Above World - By Jenn Reese Page 0,26

you don’t want yours, I’ll take it!”

“Keep your fins to yourself,” Hoku said with his mouth full. “I may be small, but I’m scrappy.”

They dozed and talked while they waited, alternating their conversation between praise for the food they’d just eaten and plans for their imminent escape.

“Okay, so we kill a few Aviars and make wings from their feathers,” Hoku said. “I’ll handle the wing making,” he said, “and you’ll take care of the . . . feather procurement.”

“The killing, you mean,” Aluna said. “Killing Deepfell and Aviars isn’t like trapping crabs or collecting mussels. I’d rather find another way.” Her sister, Daphine, would be able to talk them out of captivity. She’d probably get them all a free ride back to the ocean, too.

Hoku sighed. “Well, it’s not like we have a lot of options.”

Something moved in the hallway. Aluna and Hoku became still as starfish. Someone was shuffling down the corridor.

“Don’t be scared,” a voice said. “I’m not here to hurt you.”

Hoku whispered, “And there’s a pearl in every oyster.”

Aluna stood up and walked over to the bars of her cell. A girl Aviar about Hoku’s age slouched in the hallway, gripping a strange rectangular object in both hands. She had long dull-brown hair and tawny wings painted black at the tips. She wore one of the intricate gold necklaces Aluna had seen on every bird-woman so far.

“Who are you?” Aluna said. She didn’t see much purpose for courtesy when she was being forced to eat meat off the ground and pee into a hole in the floor. Of course, she didn’t see much purpose for courtesy in general.

“I’m Calli,” the girl said.

“Did you come here to torture us?” Hoku asked.

“No, don’t be silly,” Calli said with a nervous laugh. “I was just listening to you, and you sounded nice. I particularly liked the part about not wanting to kill us.” She held up the strange box in her hands. Knobs and buttons protruded from the surface, each surrounded by strange markings.

“What do you mean, you were listening to us?” Aluna asked. “Were you hiding around the corner?” Even then, the girl shouldn’t have been able to hear. They’d been whispering, letting their voices sound in each other’s ears the way they did back in the ocean.

The girl put her box on the ground and fiddled with its buttons. Then she turned it so the front faced their cells. The box crackled.

“Say something,” Calli said. “Anything.”

“Is that an artifact?” Hoku asked. As he was saying it, Aluna heard his voice in her ears and from the box at the same time.

“Magic!” she said. And the box said, “Magic!” too — in her voice!

“It’s a radio,” Calli said, grinning. “I check all the frequencies every day, just in case.” She blushed, but continued, “This is the first time I’ve ever heard anything.”

“That’s amazing,” Hoku said, his surly mood instantly forgotten. “A radio! I’ve heard about them, but I’ve never seen one. Well, except for the ones in our throats and ears.”

“These things are in our ears?” Aluna asked, trying to keep up.

“Yes,” Hoku and Calli answered together, then laughed. Calli’s cheeks reddened, and Aluna imagined Hoku’s cheeks were doing the same.

Oh, ink it all! This was not the time for another one of his hopeless crushes.

“Are you Humans?” Calli asked.

Aluna snorted. “Of course not. Do we look like barbarians to you?”

“No, I didn’t mean —”

“We’re Kampii,” Hoku said quickly. “You know, from the ocean?”

“Oh! That explains your necklace,” Calli said to Hoku. She ran a finger along the elaborate golden links around her throat. “The tech that allows you to breathe underwater helps you get more oxygen up here, too.”

“That’s why Aluna got sky sickness and I didn’t,” Hoku said brightly. “Because she doesn’t have a breathing shell anymore.”

Why would he say that to a stranger? To an enemy? He may as well just stab her in the back and be done with it.

“We were designed for high altitudes,” Calli said, ignoring Hoku’s comment but avoiding Aluna’s gaze all the same. “But we can fly hundreds of meters higher than this, and then we need the oxygen the necklaces give us. Down here, at Skyfeather’s Landing, they’re mostly just pretty.”

“Pretty,” Hoku said. “Yeah, the necklaces are pretty.”

Calli blushed and fiddled with a knob on her radio.

“What about the ocean?” Aluna asked. “Could an Aviar necklace help me breathe underwater?”

Her heart thudded in her chest. Please say yes.

But Calli shook her head. “The water makes things complicated. . . .”

“Our