“She’ll wander back eventually,” Jules sighed, waving a hand in front of her face, dismissing the issue. “It’s not like we’re leaving anytime soon, anyways.”

  “Jules.” Ellio gave her a hard look, one she pursed her lips to. “I know you don’t like Azhar, but she hasn’t done anything to warrant such hatred from you.”

  Jules looked down at her glass, running a finger around the rim. “I know she hasn’t. I just… get the feeling Taiga’s lying to us again, and it’s because of her.”

  Ellio glanced down the street, hoping to spot Azhar’s orange headscarf hovering at a stall nearby. Jules wasn’t wrong. And though he didn’t say it, Ellio had the feeling something was deeply wrong with Azhar. Part of him questioned if she was human at all. A fairy like Mouse, maybe? Or a siren? But she didn’t seem to know of the ocean, and only the purest of blooded sirens could stand upon land.

  “I’ll do better,” Jules muttered, eyes downcast in defeat. “But I still think she’ll find us at some point. I don’t think you need to worry. She knows we’re going to stay at the guildhall.”

  “If she remembers.” And Azhar didn’t seem to remember anything past a few minutes.

  “Be happy.”

  Why did she tell him that? Her eyes showed so gentle love, it startled him. He’d done nothing to warrant such affections from her. “I’m going to go look for her.”

  Jule sat back in her chair, waving him off. “Fine, go. I’m going to the guildhall after I finish my drink. I’ll see you there.”

  “I’m leaving Ghost with you.” He slung the reins over the patio fence, tying it for her and gave Ghost a last pat.

  “Yeah, I’ve got him.” She bent forward and ran a few fingers over his snout.

  Ellio nodded, heading off down the street. Azhar always wore an orange headscarf, and he’d hoped it would make her easier to spot. But the large number of merchants towing a bright flurry of colors made such vibrancy commonplace. Voices shouted over one another, and though Ellio’s height gave him quite the advantage, wagons, linlao, horses, and carts moved about too frequently to get a good view.

  When he managed a decent look, he spotted an orange headscarf a good twenty meters ahead. He jousted around people, squeezing between too small of spaces and brushing against others all along the way. He muttered endless apologies, keeping his eyes on the orange as it floated about the crowd,

  “Azhar!” He got a hand to her shoulder, flipping her around. He was greeted to a boy, maybe fifteen, who blinked at him before pulling away.

  “I’m so sorry,” Ellio said as he backed away. He looked back to the crowd, down the slope towards the water. She’d been interested in it, right? Maybe she wandered to the dock?

  Ellio made his way down the street, breaking from the crowd focused around the market square. He could breathe again, tasting the salted humid air in his throat. With all the snow they traveled through, it was like a dream to stand in such warm weather. Sweat beaded down his back, and he pulled his sweater off, stuffing it into his bag.

  Then, he went off again, searching the streets and making his way to the dock. He asked a few people if they’d seen her. It wasn’t until he’d landed both feet onto the stone dock that someone recognized her description and pointed him towards the southern part of town.

  Ellio followed the directions he’d been given, marching up the slope and finally spotted Azhar’s orange headscarf and her lightweight, bouncy dress and skirt. He wouldn’t make the same mistake twice, though, and ran up to her. “Azhar.”

  He got in front of her when she didn’t respond, and on the verge of feeling foolish once again, he blinked at the woman who was, indeed Azhar. “Hey, do you hear me?”

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  But Azhar’s eyes, unfocused, drifted her forward and never searched for him, even as he stepped in front of her. She flitted around him, unsteady on her feet and swishing from side to side, half in dance. When she brushed past him, her voice sung to him like the dearest of bells ringing of the most calming of days in sorrow.

  A siren, perhaps.

  “Azhar.” He slid his hand to hers as she’d done on the way to Haasundra. But her fingers never acknowledged his, and slipped from his as he didn’t try to keep them in his grasp.

  Again.

  She was like this again.

