Between the Sea and Sky by Jaclyn Dolamore Read Free Book Online Page A

pamphlet because he loves to discuss it. Say, isn’t that your husband driving off?”
    Esmerine whirled just in time to see the cart and the boy and the winged statue trotting off into the throng. “He’s certainly not my husband!” she exclaimed. “Oh no.” She tried going after the cart, but her shoes pinched her toes and her heels wobbled. She should never have left the statue alone, even for a moment.
    The winged boy hurried up to her. “Wait, stop! Who is he, then?”
    “He just gave me a ride into town, and he has a statue I brought to trade. I don’t have many more things left!”
    “Wait here.” The boy leaped into the sky, spreading his wings. Years had not dulled the thrill that ran through Esmerine when she saw one of the winged folk break free of the world’s pull. They could not take flight on the power of their wings alone, Alander had told her. They were built for gliding, but they cultivated magic for lifting themselves off the ground, harnessing the wind, defying the laws that held everything in place.
    The horse cart had vanished around a building, but the winged boy would be able to see it from his vantage point in the sky, and he hovered a moment before he dove, disappearing beneath the rooftops.
    Alander. Alan. Did this boy work for Alander? Her Alander—it must be so. Unless it was a common name. She shouldn’t get her hopes up.
    The boy appeared above the building again, clutching something in his toes. He swept over her, scattering leaves across the stones with the rush of his wings, bowing as he landed, passing the statue from foot to wing. He brought it over to her, beaming. “There you go, miss.”
    Tears hovered perilously close to her eyes, both from gratitude and from the sheer wonder of seeing a flying boy again. “Thank you.”
    “If you’d like to see Alan, he’s probably at the bookshop. It’s down Cerona Street.” The boy pointed across the square. The distance looked eternal, and now she had no moony-eyed boy and horse cart. Damn her feet.
    “How far?” she asked.
    “You’re a mermaid, aren’t you?”
    “Is it that obvious?” Esmerine didn’t like to think everyone who saw her knew she was a mermaid.
    “Somewhat, but especially to me, because a mermaid runs the bookshop.” He frowned. “Mermaid? Maybe mercrone would be better.”
    An older mermaid? Running a human bookshop? Esmerine was surprised she’d never heard of it before, and she wasn’t sure Alander would be working for a mermaid.
    “It’d be too far for you, I think.” The boy gave her the briefest sympathetic look.
    “I want to try. This Alan you work with … is he young? Eighteen or nineteen?”
    The boy made a face. “Oh, he’s young, but he acts like he might as well be some old uncle.”
    That sounded like Alander all right. “Tell me how to get there.”
    The boy gave her directions and wished her luck. If she could just make it … Alander would surely help her find Dosia. He’d understand. He’d played with Dosia too.
    She must not think of her feet. She had to learn to ignore pain. She just had to put one foot in front of the other. Hundreds of times.

Chapter Seven
    Cerona Street angled upward, and every step dragged at her feet until they burned with pain. Behind panes of rippled glass, shops displayed watches and little jeweled boxes and bonnets like the one she wore, only nicer, by the looks of it. She tugged at the ribbon under her neck again, loosening it. If only she could do the same for her stays. She wasn’t used to wearing anything, and now she couldn’t so much as wiggle. Sweat trickled under her arms. If only she could duck under the water and free herself of her trappings, but there was no water in sight, only dusty streets that made her thirsty just to look at.
    She only had to make it to the bookshop. To Alander.
    She found herself thinking back again to his departure. Father doesn’t know I come to see you, and he’d be mad if he found out. Did his father