Page 2 of The Last Kelpie

“Reality is more flexible than you think.” He took a sip of his coffee and then made a face as if it offended him. “Your grandmother understood that. She spent most of her life documenting myths, preserving their stories, and reminding the world of them.”

The rain fell harder against the window. Someone opened the café door, and cold air rushed in. My anger rushed forward as if summoned by the weather. “I don't know what your game is, but I'm not falling for it.”

Julian nodded as if he'd expected my reaction. “Zoe?”

A woman who'd been sitting three tables away—I'd noticed her earlier, mostly because she looked so mysterious, dressed in a hooded cloak—stood up and came over.

“Show him.” Julian motioned at me.

Zoe sat down and looked at me with eyes the color of new leaves. Within the cover of her hood, her hair had a strange green tint to it. “This frightens people sometimes.”

“I'm not—” I started to say, frightened, but the word died in my throat.

Because her skin was changing.

Not like makeup or a trick of the light. Actually changing. Bark rippled up her neck and across her face. Leaves, emerald and bright, grew from her hair and unfurled like time-lapse footage of plants. When she smiled, her teeth were as white as birch wood.

I looked around, expecting to find everyone in the cafe staring at her, but she'd kept the changes to her face alone, and they were hidden by her hood. No one had noticed.

“I'm a dryad.” Zoe pulled her hood further down. “My tree grows in the gardens at the Velasca Estate. I've been alive for three hundred and forty-two years. Your grandmother used to bring me botanical books. She thought I'd find them funny.”

I stared at her, my mind spinning. I didn't know what to say. What do you talk about with a plant person? “Uh, did you? Find them funny, I mean?”

“Hilarious.” Zoe grinned. The bark receded from her face, and the leaves drew back into her hair. In thirty seconds, she looked human again, just a beautiful woman in a hooded cloak. “Humans always get the Latin names wrong.”

“The Velasca preserves the incarnations of myths.” He inclined his head to Zoe. “We document them, protect them, help them survive by reminding the world of them. When humans stop believing, myths fade. Not die—fade. They become less real, less solid, until they're nothing but stories again. We're trying to stop that.”

“Why?” My voice sounded strange. Distant. “Why does it matter if myths fade?”

“Because we're people.” Zoe frowned at me. “Would you let a person disappear? I'm as real as you are.”

I looked at my hands. At the scar on my left palm, white and puckered, from the time I'd pulled a dog out of a frozen lake when I was sixteen. The dog had lived. I'd needed twelve stitches. I'd always been good at saving things.

“Your grandmother asked us to give you this opportunity.” Julian leaned forward. “To continue her work. We're offering you a position as a junior Velascan. Six months of training in our Swiss office, then you'll come to our headquarters and receive your first assignment.”

“And if I say no?”

“Then you say no.” Julian stood, buttoning his suit jacket, and helped Zoe to her feet. “We don't force anyone to join us. You need to be passionate about this work to do well in the Velasca. But I think you'll say yes. You've spent your whole life studying myths, Ethan. Wouldn't you like to meet one?”

He left his card on the table. Heavy cream cardstock with a single line of text: Dr. Julian Baptiste, The Velasca. There was a phone number below it, but no address.

I sat in that café for two more hours, drinking cold coffee and watching rain run down the windows, trying to convince myself I'd hallucinated the whole thing. But the card was real. And the memory of bark spreading across Zoe's skin was impossible to deny.

Two days later, I'd called the number and said yes.

Now I stood before the Velasca Headquarters—their first and main estate—surrounded by living beings who shouldn't exist. This was where my grandmother had worked. It was where she wanted me to work. But looking around, I knew this would be more than a job.

I forced my legs to work and went to the front door of the main hall. It was wood, dark and heavy, with an iron knocker shaped like a tree. I tapped it three times. That was the magic number, wasn't it? The sound echoed through the crisp air, and several people looked my way. After a few moments, I heard footsteps, and then the door swung open.

Julian looked the same as he had in Reykjavik. Same charcoal suit, though his pocket square was bright orange silk. Same confident bearing and that same twinkle in his dark eyes.

“Ethan. You have excellent timing.” He stepped back, motioning me inside. “Mateo, our head chef, has declared breakfast a crisis, which means someone brought a creature into the dining hall that they shouldn't have. It should be entertaining. He took my suitcases and set them down near the wall. “I'll have someone take that to your room. Come with me.”

The entrance room was all stone and wood, with a staircase curving up to the left and hallways branching off in three directions—left, right, and forward. Paintings covered the walls. Not the stuffy portraits you'd expect in a place like this, but vibrant, strange images. A woman made of water. A man with antlers. A dragon curled on top of a mountain.

“I assume your training was satisfactory.” Julian glanced at me as he led me down the right-hand corridor.

“It was eye-opening. Everything fascinated me.” I was still trying to process what I'd seen in the gardens. I'd read about myths, but nothing could have prepared me to see them in person. “Dr. Müller is very thorough.”