.”

She nods without speaking. It takes us half an hour just to describe all of the different ecosystems here. She watches carefully as we point out different places and make sure she knows where not to go, though the general rule is “don’t wander off on your own.”

By the time we finish explaining that part, the sun is rising. I don’t know how she’s gone this long without sleep – maybe it’s because she slept ‘til noon yesterday – but now she’s yawning. I look at her with concern. “Should we end this for now and talk more later?” I ask. “I think you need some rest.”

She seems to consider this for a moment. “Okay,” she relents. “Some sleep would probably do me good.” She looks down at the ground. “Two questions: One, if I’m like you guys, could I fly down? And Two, if not (or not yet), is there a climbing path?”

Lea and I think about that for a moment. Lea answers carefully, “In theory you could do everything we can do, but we usually start small with our training.” She sighs. “And yes, there is a climbing path; if you look to the left, you’ll see it.” Sareena looks around and spots it before Lea continues with, “But I don’t know why you won’t let us carry you down. That path is kinda rough.” Lea whispers in my mind, No, really. Why won’t she?

It’s a human thing, I respond. They have this thing called pride that stops them from accepting help.

Sareena looks at the lake far below. “What’s the worst that could happen, I land in the lake? I jumped from higher earlier.” We sigh and relent. She looks a little worried. “Okay, is there a trick to this? Visualization, perhaps?”

“Hmmm. Maybe…” I mutter. “Okay. When we control the wind – that’s not the same as flying, by the way – we’re told to picture it doing what we want it to do. Flying, however… Do you want to levitate or actually fly?”

“What’s the difference?”

“When you levitate, you hover a little above the ground. Most of us rarely touch the floor; we actually stand about an inch and a half over it. Flying, on the other hand, is actually floating around.” I demonstrate. “I think you actually want to fly, so picture yourself with wings, soaring on a breeze or something. It’s usually instinctual for us, but you’ve repressed your Grashien side for so long, you might have trouble channeling it.”

She focuses. A moment later, her feet leave the ground. She squeals and does a flip in midair, then dives toward the lake. She stops mere inches from its surface and waves us down, flipping back over to stand, no, hover on her feet above the water.

I share a conspiratorial half-smirk with Lea and we pull the pins out of our hair. We jump, seeming to float down instead of falling, gliding down with our hair fluttering behind us, one leg bent, the other extended, both feet with their toes pointed. Our toes make contact with the surface of the water and it hardens to hold us up. We gracefully set our other feet down and stroll towards the beach, Sareena following with an awed and dazed expression. Thankfully, no one else is up yet. We head back to our house and crash in bed, accidentally waking Rosie as we do. “Hey guys,” she says sleepily. “Is it time to get up?”

“Nope,” I inform her. “Go back to sleep, Rosie.” I drift off quickly.

Later that day, when we get up, it’s about three in the afternoon. We take her around to show her the workshops and the fields. We’re just showing her the first aid station on the island in the middle of the river when a woman gasps. “Arien? Arien, is that you?” Sareena looks confused. The woman pauses then shakes her head. “Sorry, sweetheart. You just reminded me of my sister, is all. She went to the mainland almost a decade ago and decided not to return.” She pauses. “Come to think of it, you look like both her and her husband, Saleum. Are you their daughter?”

Sareena blinks – my aunt is a fast talker – and gathers herself a little before responding. “I-I don’t know, ma’am. I was told that my parents were Arienne and Samuel Melk and they were hit by a car not long after I was born. I’m eight now.”

“Arienne and Samuel were their false names to fit in on the mainland, and Melk is the last name we’ve always used. Oh, sweetheart, you’re my niece!”

“And my cousin,” I remark. “Sareena, this is my aunt, Brianne Melika. She is my father’s sister.”

Sareena stares at me in shock. “I have… family? Like, real, live, family?”

I nod, trying (with considerable success) to hide the giant smile blooming across my face. Sareena’s eyes catch it, though, and she grins. As we head out to explore the rest of the island, I can tell she’s comforted by the knowledge that she actually does belong here, with us, no matter where she grew up.