“And you let him go alone?” Saia yelled.

She was aware of Serit crouching in a corner, engulfed by her rage, of the children watching from the doorway with wide eyes, of the adults looking at each other as if to find someone else to blame. She didn't care: her eyes were fixed on the man that seemed to be the head of the family, Ulres, unblinking and unmoving.

“He's probably safe with our cousins at Aressea, by now,” he found the strength to murmur.

“We already asked them,” Saia replied. “They told us to check here.”

“It was dangerous for us to hide him,” his wife, Veylu, said. “Mayvaru does a lot for our village, but she expects complete loyalty in exchange.”

“You just needed to wait two days. Two! Or is it asking too much to host a boy for a few nights? His brother was kidnapped in front of his eyes, you could at least let him rest a bit.”

There was no answer from anyone, just a lot of bracing for her next words. She stayed in silence too. There wasn't anything else to add: she had missed Dan's arrival and departure of two days, he was supposed to be at Aressea but he never arrived there. He was alone, at best lost in a land that to him was just as foreign as it was to her, at worst...

“Stop, please,” Serit said, holding their stomach as if their guts could spill out at any moment. “We'll find him. Let's think of a plan.”

Saia sat down, making clear to everyone in the room that she wasn’t leaving any time soon.

“I want to know everything you can tell me about Mayvaru. What's your relationship with her? Why is she even looking for Dan?”

Veylu sat down in front of her, even if everyone else stayed next to the walls.

“She brings food to the village in times when we can't get enough. We need a lot of sea snakes, as you can imagine. We're lucky enough they're numerous on this side of the sea, but other families aren't as fortunate. Mayvaru is the only one who will get you the food you need in a day, no questions asked.”

“And if you don't do what she wants?”

There was an exchange of gazes around the room. The expressions they made when they thought that Saia couldn't see them were very telling.

“Then you'll never find the animal you need, no matter where you look. At that point, either you risk a reversion of your traits…”

Almost everyone flinched at that suggestion.

“Or you take your family and leave,” she concluded.

“She could also punish us directly,” Ulres added. “We don't know why she was looking for your friend, but if it's important enough she might make an example of us.”

“We'd die without sea snakes,” an elderly woman said. “Only a few of us were completely human before joining the family, but they've changed years ago.”

Saia remembered Aili's explanation about animal people. She nodded.

“What can she do? Control animals?”

The silence returned. They seemed reluctant to give her information about Mayvaru, even if she was probably famous enough that everyone knew what her powers were. Saia considered giving them a demonstration of her own abilities, even if they had to at least suspect something: when they had tried to close the door on her face after saying that they’d never met anyone called ‘Dan’, she hadn’t moved a step despite the pressure.

“We're not leaving until you answer,” Serit said.

Ulres looked at the other adults in the room, then sat down at the table, far from both Saia and his wife.

“She takes her traits from the Arissian sheepdog. If you're not familiar with the breed, it can control nearby animals in a limited way, like preventing cattle from wandering too far or sending away predators without a fight.”

“Except she's much more powerful than a simple dog,” Veylu continued. “She comes from the Dulrir family…”

“We don't know that,” the old woman interrupted her.

“Come on,” a young man who hadn't spoken up to that point interjected, rolling his eyes. “As if there was another explanation.”

“No, your grandma is right, we don't know for sure. But it's likely.”

“Who are the Dulrir?” Saia asked.

“The beastforgers,” Ulres answered. “They all died because of an incident with their experiments. Nobody knows for sure what happened, even if the most likely explanation is that one of their monsters got loose and killed everyone.”

“Maybe it was Mayvaru,” his daughter whispered.

“Don’t take it too far. It’s one thing to speculate whether she comes from them, one to think she killed them.”

“The beastforgers,” Serit repeated the word. “I can guess what they did. When you say she’s one of them, do you mean she was part of the family or an experiment?”

Veylu shrugged.

“Nobody knows, but she could be both. Most of the beastforgers were animal people themselves, experimenting on their own bodies as well as breeding animals to get some specific characteristics or powers.”

“Maybe she’s not a human, though,” the daughter added.

The adults looked unimpressed.

“You’re committed to saying things that might get you killed, today,” Ulres commented.

“Not a human?” Saia interjected, staring at the girl.

“There are rumours that she’s a dog that ate too much human meat. That’s why she’s so… Animal-like.”

Saia thought back at her first impression of Mayvaru. The first thing she had thought in seeing her was that she looked exactly like a walking dog.

