“So,” the blue princess said after a moment of pause. Haliegh sat on Fiona’s right, with legs tucked under each other so all the pressure was on her knees, and Goldie, with a curious tilt of her head, shifted to do the same as if just to try it. Fiona felt a little guilty with one leg stretched out and the other tucked under it, but figured it would be best to keep moving the conversation forward before Goldie potentially got scared off.

  “Do you have any hobbies?”

  Introductions had been made well enough. Haliegh introduced herself with only her first name and said she was just a simple city girl from Roanoke, and Goldie offered nothing more than her name again.

  “Fiona!” The green-haired girl snapped, taking on a tone that was reminiscent of her brother, “Surely there are more important things you could ask!”

  “What hobbies?”

  The blue princess was not ready for that one.

  “I, uh, they are something you do for fun. Like I do some painting, or did some painting for a while before I got bored with it, and Odell likes to work on vehakuls, and Gwyn likes his history stuff.”

  The golden fish girl blinked a couple of times; it looked like her eyelids might be sideways, similar to a Zenotote, but Fiona wasn’t sure she saw right.

  “I not understand. We…” she paused a moment, deep in thought, “survive. I get food. I mend clothes. Then I sleep.”

  “But, don’t you do anything else when you have free time!” The golden girl spoke so honestly that the princess was beginning to feel a bit sad. Perhaps this was that syndrome thing she had heard the last otherworlder spoke about once or twice.

  “Fiona,” Haliegh sighed.

  “When I have time, I study your words.”

  “So you like to study languages then?”

  “It for good of Maervixs people.”

  The princess frowned and shook her head.

  “No, no, did anyone tell you to start studying?”

  “Fiona, of all the things to get focused on….”

  “I choose my own….” The golden girl’s eyes widened a moment; something clicked. “No for good of Maervixs people.” Fiona could see she wasn’t about to get anything more from the fish girl. The princess was all too aware of what it looked like when people pushed themselves down to project an image. Quenth’s castle was full of them. She hated having to deal with them.

  Her past self might have started insulting Goldie, saying the girl was lying to herself, and she needed to be a freer spirit. Yet, the free spirit life was one full of backhanded comments and sometimes the back of hands. Fiona felt she wasn’t the one to give advice, nor to pity the girl.

  Doing so may have stopped the conversation anyway, and the blue princess's primary focus was on making a new friend who could get them out of the mess. She was keenly aware that it was a selfish reason to seek friendship, and she was also aware that she was pushing herself down to project an image. Another reason she couldn’t give out advice or pity—she was a hypocrite.

  “Well, perhaps that’s enough for hobbies today…. I uh,” she stopped midsentence. What was it that friends talked about anyway? She had such an easy time chatting with Odell about whatever, or even grumpy Gwyn when he was extra moody. What was she supposed to say to this girl?

  Haliegh, perhaps seeing the opening in the conversation, jumped in with a neutral tone, “What should we expect to happen to us?”

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  Goldie’s fins on her neck shuddered, and her eyes looked to the bland wall off to their sides. She shifted from sitting on her knees to a cross-legged position.

  “Scouts go out, they find others.”

  “That only makes sense, you’d be concerned about any of our friends running around.”

  “Though Gwyn isn’t so bad! He probably won’t try to fight!”

  “I took the Nonpareil for more of a… Nonpareil.” The green-haired girl sounded a little disappointed. Since Fiona couldn’t tell why, it came off as a bit unnecessarily annoying.

  “He’s still very much a Nonpareil! Why he even beat up that one grimy guy in the mountains like he was nothing!”

  “Non-pa-el?” Goldie said with a tilt to her head.

  “Interesting. Does she not have the concept, or do they use a different word?” Haliegh muttered to herself.

  “They’re the kinds of people who show up and go,” Fiona began to flail her arms around, “BAM! And WOOSH! And stuff.”

