“What is it?” she asked, looking at all the green and white sheets of paper.
“Luxury, darling, that is pure luxury.”
He didn’t elaborate, just slung the bag across his chest, then opened his door to exit.
“Thanks, Maria,” Iris said before exiting.
Monty stood on the sidewalk, gaze angled up at the building.
“I suppose it will do,” he said. “I do hope he has the penthouse, though. I had my heart set on a penthouse.”
If the people passing on the street thought a talking pelican was an odd occurrence, they made no show of it, just brushing past them as if they weren’t even there. Except, of course, for a few men who stopped and stared.
“It’s positively nauseating, isn’t it?” another voice asked.
Turning, Iris saw a woman standing to her side. She was tall, almost statuesque, with rich, warm brown skin, and long deep green hair.
There was something … not quite human about her—an otherness in her posture, in the steady, grounded way she blinked.
“What?”
“All that glass and stone,” the woman declared, shivering. “Though, it doesn’t make me quite as woozy as all this concrete,” she said, rubbing the soles of her shoes against the sidewalk. “You’re a mermaid, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Iris said. She was pleased that even out of the water, surface people could still see her for what she was.It made her feel a little more herself in this big, strange new world. “Iris,” she introduced herself.
“Willow,” the woman introduced herself, then added, “dryad.”
“A dryad? In the city?”
Dryads were tree fae. They typically lived in dense forests where they were free to live both inside and outside of their trees.
Iris had only ever seen a handful of trees in her life, usually off in the distance when she surfaced near a seaside town. She had a hard time imagining an entire forest of them.
“I’ve always lived here,” Willow told her. “I was rooted right there.” She gestured to the space where Finn’s building now stood.
“Wait … did they … did they cut down your tree? To build … that?”
“They did.”
Iris’s stomach twisted. She could only imagine what it would feel like to have a bit of your soul bulldozed for someone else’s skyline.
“How are you still alive?” Monty piped up.
“Monty!” Iris scolded.
“It’s a valid question,” Willow said. “Just as they were cutting it down, a seed capsule flew loose. I found it, saved it, and planted it in the small courtyard in the back of the building. Do you need to get in the building?” she asked, shifting a netted bag full of fruits onto her shoulder.
“We’re moving in,” Monty declared, puffing out his chest. “With Finn Westrock.”
“Oh, Finn! He’s a nice guy,” Willow said.
A nice guy? Iris just barely resisted the urge to snort atthat declaration. Maybe surface people and merfolk had different definitions of ‘nice.’
Willow produced a small oblong piece of plastic as she walked toward the door, then held it up toward a screen near the door.
“Keyless entry,” Monty said, nodding. “Fancy. We’re moving up in the world!”
While Iris didn’t agree with his sentiment, she had to admit that there was something beautiful about the interior of the building. In its strange, straight lines, and in all of its stone, tile, and glass. Nothing in the ocean was so uniform. Things grew wild and often shapeless there. And even she could appreciate the beauty of something the complete opposite.