She had never told Leela about the symbols, but she did now. Leela gasped.

“So Mother Sun has spoken to you as well?” she said.

“I . . . I never thought of it like that,” Sera said.

“I have begun to be able to read the symbols on the temple doors,” Leela confessed. “They speak to me, they change for me so that I can understand them, but no one else sees.”

“But Leela,” Sera yelped. “If you can read the symbols, does that not mean you are chosen as the next High Priestess?”

Leela shook her head. “I would be just as wrong a choice as you,” she said. “I think this has been another of the High Priestess’s lies. I do not think she herself has been able to read the symbols for quite some time. And I fear she has done something, made it so that no one else can either. But you were always so different, Sera. Maybe that’s why you could read the symbols. Or maybe Mother Sun somehow sensed that the choosing ceremony was wrong or being manipulated. Perhaps she was trying to send you a message, though you could not understand it at the time.”

Sera did not know what to think of that. She felt a twinge of confusion that was not her own and wondered what Leo must be making of all this.

“We do not have much time,” Leela said. “I am meant to be bringing sweetnectar to the Day Gardens, to celebrate Plenna’s pregnancy. I have seen visions of you in the moonstone, Sera, but I do not understand them. Tell me what happened after you fell. I have seen you with two different girls, one with brown skin and hair, and another with curls and turquoise eyes. Who are they? Are they helping you?”

“Yes,” Sera said, and had to suppress a laugh. Of course Leela thought Leo a girl. Hadn’t Sera thought the same thing that first night she had met him? Knowing that males existed and seeing one in person were two entirely different things. “There are two humans who are trying to help me get to the tether so that I can return home. But the one with the turquoise eyes is a male. His name is Leo and his sister, Agnes, is the girl you saw. They are my friends, along with a mertag, a sort of half-male half-fish, named Errol. He says he knows the location of the island where the tether is planted.”

She took a breath and began to tell the whole story from the beginning. Leela’s face grew round and bright with awe.

“They stole your blood?” she cried. “It is just like the humans from the planet of the Great Sadness!”

“That is how I felt,” Sera said. “But Leo and Agnes are not like that. Not all humans are the same.”

“It still sounds like a horrible place,” Leela said.