  Goldie’s shoulders jerked, and one of the guards' heads popped up from the water behind her. Fiona quickly put her hands on her legs. “Anyway, stuff like that. Though Gwyn was named a Nonpareil by my brother, and he’s no oracle or anything, so Gwyn likes to deny it.”

  “Guwin?”

  “My grumpy friend who was on the…. Who was with us! He’s a Netzian like her, but he came from another world!”

  The fish girl was looking ever more confused, but not in a bad way. Her eyes seemed to sparkle, and her body loosened up. Fiona wasn’t sure with the language gap if she was getting everything, but it was enough to hook her.

  The blue princess felt a little bad. Donn would have become actual friends, but time was of the essence if they really wanted to get out of the jail. The green-haired girl was lost in a spiral of muttering to herself about histories or timelines or something—Fiona would need to make sure to keep her away from Gwyn for his own good—but that meant the princess was free to talk.

  “But I can tell you about all that later. You were about to tell us about what the plans for us are? I would hopefully not be locked up in here all the time. Would it be possible for us to go on a walk at any point? Maybe just visit your place? With guards, of course, we don’t want to cause a scene.”

  Goldie looked at the cell floor.

  “The… godking is asking if you substitute for daily sacrifice for Klanussul. He think you burn okay, but not sure how prep meat.”

  For a moment, the splashing of the water in the pool behind Goldie was all that could be heard. Even Haliegh stopped muttering. The girls exchanged a glance with each other. Fiona wasn’t sure she was on the same page as Haliegh that much, but she knew what the green-haired girl was thinking. They needed to escape.

  Clearing her throat, Fiona tried her best to take on the friendly tone she had been managing before.

  “Well, uh, Goldie, we wouldn’t make good sacrifices, and we wouldn’t taste very good either.”

  The golden girl nodded.

  “Me agree, very bad idea, Klanussal be angry. Godking mistaken.”

  Fiona realized her heart rate had jumped up only as something gave enough relief to bring it down.

  “So the Gothi will correct him then?”

  “Me not know Gothi.”

  “Old Resh cultures didn’t have a dedicated Gothi to run temples and shrines,” Haliegh added. “This Godking probably serves that role as well.”

  Her heart rate increased again.

  “So, so, Goldie, we’re friends, right? You can tell the godking he can’t sacrifice friends, can’t you?”

  “Friends?” Goldie tilted her head to the side, “We friends?”

  “Oh, we’re doomed.”

  “Calm down, Fiona. We just need to be diplomatic.”

  Fiona couldn’t calm down. Faced with the actual possibility of death, she was starting to think maybe Gwyn was right about hiding in his room, but only for a second. It wasn’t the possibility of getting hurt that she was worried about. She realized in her short life that she might have accomplished nothing, and only when she started trying to do better, it was about to be snuffed out.

  Before anything else could be said, Goldie’s head suddenly snapped toward the pool. Two bursts of water announced the arrival of more large fishmen as they pulled pill-shaped pods from the water and made a wailing sound across the floor. The pods opened up, and the Bentalousian and Hobusian Fiona had seen on the beach rolled out. The Hobusian man was still awake and used it to scream profanities that the large guards surely didn’t understand. The fishman kicked the grey man all the same before screeching the pods back to the pool and disappearing under the water.

  One of the previous guards popped his head above the water and gestured to Goldie. She rolled her shoulders in response, some body language foreign to the princess, and turned back to the girls. The golden girl rested a soft hand on Fiona’s.

  “I have go, I try help, please be patient. Friend.”

  Without another word, the fish girl dove into the pool and her glittering form vanished down the underwater tunnel of unknown length.

  Perhaps there was hope after all.

  Haleigh shook her head. “Do you think there is any chance Gwyn would try to rescue us? Or should we just run now?”

  Fiona had to think about that for a moment, but became firm in her answer.

  “He will come for us, and Goldie might be some help; we just need to be ready, at any moment,” she looked at the duo they dueled on the beach, “and I guess the first order of business is figuring out what the deal is with these guys.”