The Water and the Wild by Katie Elise Ormsbee

hands? How barbaric. You’re much safer with me. C’mon.”
    Fife reached up and caught a fistful of Lottie’s hair.
    Lottie yelped. “What do you think you’re doing?”
    â€œI’ve got to hold on to you for it to work. Don’t worry. It’s perfectly safe.”
    â€œWhy don’t you take this instead,” Lottie suggested, wiggling her fingers at him.
    â€œ
Now
she gives me her hand,” sighed Fife.
    Fife let go of Lottie’s hair and instead folded his fingers through hers. Then he pulled her straight out of the window. Though the guest room was only on the second floor, the two of them had a considerable distance to go down (the house did have very high ceilings, after all), and down they went.
    It was a thrilling descent for Lottie. First of all, she’d never floated through midair and, second, no boy—noteven Eliot—had ever held her hand quite so tightly as Fife was holding hers now. They sped closer and closer to the ground until, not quite knowing how, Lottie found her nose buried in a flower bed of irises.
    â€œMermph!”
she coughed, spitting out soil and gravel.
    â€œDid I promise safety?” asked Fife, looking guiltily over at Lottie and shaking gravel out of his hair. “My mistake.”
    â€œIt
was
more exciting than tree climbing,” Lottie admitted, rubbing her nose.
    This seemed to satisfy Fife. “Don’t we do things better in our world?”
    Lottie nodded hesitantly. Then she paused. Then she shook her head. “Oliver told me this place is supposed to be my city.”
    Fife yanked an iris out of the ground and began brandishing it in the air like a conductor’s baton. “Hmm, yes,” he said dazedly. “Of course it is.”
    â€œBut it’s
not
my city.”
    â€œNo,” Fife said, tilting his head curiously at Lottie, “of course it isn’t. Your city is in Earth. Our city is in Limn. Haven’t you ever been taught geography? Our cities are piled on top of each other like layers of a cake. The apple trees are what connect them.”
    â€œYou mean,” said Lottie, “that Earth is connected to your—what did you call it?”
    â€œLimn,” said Fife. “Yes. That’s where you are.”
    â€œThen, when Adelaide took me down that tree, she was really taking me—”
    â€œBetween Earth and Limn!” said Fife, waving his iris baton under Lottie’s nose. “Simple. See?”
    Lottie nodded slowly.
    There was something about Fife that made Lottie want to believe. Maybe it was the floating.
    â€œSo, is this the only city in, uh,
Limn,
or do you all have your own Kemble Isle?” Lottie asked.
    â€œKemble Isle?” Fife stopped his conducting midwave and dropped the flower, looking confused.
    â€œThe island,” said Lottie. “The island where you live. Where I come from, we call it Kemble Isle.”
    â€œOh.” Fife laughed. “We call ours
Albion
Isle.”
    Lottie thought about this. “I like your version better.”
    â€œSo do I,” said Fife.
    Lottie looked around the garden where they sat. Irises bloomed in thick clumps and sprawled out toward a spindled silver fence, and beyond that fence Lottie could see the rooftops of stone houses and the tips of trees. Thesehouses weren’t like those from back home. Their stones looked older and their windows more weathered, but the roofs were high and the windows large. Lottie knew what that meant back where she came from: these houses were old, but they were also expensive.
    â€œThis is a nice neighborhood, isn’t it?” said Lottie.
    â€œIt’s the center of town,” Fife said. “Only the wealthiest sprites live here. Mr. Wilfer, he’s the Head Healer. That’s why he’s got such a nice place. The king gave it to him.”
    â€œSo not everyone here is as rich as the Wilfers?”
    Fife shrugged. “Southerly