the one who’s in the most danger.
“Elodie!” I call, and run into the freezing waves until I’m waist-deep. I’m about to dive under when a strange call resounds from the rocks. A seal is standing upright, barking. I don’t know what forces me to look again, but something in the seal’s call makes me do a double take. And that’s how I spot something beside the seal, something golden against the grey skin of the animal.
“Elodie! Oh my God, Elodie.” I look around wildly, trying to work out the quickest way to reach her, and without any further thought I dive into the freezing sea and swim as strongly as I’m able towards the rocks. When I emerge, the seal is gone, and a girl is sitting in its place. She’s cradling Elodie’s head in her lap, brushing away Elodie’s soaking hair from her face.
“Elodie!” I call, sputtering water. The girl looks at me. I realize she’s naked, but for her long, dripping hair, a strange shade of silvery-lilac.
Is she human?
I lift myself onto the rocks and place my hands over Elodie’s chest. She’s breathing. She’s alive!
“Thank you,” I whisper to the girl.
“You’re welcome,” she replies, and her voice has a light Scottish lilt to it. She’s not embarrassed in the slightest by her nudity.
“Sean.” Elodie’s eyes open and she starts coughing up water. I help her sit up.
“I’m here. It’s OK, it’s over. Niall killed the demon.”
She looks utterly stunned. “Who … who are you?” murmurs Elodie, turning to the silver-haired girl.
“I’m Winter Shaw.”
“Of course.” Elodie looks at Winter’s face intently. “I dreamt of you once. Remember, Sean?” She shivers violently. She’s soaking, and the cold wind is cutting us to the quick. Strangely, the naked young woman is not showing any signs of being cold. I’d like to ask her a few questions, but first I need to make sure that Niall is OK.
“Can you walk?” I ask Elodie.
“I think so.”
I turn to the mysterious girl. “Will you come with us?”
“Yes. I think it’s time.”
There isn’t time to wonder what she means. Niall is doubled over some way away across the beach, and he’s holding himself as if in excruciating pain. We make our way across the rocks, hopping from stone to stone until we reach him.
“Elodie?” he murmurs. Relief shines from his grimacing face.
“I’m OK. Niall, you saved my life – you, and Winter.”
“Winter?” whispers Niall.
The silver-haired girl kneels next to him. “It’s me. I am Winter.”
Niall picks himself up with exertion and looks at the silver-haired girl. I see his eyes widen. “Elemental,” he whispers.
“Half Elemental, half human. The best of both,” smiles Winter, innocent in her nakedness.
“Er, here.” Elodie takes off her soaking jacket and hands it to Winter.
But she shrugs. “I’m not cold.”
“It’s more for us, really,” I mumble, and look away.
She laughs. “Oh, sorry. I forget the way things are for people. I haven’t often been in my human form in the last few years.”
“Lucky you,” says Niall gently.
Winter looks at Niall as if she sees him for the first time. “You’re of the sea,” she states, wrapping Elodie’s jacket around herself. “A Secret heir?”
“Yes.” Niall’s voice is very, very soft. I expect him to make a joke, or pay Winter some kind of naff compliment, but he doesn’t. He’s deadly serious, and staring at her, unable to look away.
“Ow,” he says suddenly, and folds himself in two again, holding his stomach.
“Are you hurt?” I put my arm around his shoulders.
“No. It’s just that … it was all so sudden. No time to take the song slowly. It can be overwhelming when it happens like that. The pain’ll pass soon, though. Where’s the demon?”
“Over there, on the shore.” I look over to the huge pink mass, as big as a car, quivering on the sand. Some of its tentacles are tangled under and around it, some are stretched for hundreds of yards across the sand.
“Sean!” gasps Elodie suddenly. “You’re bleeding!”
I touch my ears, then look at the blood on my fingers. “Niall, you were supposed to kill the demon, not me!”
“Sorry. I can’t help it. The song takes on its own momentum. You’ll be OK, anyway. The noise didn’t last long enough to kill you.”
“Just as well,” I growl, while Elodie touches my face lightly, checking for bruising. “Let’s go back to the house and get dried up. You can tell us all about yourself, Winter. And meet Sarah.”
“Oh, I know all about Sarah Midnight. I used to play with her aunt Mairead,”