  He didn’t know what it was. A daze? A curse? A waking sleep that drove insanity to her? Her hum carried his heart in flutters, and he found his feet following hers. Ellio didn’t dare leave her alone in such a state.

  How did Taiga pulled her out of it before? Ellio managed it once, but twice more since then he’d failed, only watching her from afar until she turned back to them, smiling, as if only a moment had passed. He pulled her wrist lightly, gentler this time, “Azhar.”

  But her eyes found nothing. Her hum carried on the wind, and lulled the sea, the birds, his fears, and his uncertainties. And so he followed her as she walked the street. He carefully pulled her to the side when a carriage passed, and fishers from the other side watched them with fascination, smiling to her song. Such beauty in it, he could almost let her bewitch him, if she were a siren.

  One more effort did nothing to summon her back, and he resigned to following her. She led him through the streets, past gulls fighting over a defensive crab, children running about and playing ‘outsider, outsider’.

  He paused to the children’s laughter, discomfort lodging within his heart as they whacked the decided Outsider with wooden swords and chased them about until caught. A child’s game, surely concocted by paranoia and fear.

  It’d been so calm beside Taiga that he nearly forgot he, himself, was an Outsider.

  But Azhar’s steps beckoned him further up the hill, and her hum dismissed his rising fear as he followed her. The ocean’s waves crashed against the sheer rocks below, and Azhar wavered back and forth, back and forth. Back and forth.

  His eyelids grew dreary and when his boots hit flat ground, he realized she’d walked all the way to where a lighthouse perched upon the cliffside. A wall reaching to his chest fenced the plaza around the tower, a small house tucked into the corner of the street.

  “Azhar?” He sped up to her, pulling alongside her but was met only with her blank stare. Still, she did not wake from whatever bewitched her.

  “Be happy.”

  The words echoed in his head and pulled at his chest. Why would she tell him that? He was plenty happy. He knew this woman for such a short amount of time that she couldn’t possibly know otherwise. And yet the words stung him. They kept him from ignoring her.

  “Do you… want to see the lighthouse?” He tossed a guess at her, watching her unsteady steps as they headed towards the tower.

  Azhar wandered through the arches of the tower and started up the steps. Ellio followed her, raising an arm between her and the dropoff of the stairs. A small half-wall bordered the stairs, but she, in her trance, could easily go over.

  But she never touched him, never teetered over the wall, and never stopped going up the steps. Her eyes followed nothing, but her feet led her regardless. When her boots landed squarely at the top of the lighthouse, she stopped.

  Azhar’s body swayed a moment, and Ellio held his arms up around her to keep her from falling back if necessary. But she didn’t. Instead, when Ellio came up around her, she giggled. The laugh startled him, and he froze as she broke out into full laughter, her head arching back and bellowing such a fit from her small body.

  “Hey,” he hesitated, looking her over, “are you okay?”

  But she hadn’t broken from her trance and instead wandered forward, from his protection, and twirled around on her feet. “I, too, love to dance,” her voice sung in a happiness so dear, it made him pull away.

  He’d never danced before. Who did she speak to? Who did she see, holding her outstretched hands? Who twirled her around on such pittering feet? He saw nothing, and yet her eyes followed that nothingness between them. When he stepped forward, she took his hands in hers and whirled beneath them.

  A hand slipped to his back, and she swished her skirts and dress around him, pulling him into her fantasy. He heavied his feet fearful of stepping on hers as they tapped about. She giggled and pulled him into her hums. Ellio found himself stumbling and let her guide their dance across the upper platform of the lighthouse.

  Then her hands slipped away and she twirled with a smile, pulling away from him, just out of reach. He readied his arms for when she returned to their dance, but she slowed, ending her twirl, and taking three quick steps back.

  Azhar’s eyes smiled at him, that same look she’d shown him on the wagon. They were focused once more, and then they weren’t. She fluttered to the edge of the platform, and just as Ellio’s heart sank and he ran for her, she set her feet back against the half wall and let herself fall back and over the platform.

  “Azhar!!” Ellio screamed, reaching for her as she fell from the lighthouse and disappeared from sight.