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."

That was the truth. None of us knew what the future held.

During the next three weeks we were all hoping for the best, but feared the worst.

Day by day, the end of the school year kept approaching and with it, the day of Ms. Cyan's final goodbye.

With her permission I spoke to my parents who were more than willing to do whatever was in their power to help once I explained what Doctor Kasian was planning to do.

Opal convinced her parents to let her spend a couple of weeks with me and a couple of weeks with Ardea, somehow completely outflanking her real motives.

When it came to Mathias, he had to be honest with his father. A werewolf could not tell a lie to another werewolf. It was another one of the rules of their race, and there were so many. I was glad that Aquantiens did not have so many restrictions. And the ones we had were not engraved in our bones.

Mathias' father initially refused to let his son participate in the 'improbable attempt to recreate what was once discarded'.

To help Mathias, Opal came up with a plan. "Invite your dad to school, sit him down, then have Ardea remove her contacts and command him to let you come with us," she suggested.

As it turned out, the main reason for his concern was the fact that Professor Cyan was an Aquantien. Sending his son off with not one, but two Aquantiens, did not seem wise. He was not convinced that Mathias would be able to control himself.

When the school bell rang for the last time, only a handful of students from my class stayed in the classroom long enough to see Professor Cyan wipe the corners of her eyes with her hands that were not covered by gloves, before she set out to face the unknown.

By the time Opal, Ardea, Nia and I descended the stairs, Mathias' father already waited for him just outside the front entrance. He wasn't alone. Ardea's father was talking to him, holding a large bottle full of a greenish liquid.

Mathias' father looked at Doctor Kasian in the same manner Mathias used to look at Ardea. He was soaking up every word, occasionally agreeing by nodding his head.

Whatever Doctor Kasian had said, it worked because Mathias' father ultimately agreed to let his son accompany those of us who decided to go with Ms. Cyan. Still, he insisted on driving Mathias himself.

Not long after that, a small silver car pulled over in front of the school gates for the last time. The headmaster escorted Ms. Cyan as she exited school building, carrying her suitcases. She walked slowly, as if every step she took caused her physical pain. It reminded me of a mermaid from one of the human stories. But that's all that was, just a story. Not a single mermaid ever walked the land.

Looking at Ms. Cyan, I got the feeling she wished no Aquantien ever walked the land either.

When they approached the car, the headmaster opened the door for Ms. Cyan and said, "This is not the final goodbye." She nodded as a single tear escaped her eye.

Soon, three cars were on their way. Ms. Cyan was in the first one, along with Doctor Kasian and Ardea. I was in the second car, with my parents, Opal and Nia, while Mathias' father drove behind us.

As we turned the corner and I cast a glance at our school whose front façade was overlaid by ivy, a thought crept up on me. I imagined that it might be the last time Ms. Cyan saw the building that, over the years, became her second home. 

Thanks to every reader who, among all the stories here on Wattpad, chose to read mine. Stick around, the end is so close...

I would like to give special thanks to a reader who has been reading and voting on Call of the Water for quite some time. That person is TyraCHB. THANK YOU!

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