“I didn’t know it was possible.”

“It is,” Veylu said. “And it’s a plague for our communities, especially ones like ours that are made mostly of predators. People without traits are distrusting of us because they don’t know whether we’re people who eat animals or animals who eat people. We try to distance ourselves as much as possible from them, of course. We kick them away if they try to enter our villages. But the prejudices stuck anyway.”

Saia nodded. She thought back at Dan and Morìc, at what could happen once Mayvaru got the information she needed. She sent another spark of viss into Morìc’s tooth, one of many since their meeting at the square, to make absolutely sure he was still sleeping.

“So she can control animals,” she repeated, mostly to divert her thoughts from the idea of her friends being hurt. “But she’s more powerful than a simple dog?”

“Exactly. People say there’s a limit on what she can do, otherwise she would control the entire world by now. But nobody knows what the limit actually is.”

“More than you think, most likely,” Ulres added. “I don’t suggest you try to find out.”

Saia took a moment to reflect on their words. Mayvaru hadn't captured Dan only because she hadn't recognized him. To think she'd been so close to him made her viss buzz with worry.

“Why would she need to capture two kids?” she asked.

Their hosts looked at each other.

“We wondered the same thing. She said that she's been looking for them for ten years,” Ulres answered. “Apart from Mayvaru, we don’t know much about the city. We came here only five years ago, so we don’t know of anything that might have happened before.”

Saia checked his viss: he seemed honest, even if scared.

“Anything else we should know?” she asked, passing her eyes from one member of the family to another.

“Yes,” Veylu said. “I want to tranquilize you: Mayvaru leaves often for the Golden Lands. They’re in constant unrest and she’s been given the duty from the families to take care of it. She doesn’t have much time to waste looking for a kid.”

“And Beramas?”

She lowered her eyes.

“He protects the city. We didn’t know he was involved. We’d never have sent Dan there if we knew he was looking for him as well.”

“And where would have you sent him instead?” Saia asked.

There was no answer to that, so she turned her head toward Serit.

“Do you have other questions?”

They thought about it for a bit.

“Not for them.”

“We're leaving, then.”

She could see the family visibly relax. The adults followed them to the door, as if to prevent them from making even just one step back into the house.

“If you find Dan, tell him we're sorry and we hope the best for him,” Ulres whispered while he closed the door.

Saia walked around the village with Serit, even if it was small enough that soon they were back at the road that connected it to Aressea.

“What do…?” Serit began, but Saia silenced them with a gesture. She pointed at a rat digging in a pile of trash.

“There are animals everywhere,” she said in their ears.

She immediately shrunk her domain, but the animal didn’t seem to notice that she had expanded it in the first place, just like Mayvaru hadn't perceived her spying on her conversation with Beramas despite controlling the rats. Her guess was that they could feel her domain if they were too close, but not outright see it. Still, nothing prevented Mayvaru to keep a flock of jacinth eagles somewhere, ready to deploy at her command. Or other animals with similar powers.

“I need to teach you the gestures of my village,” she told Serit once they were far enough from the buildings. “We used them to communicate when Vizena was controlling us.”

“Isn't your language enough?”

Saia shook her head.

“Too similar to Arissian.”

Serit nodded. They looked around at the bushes and trees.

“Is it safe to speak now?”

Saia briefly expanded her domain: she saw traces of viss everywhere, but none of them moving inside an animal or person.

“Yes.”

“What do you plan to do now?”

“Find Dan. It's the priority.”

“Do you have an idea on where to begin?”

“No. He'll probably want to find his brother, so I think he followed the directions for Aressea. Maybe he decided not to contact the sea snakes family after the welcome he received here and he’s hidden somewhere inside the city.”

Serit approached a tall stone emerging from the ground and sat down. They lowered the cloth around their mouth, revealing the shine of sweat all over their skin.

“I don't know how to put this in a way that doesn't feel insensitive, but I think it's a matter of time before they find him.”

“That's very useful,” Saia said. “Do you have a solution or do you just enjoy seeing me suffer?”

“I just wanted to make sure that you knew.”

Saia could hear the distant rush of a river. She hiked in that direction, but didn't have to go far before seeing the running water beyond the trees. It was larger and more intimidating than any other stream around the mountain. She wasn't sure all of her viss would be enough to cross it without being whisked away by the current.

“If we can't find Dan or free Morìc, we can at least make sure those two monsters will be focused on something else,” she said to an approaching Serit.

