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

have anything to do with the bookshop? Would he still be mad?
    Up ahead, a wooden sign displayed a picture of a book. It spurred her on, and she reached the building rather quickly, only to encounter a scrawled note posted on the door that said Be back at half past.
    Esmerine tried to remember exactly what that meant, when she hadn’t heard Alan speak of measuring time in years. Half past an hour? Yes. And an hour wasn’t all that long.
    Even so, she knocked on the door and pressed her face to the windows. A wooden counter and shelves sat in the shadows along the far walls. Were those shelves all full of books?
    No one came. Her feet hurt too badly to think of taking another step. She sunk onto the worn stones beneath her to wait.
    So tired … She couldn’t think about how tired she was. She pulled off her slippers with a groan and rubbed her aching soles. She couldn’t wonder what she would do if Alander never came, if Alan wasn’t Alander. She couldn’t imagine walking all the way back to the square and starting her search for Dosia now. She put her hand to the siren’s belt at her waist, murmuring songs under her breath, hoping to draw a little strength.
    People passed, most of them paying her no attention even as she watched them—girls in dirtied aprons and leather shoes, old men with bent backs, travelers with paper-pale skin burned by the sun. She had yet to see the same person twice. Maybe she never would. How did you get to know anyone, among so many people?
    She’d know Alander, though. Years had passed, but not so many years. She remembered his fleeting, flashing smiles, the dark gleam of his eyes. They’d share old memories, talk of old times.
    A man. Alander would be practically a man now. She’d known it, but suddenly she realized he’d look different, not just taller. He might have sideburns and a hat like the passing humans; he had a job, for all she knew he could be married—
    Gods knew who he might be now.
    When he finally came, it seemed like a dream. He wore the brim of his short beaver-felt hat tugged low over his eyes against the sun. He had an open book between his fingers, reading as he walked, just like old times, but he was not the fourteen-year-old boy she remembered at all. He had grown tall and graceful—at least as graceful as one could be dodging a pile of horse droppings while one’s nose was buried in a book—and he looked quite good with sideburns.
    He peered at her above the book cover some moments after she noticed him. He quickly snapped the book shut and shoved it within his vest, leaving an awkward rectangular shape there. “Good afternoon, miss—” He doffed his hat. She’d almost forgotten his accent, clipped, like he was in a hurry to get the words out and go. “I’m sorry. I just had a brief errand to run. What are you looking for today?”
    He didn’t even recognize her!
    She rose to her feet, pushing her hair back behind her ears, waiting for it to dawn on him.
    He stepped closer. His eyes filled with sudden shock. Oh, thank the waters!
    “Esmerine?” he said, slowly replacing his hat on the back of his head.
    “Yes. It’s me.” A flutter rushed from her stomach to her throat. Oh dear oh dear. Alander. He was real. She didn’t know what else to say. She hadn’t realized how different they’d be now. Of course she hadn’t really expected to find a boy, but she also hadn’t realized she’d find a man of Sormesen with a hat to doff and a necktie. His cropped bangs clung to his forehead in the heat. He was taller than her by a good half a fin, where they had once been nearly the same height. He came very close to her, close enough that she smelled the smoke and fire of the human world on his clothes.
    “You—you …” His lips moved a moment without any words coming out, like he spoke only to himself. “You didn’t come to … to find me, did you?”
    “No. I’m looking for my sister.”
    He breathed, his surprise slipping away, replaced by the