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for the half-grown, half-feral whelps of Sanctuary.
    But there were no children on the selkie island anymore. Not in over twenty years. Dylan had been the
    last.
    Conn’s people were dying out. He needed more than a teacher to save them this time.
    “You have a problem with teachers?”
    “Not at all,” he said politely. “I admire those who can teach. I simply have not known many.”
    “You must have known some.”
    He raised his eyebrows in question.
    “When you were a kid,” she explained.
    “Ah. No. I received instruction—what there was of it—from my father.”
    She nodded. “Homeschooler. We don’t get a lot of those on World’s End. Most islanders are just
    grateful we have enough children to keep the school running, you know?”
    “Indeed.”
    “Did you like learning from your father? Or was it lonely without other children?”
    Conn frowned. It was not the sort of question anyone had ever asked him. That anyone would dare to
    ask him. He did not talk about himself or what he missed or what he liked. He especially did not talk
    about his father.
    He looked down grimly at the woman walking beside him with long, free strides. Now that the
    conversation was fixed on him, she was animated, even attractive, her quiet face bright with
    encouragement.
    It was her job, she had said, to take an interest. He thought it must be her nature as well.
    But then why did she shrink into herself earlier? Was she so averse to attention? She had a trick of
    lowering her lashes and ducking her head that made her almost disappear.
    Like magic.
    Not magic, Conn reminded himself. She was human. She could have no understanding of him or his
    needs.
    “I am never lonely,” he said.
    “You and your father must be close, then,” she observed.
    “Not particularly,” Conn said, his tone cool.
    Her soft green eyes reflected her confusion. “But if he taught you—”
    “I have not seen my father for many years.” Centuries, if he kept track of such things. Which he certainly
    did not. “He abandoned all claim to affection or allegiance”— or the throne— “when he abandoned us.”
    “ ‘Us’?” she queried softly.
    Conn regarded her with annoyance. “My people.”
    “Your family.”
    He was silent.
    “It’s hard,” she said. “Dealing with a parent who walks out. I mean, I miss my mother, and I don’t even
    remember her. She left us when I was a baby.”
    Conn frowned. Was she actually offering him sympathy? He was selkie, one of the First Creation. He did
    not require her pity. “So I heard.”
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    She turned her head sharply.
    “From your brother,” he said.
    Her brow cleared. “That’s right. Have you known each other long?”
    Ever since Dylan’s Change at thirteen, when Atargatis discovered her older son was selkie. She had
    returned with him to the sea, leaving her human family behind.
    A year later, she was dead, trapped and drowned in a fisherman’s net, and Dylan became Conn’s ward
    on Sanctuary.
    “Long enough,” Conn said.
    Fog dripped from the trees like tears. The houses grew smaller and farther apart. Rusting vehicles and
    stacks of lobster traps littered yards like wrecks on the ocean bottom.
    “Did you ever meet her?” Lucy asked abruptly. “My mother?”
    “Yes.”
    “What was she like?”
    Discontented, Conn remembered. As unhappy with the life she had returned to as the one she left. Away
    from the magic of Sanctuary, in human form, selkies aged as humans did. The years on land had dragged
    at Atargatis, coarsening her hair, wearing on her spirit, etching lines at the corners of her eyes. But she
    was still selkie, still alluring, still . . .
    “Beautiful,” he said.
    “That’s it? Just beautiful?”
    What did she want him to say? She was not like the mother who had abandoned her. Not selkie. And
    not beautiful either. Appealing, perhaps, with her lean, quiet face and coltish grace,