She heard Kiran murmur something nearby, but the words passed by unrecognized.

That’s it, Aurora encouraged. Stay close to me, but you can blow as fast as you would like.

She felt a flurry of wind whirl around her, and opened her eyes to find herself in the midst of a wondrous vortex, dotted with leaves, burgeoning with warmth and relief that only Aurora could feel. She too felt a little more free having experienced it.

Cassius did not bother trying to disguise his identity, not for this venture outside the castle. And from the moment he entered through the swinging tavern door, the volume of the establishment grew quiet and eyes followed his movement.

Groups of soldiers who had no doubt been carousing only moments before seated themselves sedately around wooden tables, suddenly on their best behavior. But it was not them he came to seek.

His gaze roved over the room, and he was impressed by the crowd. From what he heard, The Mermaid Tavern drew similar numbers nearly every night. The room was cast in a blue tint, and he heard the sound of running water somewhere. Waitresses moved throughout the room in long shimmering skirts, no doubt meant to reference the tavern’s mythological namesake.

Growing up near the sea, Cassius had gone through a fascination with mermaids himself as a boy. He had read the stories of their unrivaled, irresistible beauty, and that alone would have piqued the interest of most young boys. But it was not only that which had drawn Cassius to the stories. His father had instilled in him the spirit of a conqueror from the time he could walk. No accomplishment was ever enough, not when it could be done faster or to a greater degree. So a young Cassius had contrived a plan to capture a mermaid, the first step toward conquering the inhospitable seas. It was how he had found the lagoon that eventually became his sanctuary away from Locke. As a young boy, he would spend day after day there, setting up traps, devising new ways in which to lure a creature of the sea into his control.

Then one day a hurricane had come in unexpectedly fast from the coast. The water had disappeared from the lagoon as he worked on one of his traps. He turned to see the very ocean disappearing, drawing away from the land as if someone had pulled a plug. For a moment, he had panicked, worried that a mermaid had somehow found out his plan, and was taking the ocean away as punishment.