Of Triton - By Anna Banks Page 0,2

credit, she does try to turn away from Toraf, who’s now squatting on his haunches to unstrap her feet. But it’s as if he were the target all along, as if Rayna’s upchuck were attracted to him somehow. “Oh!” she says, vomit dripping down her chin. “I’m sorry.” Then she growls, baring her teeth like a piranha. “I hate her.”

Toraf wipes the wet chunks from his shoulder and gently lifts Rayna. “Come on, princess,” he murmurs. “Let’s get you cleaned up.” Shifting her in his arms, he turns to Galen in askance.

“Are you serious?” Galen says, incredulous. “We don’t have time for that. Did you not hear what she just said? Emma and Nalia are gone.”

Toraf scowls. “I know.” He turns to Grom. “Just so you know, Highness, I’m upset with Princess Nalia for tying Rayna up like that.”

Galen runs a hand through his hair. He knows how this works. Toraf will be useless until Rayna is sufficiently calmed down and happy again. Trying to convince his best friend of doing anything otherwise is a waste of time they don’t have. Unbelievable. “There’s a shower on the third floor,” Galen says, nodding toward the stairs. “In Emma’s room.”

Galen and Grom watch as Toraf disappears up the stairwell with their sister. “Don’t worry, princess,” they hear him coo. “Emma has all those nice-smelling soaps, remember? And all those pretty dresses you like to wear…”

Grom cocks his head at Galen.

Galen knows this looks bad. He brings his brother to land to reunite him with his long-lost love and the long-lost love has tied up his sister and run away.

Not to mention how else this looks: illegal. Rayna wearing human dresses and taking showers with human soaps and upchucking human food. All evidence that Rayna is much more familiar with the human way of life than she should be.

But Galen can’t worry about how anything looks. Emma is missing.

It feels like every nerve in his body is braided around his heart, squeezing until it aches incessantly. He stalks to the kitchen and flings open the garage door. Nalia’s car is gone. He grabs the house phone on the wall and dials Emma’s cell. It vibrates on the counter—right next to her mother’s cell phone. Dread knots in his stomach as he dials Rachel, his human assistant. Loyal, devoted, resourceful Rachel. At the beep he says, “Emma and her mother are gone and I need you to find them.” He hangs up and leans against the refrigerator, waiting with the patience of a tsunami. When the phone rings, he snatches at it, almost dropping it. “Hello?”

“Hiya, sweet pea. When you say Emma and her mother are ‘gone,’ do you mean—”

“I mean we found Rayna tied up in their house and her mother’s car is gone.”

Rachel sighs. “You should have let me put a GPS tracker on it when I wanted to.”

“That’s not important right now. Can you find them?”

“I’ll be there in ten minutes. Don’t do anything stupid.”

“Like what?” he says, but she’s already hung up.

He turns to Grom, who is holding a picture frame in his hands. His brother traces the outline of Nalia’s face with his finger. “How is this possible?” he says softly.

“It’s called a photograph,” Galen says. “Humans can capture any moment of time in this thing they call a—”

Grom shakes his head. “No. That’s not what I mean.”

“Oh. What do you mean?”

Grom holds up the picture. It’s an up-close black-and-white photo of Nalia’s face, probably taken by a professional photographer. “This is Nalia.” He runs a hand through his hair, a trait he and Galen inherited from their father. “How is it possible that she’s still alive and I’m just now learning of it?”

Galen lets out a breath. He doesn’t have an answer. Even if he did, it’s not his place to tell his brother. It’s Nalia’s place. Nalia’s responsibility. And good luck getting it out of her. “I’m sorry, Grom. But she wouldn’t tell us anything.”

3

THE MORE I stare at it, the more the popcorn ceiling above me resembles an exquisite mosaic. Yellow rings from a leaky roof add pizazz to the imperfect white mounds; the reflection of a parked car outside the hotel room highlights the design in a brilliant, abstract pattern. I try to find a name for this provocative image and decide on “Cottage Cheese, Glorified.”

And that’s when it becomes obvious that I’m distracting myself from thinking about the U-turn my life just took. I wonder if Galen is back yet. I wonder what he’s