The Tinkerer's Daughter by Jamie Sedgwick Page A

you do Breeze?” he laughed.
    “Mind your own business, Robie,” Analyn said. She shooed him off with a gesture, and he pranced out the door, laughing. The rest of the group disappeared behind him. As the door closed, Analyn turned her attention to me.
    “How was your first week?”
    “It was fun,” I said. “I’ve learned a lot.”
    “I’m glad you think so. I’ve seen a huge improvement in your work already. Breeze, I’m sorry if I upset you by bringing up your father, but I thought it might help the other kids to warm up to you.”
    “I understand. Actually, the more I learn about what he did, the more I feel like I know him.”
    “I’m glad to hear it. I wish I could tell you more about him, but I never really knew your father. He came to the mercantile a few times for supplies, but he never had much to say. He mostly kept to himself. I do know that he wasn’t from this area.”
    “Really?”
    “Yes. He moved here a few years ago, probably just after you were born.” I realized as she spoke that my past was a dizzying black hole. Having been so steadily distracted by Tinker’s projects, and having matured so rapidly, I hadn’t had much time to wonder about my own origins. Suddenly these thoughts came flooding into me, and I felt a rush of apprehension as I realized I knew nothing about my past.
    I had always assumed I’d been born and raised in the Riverfork area, and that my mother had probably died in childbirth or fallen ill. This revelation that my father was a foreigner opened up a whole new path of questioning.
    “Do you know where he came from?” I asked. My heart was thumping. Who was my father? How had we ended up here, and without my mother?
    “I believe he came from the Borderlands, the part of the kingdom that borders the Crimson Strait.”
    “The Borderlands? That’s where the war is, isn’t it?”
    “Mostly, yes. The Strait is a narrow channel of water that separates the land of Astatia from the Isle of Tal’mar, the home of your mother’s people. That’s where most of the fighting has taken place over the centuries. Legends say that during great battles, the water has turned the color of blood. Hence the name.”
    I shivered at the appalling thought. How many people had died to spill that much blood? It was no wonder that the humans and Tal’mar hated each other so. All they’d ever done was slaughter one another. I hated to think that my father had been a part of that.
    “Why do you think my father was from the Borderlands?”
    “First of all, he had the coloring and build of a Northman, and being that close to the border, it wouldn’t be unlikely that a human and Tal’mar might cross paths. I’m guessing you got your hair from your father’s side of the family, because Tal’mar hair is usually either violet or green.”
    “Violet and green? Truly?”
    “Yes. Bear in mind that the Tal’mar are not humans, child. They may resemble us in certain ways, but they are most certainly a different species. In fact, I’m surprised that you exist at all, to be honest. I had thought such a mating would be impossible.”
     

Chapter 15
     
     
     
    In the span of a few sentences Analyn had gone from acting as if I were completely human to talking about me like some sort of unnatural experiment. I ignored the pain that her statement brought to me, because I knew she didn’t mean it. I could tell from her face that it was totally unintentional. It was just a surfacing of deep, unexplored feelings that she’d never questioned. Even though she had chosen to treat me as a friend –as one of her kind-she still couldn’t forget the duality of my nature. It would always be there, no matter what happened.
    If it was impossible for a woman like Analyn Trader to forget our differences, then how likely was it that other, less open-minded people might act? Had I been deluding myself, thinking that people might change that much?
    “I suppose it’s just as well, since they’re both