“So you want to create a distraction?” they asked in a careful tone.

“I will be their distraction.”

Serit sighed.

“I should have imagined you'd want to fight them.”

“If I can take out one of them, the other will probably want to fight me as well, so less chance they'll find Dan or torture Morìc.”

“You've seen how powerful they are.”

“Beramas is powerful. Mayvaru is nothing special, not without her animals.”

Serit circled around her statue until they were looking straight at her stone eyes.

“If you assume she's weak, you'll die. You can't really discount her animals, if she can call them from anywhere. She was controlling that dog at the quarry, remember? Three days of navigation from here. And how many rats were on the ship?”

Saia looked away, irritated that it did nothing to cut Serit out of her view.

“I don't know, I didn't count them.”

“So we don't have the vaguest idea of how many animals she can control at once. I've visited Iriméze's zoological garden multiple times, but her rats weren't there. She might have some unique species at disposal with powers we don't even imagine. The rats alone would be enough to defeat you.”

“That's not true. I might have less viss than before, but it's still enough to kill those rats. If I can't do it directly, I can throw rocks at them or something. They took me by surprise on the ship, but I'll prepare this time.”

“Are you sure? Because you need viss to move that statue of yours. If they swarm you, they'll eat your viss right out of your sphere.”

Saia imagined herself trapped, unable to move, while a wave of rats tore at her glass with their claws, detaching years of her life, eating her memories.

She stepped away, consuming a bit of nervous energy with that movement. Serit was smiling, even if they looked tired as well.

“And that's taking for granted that the rats are the worst weapon she has,” they concluded.

“Stop it, I understood. So what do you suggest I do, then? You're good at inventing stuff, maybe you can create a weapon?"

Serit winced in hearing the word 'inventing'.

“I don't have the materials, the tools or the blueprints to even attempt something like that.”

“If I get you one of the weapons of the city guards, would you be able to use it?”

“If you mean wielding it, probably not. I can study them, sure, and maybe copy them with the right pieces. Do some tinkering here and there. Nothing powerful enough to kill her from a distance, probably. The cloud cities are careful about sharing their technology for projectiles, I don't think there’s anything readily available here.”

Saia nodded. It was something they could do, but not hinge a whole plan on.

“We need to take her by surprise,” she said. “Now I can transform. Maybe I could become one of her animals and get as close as I can, then attack her?”

Serit rested their back against a tree trunk.

“If she tries to control you and fails, she'll know you’re not an animal. You might be in an extremely vulnerable position, if she has rats around. And Beramas…”

“Right,” Saia cut them off. “I have to make sure he can't interfere, so I can't just follow her and hope he won't be around.”

“We need to study her movements, or find someone who knows about them.”

Saia turned her head toward them.

“So you want to help me, now?”

“As if I had a choice. Besides, with all your worrying about those kids I'm starting to care too. I still think fighting Mayvaru is too risky, though.”

“I can attract her out of the city,” Saia said. “I can transform into an animal that doesn't exist. Maybe I can mix multiple ones, if I study them well enough. Then I'll destroy some empty building, so she'll know about me and will seek me out.”

Serit sat at the base of the tree.

“We don’t know whether she’d be interested in a creature she doesn’t know. We shouldn’t assume she does just because she can control animals, maybe she already has everything she needs. And if you appear to be too dangerous, Beramas might get involved.”

Saia crossed her arms and narrowed her vision until she could only see the river. The moving water helped her focus.

“I do think it's better to attract her away from the city, though,” Serit's disembodied voice added from the borders of her current reality. “Maybe wait until she leaves for the Golden Lands, then push her even further.”

Saia nodded distractedly. She didn’t know what could interest Mayvaru, but Veylu’s words had depicted her as a unique creature, the first and last of her kind. A bit like her, a rogue goddess from a mountain isolated from the world. And she knew what could pick her own interest in an irresistible way.

“I have an idea,” she told Serit. “But we'll need some viserite.”

The blue hall hadn’t changed from their last visit. Saia waited impatiently as the guard explained how he had tried to stop her, but couldn't even make her budge.

Ravisu picked up her lens and shooed her servants away.

“I gather you're quite powerful in areas other than sculpting, my dear…”

“Saia,” she replied, and Serit winced when she didn't use the fake name they had come up with.

“Do I have to worry? Beramas is coming here soon, it's better if he doesn't find you pushing my guards around.”

“No, I only have an announcement and a request.”

