“What’s that?” I said. And hurried across the crowded causeway to a shop framed by large, glowing crystal formations in bright pink and yellow, where dwarves were hammering out something on giant anvils.
The anvils were huge, as were the hammers they were using. But scattered around the cave-like shop, behind force fields covering depressions in the rock, were the most exquisite, delicate creations imaginable. Gorgeous necklaces in quivering gold flakes that scintillated fascinatingly when you breathed on them. Daggers of chased silver set with what had to be talisman jewels, because they boiled with enough power to raise the hair on my arms, and I wasn’t even that close. Chalices covered with runes that flashed different colors as various sorts of people passed by, one of which had an almost human-looking eye that opened and blinked at me when I accidentally brushed the pedestal it was on.
I reached out, unthinking, to steady it, and Hilde grabbed my arm. “You bond with it, you buy the nasty thing,” she warned me, as a dwarf rubbed his hands on his apron and came hurrying over.
But the cup righted itself on its own, and I was already caught in wonder by the next shop in line.
“Oh, wow,” I murmured, running over to stare through the huge, force field–like front window, behind which a trio of animated mannequins was slowly turning.
They were interesting enough on their own—with scarlet lips that stretched into smiles when they noticed my interest and bright, jewel-like eyes that completely failed to look human, but I was more captivated by what they were wearing.
“What is that?” I breathed, watching as the exquisite evening dress one of them had on, a light, floaty, silken thing, like flower petals made into cloth, suddenly changed—into scale-like armor that cascaded down the full length of it, turning it into a battle dress to match the shield that folded out from the purse she’d been carrying.
Goddamn, I could use one of those!
But I hardly had time to take it in before a little graffitied crab was waving its pincers at me from a nearby rock wall. It was bright red and blended in a little too well with the stone. But the movement caught my eye, and its urgency made me follow it from the front of the sushi place it had been decorating, across the bumpy floor, and over to the other side of the huge, mall-like space.
Where I was promptly distracted by a magical tattoo parlor where powerful tats were being applied to several clients. And by a candy store, where a kid had just dropped a package, releasing a cloud of buzzing taffy bees. And by a bookstore full of animated ladders that zipped around overstuffed shelves five stories high and advertised book binding in “properly sourced dragon hide—certificates upon request.” And by a florist, where gorgeous flowers spilled out of the shop and into the walkway in colorful profusion.
The scent was almost overpowering this close, because I didn’t know these fragrances. And because the baskets of dried herbs inside were adding their perfume to the fresh flowers piled around the door. But despite that, a group of bright pink blooms were so sweet that I couldn’t resist moving in for a—
Saffy grabbed my arm. “Don’t sniff those. Unless you like fur.”
“What?”
But then I noticed that my little red guide was waiting for me, just up ahead, where—
“Oh my God!”
“It’s like shopping with a sugared-up toddler,” someone said behind me, but I was already off, heading for a large force field of the kind that subbed for window glass around here, but this wasn’t covering a window. It stretched from the bumpy floor to the rocky overhang of a ceiling, several stories up, and curved as if flowing around a corner. Only there was no bend here, just a wedge-shaped protrusion out into the corridor, one that was filled with—
No.
It couldn’t be.
I ran up and pushed a finger against the field, which bounced around like jelly. Or like what it was, a huge slab of water jutting out from the stone like an aquarium. But it wasn’t an aquarium, because inside weren’t fish but—
“Oh my God!”
“Can you do something?” somebody asked.
“You’re the one who brought her here with no buildup. I told you—”
I wasn’t listening. I was pressing my hands and face against the surface of the barrier, passionately wishing the kids were here to see this. We have to bring them, I thought, staring at a bunch of tiny yellow fish—because there were fish in there, after all, zipping by in the light of more of those weird crystal formations. The crystals were blue and yellow this time, and spiking out from rocky promontories and occasionally the floor, sending what looked like sunlight filtered through water cascading everywhere. Enough that I could see flickers of silver tails, larger than any fish would have, flashing in and out of stalactite-like formations in front of what appeared to be an extensive cave system.
But I didn’t care about the caves. I cared about—
There! Right there!
I leaned in, trying to get a better look, sure I was seeing things. Because it couldn’t be what I thought it was. It couldn’t—
My face suddenly slipped inside the wedge.
Oh, shit, I thought, and tried to back out. But before I could manage it, the rest of me was sucked in, too. Leaving me stunned from the sudden shock of cold water, like jumping into a November pool.
It was close to freezing, but the lack of air was more of a motivator. I started thrashing against the skin of the force field and panicking when it refused to let me through, before I remembered that I could just shift out. Spatial shifting was a perk of an office that desperately needed a few, and it had gotten me out of sticky situations in the past.
But not this one.
Because my power didn’t work.
And, okay, now I was panicking. And staring at Hilde’s horrified, slightly distorted face outside the force field, only she wasn’t looking at me. She was looking at something behind me.
I spun around in the water, almost dropping the damned book I’d been lugging around, because Saffy had said she knew someone who might be able to disenchant it. And then clutching it to my chest, because the whole not-being-able-to-breathe thing had just been complicated by the arrival of—
Well, call them what they are, I thought, staring in awe in spite of everything.
Because they were mermaids.
Or mer-something, I corrected, noticing the finely muscled torsos dipping low to thick, scale-covered tails. Even with long, filmy hair that floated out behind them like smoke, huge colorless eyes, and weird, almost transparent filaments wafting from the sides of their necks and faces, they didn’t look remotely female. They were also vaguely blue, or maybe that was the light.
I couldn’t really tell and didn’t care because I was drowning, and because they currently had strange-looking spears pointed at me menacingly.