Call of the Water (COMPLETE)

52. WHAT THE EYES DON'T SEE

Nia stood still. She was like a renaissance picture; a beautiful girl with nature as a background. Her eyes were the only thing that moved as she scanned her surroundings.

Professor Cyan, Opal, Ardea, Mathias and I were all looking at her with tension. Her reaction was an uncomfortable smile.

"Great, she found out," Opal grumbled. "She snuck up on us and now she knows."

"And how exactly did you find out about Professor Cyan?" I asked in a hush tone.

"That was different," Opal replied. Still, her eyes chose to look at the pebbles on the ground rather than into my face.

"How much did you hear?" Mathias asked as his grim expression wiped the smile off of Nia's face.

"Professor Cyan wants to go back home, wherever her home might be. I think it's really nice of you that you're being so supportive of her," she replied much calmer than one would expect. After all, it was a werewolf who asked her the question.

"See," Opal was looking for a silver lining, "maybe she doesn't know that Professor Cyan is... what she is."

"An Aquantien?" Nia's question drained the color from our faces.

Hearing those words made it impossible to pretend that Ms. Cyan's secret was safe. While everyone else focused on Nia, I cast a glance in the direction of our teacher. She stood still, forcing her hands not to shake by clenching her fists. Another person found out what she tried so desperately to hide over the past decades.

"Oh, don't worry. It isn't your fault that I know." Nia found her fountain of cheerfulness once again. She smiled as she said, "I'm a fairy, in case you forgot."

We exchanged confused looks amongst ourselves, but Opal was the one who spoke first. "You're a fairy, so what? I'm a dwarf and this is a daffodil." She pointed at a marigold. Lissa would be so disappointed.

Nia shook her head and sighed before she answered. "Fairies can see beyond what's on the outside. I knew Professor Cyan was an Aquantien the first time I saw her."

"You can do that?" She baffled me. "How does it work?"

She blazed me with her smile and closed her eyes for a second or two. When she opened them again, the blue color seemed to be liquid. Lighter shades mixed with darker ones, creating marble-effect patterns in her irises.

"When I allow my eyes to look beneath the surface, I no longer see the you everyone else can see. I see Azora the Aquantien. I see what you would look like if they hadn't altered your appearance."

I was lost for words. My belief that I've lost my old self was shaken by the knowledge that Nia was able to see it even now. It was something I would never be able to see again.

Nia's laughter put a stop on the thoughts that swarmed in my mind. I looked at her and noticed she was focusing Opal with those weird-looking eyes.

"You would look nice with a beard," she said.

Opal opened her mouth, but instead of responding, she stroke her beardless chin and mumbled something I couldn't quite make out, but I was sure that her remark contained two pirate eyepatches.

"You can see Professor Cyan as an Aqantien?" Mathias asked.

"I can," Nia replied and turned her head towards our speechless teacher.

"Then it means that Doctor Kasian's procedures will work," he said with a lot more optimism.

Nia averted her eyes from Professor Cyan to look at Mathias. She gave him a sympathetic smile before she said, "I cannot know that. I only see what is hidden to your eyes. But that isn't clairvoyance. Just like you, I don't know what the future holds."