Ravisu visibly relaxed. Saia wondered to which extent her family collaborated with Beramas, and how much she knew of her powers as a consequence. She’d wanted to ask why he and Mayvaru wanted to capture Dan and Morìc, but she couldn’t risk making him aware that she knew them personally.

“I will participate in your contest,” she said.

Ravisu smiled.

“Good, we do need people like you in our family.”

“But as you said,” Saia continued, “I will need to practice. I didn't think of bringing my own viserite from home because I thought I would find it here readily enough, but it turns out your family is the only one that extracts it. So I came here to ask if I could loan a block until the day of the contest.”

Ravisu emitted a tiny sigh and sat up straighter.

“You're right in saying that we have an exclusive on this material. It's very precious, and I can't afford to give it away to just whoever.”

“Name your price,” Saia said.

“You're starting to learn the workings of our city, I see. Well, dear, I want fifty-eight vissins for every day you're going to keep the viserite. The term of payment is a week after the contest. I'll make you a discount if you win, of course. Take it as motivation to work harder.”

Saia nodded, but Ravisu peered at her through her lens, as if not considering the matter closed yet.

“You can pay, right?”

“Of course,” Saia lied, thinking that with her powers it wouldn't be too difficult to procure the money.

“Good, I'm glad to hear it. Beramas is the one that takes care of collecting in case of insolvency. I don't want to be the cause of your death.”

Her words gave Saia pause. But the deal was sealed and Ravisu was already writing something on a piece of paper.

“Come here and sign, dear, while my guards bring here the viserite.”

The second she spoke the words, two of the guards left their posts. Saia read the contract with Serit, even if they were nervous about making Ravisu wait.

“Seems good,” they whispered.

Saia thought the same, so she signed. They left with a small cart holding a block of viserite. More than enough for their plans. As soon as they were out of the palace, Serit covered it with a long cloth.

“No animals?” they asked, half with words, half with gestures.

“You need to make smaller movements, or everyone will know we're communicating,” Saia said in their ears. “But no, I didn't spot anything.”

They left the central quarters of the city and headed toward the outskirts, where they’d spent the previous night in an abandoned house. Further from that point there were only fields and isolated villages, covering the distance from Aressea and the Golden Lands.

Once inside the house, Serit laid down on a rough cloth on the floor. It had been covered in debris until Saia had swept everything away with her winds.

“Fifty-eight vissins a day means we’ll finally steal some coin and live in an inn?” Serit asked.

“I have no intention of paying, so no,” Saia answered, detaching a piece of viserite from the block. “Stealing food is stressful enough.”

“I thought you didn’t want to fight Beramas,” Serit added with a wily half-smile that made them appear drunk, even if Saia had categorically refused to get them any wine.

“You’re enjoying yourself too much for someone who was so scared to leave the sky.”

They returned serious. Saia worked on the block of stones, trying to recall the birds and little rodents she’d seen on the trees during their hike from Aressea to the nearby villages. She’d tried to memorize the movement of their viss, even if they never remained still enough. For all his talk of giving her a challenge, Filsun had been remarkably still while she’d been figuring out the patterns all around his body. It did give her an edge when it came to learning the patterns of other creatures, she had to admit that.

“I miss Iriméze,” Serit said. “And I’m worried. I don’t think you repelled the spirits. They’ll attack again, maybe they already did.”

“Just like the monks have attacked the village where my family and friends live, while I couldn’t help them because someone has basically kidnapped me. We have something in common, it seems.”

Serit turned their head toward the wall and didn’t answer. Saia ignored them, focusing on making the animals as realistic as possible, filling the gaps in her memory with what she’d learnt about the viss’s movement from weeks of practice and observation.

“Look,” she said, tossing the statue of a small bird next to Serit.

They glared at her, but their expression softened once they had taken the creature of stone in their hands.

“Nice,” they said. “It lacks details, but it’s convincing.”

The bird opened its wings, startling them.

“I want to get the movements right first,” Saia commented. “And to study some bigger beast. We need to find one.”

Serit nodded. They opened their hands as if to let the bird free, and Saia obliged making it fly away with the help of her winds.

“Convincing enough?” she asked.

Serit didn’t answer, deep in thought.

“If she can perceive the surroundings through her animals, we need to fool them too. I might have an idea.”

“What is it?”

They yawned and laid back down.

“I’ll sleep on it and let you know in the morning.”

She made a point of rolling her eyes, but they had already turned their back to her. She kept working on the viserite until morning, hoping Dan was somewhere safe.