Bridget ran into her room as if her life depended on it. Her breath was caught in her throat above the violent beating of her heart.

“Child!”

“I know, I know, nanna,” she replied, panting.

She quickly discarded her robe and swimsuit. She had to change for her next class and wasn’t about to be scolded in public for being late twice in the same day.

Bertaliz stepped closer to help. In front of a mirror, Bridget hopped into her underwear.

“When did you get that bruise?”

Drat, she’s seen it. Bridget turned around and stared over her shoulder, searching her reflection: the bruise was still there, purple and tinted with different greens, over one of the bumps that started on her shoulders and faded as they reached the waist, as evidence that her wings were hidden inside her body, in the sibinah, the waterproof pocket that sheltered them.

“I was practicing my somersaults and landed wrong, I guess.”

“And what about this one?”

“There’s another one?”

She stretched her neck searching for the mark. Bertaliz put her finger over one of the erolas, and the pain almost made her jump.

Pluck me!

“It will hurt when you try to pull out your wings, child.”

But she had to, her chambers where the only place where she could practice her somersaults with her wings in plain view. Bertaliz pulled the dress over her head and urged her to put her arms through the sleeves.

“I’ll be more careful during training,” she assured her.

Part of it consisted in learning how to fall without breaking her back or a leg, “With style, ladies,” their trainer would say, and by style he meant rolling over the mattress following the momentum of inertia. Other than that, training consisted in keeping balance after landing on a narrow surface, getting ready for takeoff, and controlling flight direction… all this without using their wings; in their place, a huge trampoline sent her into the air long enough for her to position her body, before gravity did the rest.

Bertaliz sighed, doing the last buttons of her dress.

“I know, I didn’t calculate properly,” she said while she stepped into a pair of heeled sandals. “Can you help me with the hair?”

She was a mess.

“What’s an earthworm, nanna?”

“Where did you hear that, Princess?”

“Someone called me that. By the tone I could tell it was offensive, but I want to know how bad was the insult.”

“An earthworm is a pale, tubular invertebrate.”

“Tubular, of cooourse,” she huffed. Now she understood. Bridget did not have a single curve yet. She was seven beltas old and resembled a young potted plant, and she appeared to be famished, like an earthworm. “How long until I have breasts and hips like Annie, nanna?”

“Your development is perfectly normal for your age, Bridget, child. Don’t listen to cruel words. Whoever said that insult is surely rude, insecure and ignorant.”

“Elisa Bandier…”

“Elisa, the human?”

I said that outloud?

Ever since the human visitor had joined her class, she had found the way to make her feel underdeveloped. Because Elisa, who was fourteen years old, was a young lady who had round breasts and curvy hips while Bridget, if not for her dress and braided hair, could have been mistaken for a boy.

“That cheat uses padding,” Bertaliz told her. “She’s jealous.”

“How do you know that?”

“Secrets of age, child. Everyone knows that flight favors chest development in Elohan men and women. That brat doesn’t want to show disadvantage.”

A roar very close to the palace caught her attention. She turned to the window and her eyes widened with wonder: a gigantic spaceship had started its descent on the Startos military base, a few miles away.

“Don’t move, I’m almost done braiding your hair,” Bertaliz told her.

“Did you see?” she laughed. The artifact looked like a giant beetle and someone with poor judgement had painted it green.

Well, in that sense the human could never compare to her, Bridget said to herself. The Eloahns’ ability to see at long distances was related to their ability to fly, which also meant their eyes were proportionally larger.

The Galactic Community’s massive official seal was painted on the ship’s friction ailerons.

“A diplomatic entourage, nanna,” she whispered. She had seen them hundreds of times in the news.

As she watched the ship, Bridget felt a sudden chill and her heart raced for no apparent reason.

Eloah’s moons, such a weird feeling!

“All done. You must hurry. Miss Annet will surely be waiting for you.”

“Flying there, nanna,” she joked.

Bridget spared the gardens one last look, where a group of young ones was playing, freefalling into a fountain and soaring into the air in a spiral just as they grazed the water, desperately flapping their wings. She remembered executing a similar maneuver when she was little, although at a smaller scale and in the privacy of her gigantic room: her ego had not been the only casualty that day. No one is born knowing the correct angle of attack, but it cannot be learned by jumping headfirst into the air either.

She grabbed her ProCom and ran into the servants’ quarters -or the place where the servants would have slept if the benefits of having them outweighed the risks-, she stepped into a service elevator and, after stopping it between floors, slid into a slim passage covered by piping and cables. That was the way she was forced to reach the guest wing, so that she would be seen leaving the Britter’s apartment next to her “big sister”, Annet Britter, her “mother”, Daphne Britter, and her “father”, Greg Dufá: her foster family.

The secret passage was literally a space in between the walls and, as such, dark and narrow, not fitting for claustrophobics. Every entry and exit point had a hidden retina scanner installed for security. In the particular case of her foster family’s apartment, the entire living room wall was an entrance. Some access points no longer worked, having been permanently blocked. The palace had been built over two thousand beltas before, no floor was identical to the one below, and the subsequent renovations and expansions had resulted in patches and dead ends. For all these reasons, Bridget went from point A to point B, and viceversa, without exploring unknown territory, for -aside from how catastrophic it would be if she were discovered- the one time she had done it, she had become disoriented to the point where she had been lost for hours.

Her retina was scanned and the hidden door slid to the right. As usual, she found the living room silent and empty. The only noise came from the news host in Annie’s room. She was about to knock on her door when she felt another violent chill.

That weird feeling again. She furiously rubbed her arms. It had been too intense to ignore. Whatever was making her shiver was getting closer to her… or the other way around. And even though she had no rational means to support her claim, she was almost certain that it was somehow related to the travelling diplomats. She needed to solve the mystery.

She walked to the apartment’s front door, stepped into the hallway, and ran to the elevator before Annie realized what was happening. A few seconds later, the appliance made a stop on her floor and she boarded.

“Level six,” she ordered. At that height a bridge connected the guest and residents tower with the main palace, where the throne room was. If the travellers had descended from a diplomatic spaceship, they would be forced to pay a protocol visit to her real parents. She hoped to take a look at the newcomers before they went in to greet them.

The last stretch of the journey, she walked cautiously, stopping at every column and trying to silence her footsteps. About fifty feet from the antechamber, she crouched down between two giant stone vases overflowing with decorative shade plants, and pressed her back against the wall in a way that her reflection on the marble was hidden. She planned to hide, not only from the guards but also from the courtiers, secretaries and ministers, seeing as minors were not allowed to wander around that area without an adult chaperone. However, her trick would not go unnoticed by the uniforms; so long as her presence did not pose a threat to the King and Queen, they would not make her leave.

Bridget set about to wait and watch. The lavish stained glass on the east side of the antechamber was about a hundred feet tall, and bathed the interior in glorious iridescent light, the double door was hand carved, and the vaulted ceiling was so high she could have flown there. Had she been allowed to display her wings in public and extend them to their full wingspan, of course. They were wide, adapted to flight like those of rapacious birds, but in her case the feathers were translucent and reflected light at certain angles. Which was why she had to hide them, at least for as long as her anatomy allowed it. They were unique.

Her patience was rewarded. The retinue arrived within twenty minutes. It consisted in a group of eccentric humanoids dressed in lavish suits. They were escorted by guards, pages and even a secretary. Judging by their physical features, it was clear they represented more than just one planet. However, seeing them alone had not answered her questions.

She cursed in silence. She did not know what she had expected to see, but she did not know why the chill kept increasing either, and she could feel her blood pounding painfully. Even though she tried to control her anguish and settle her voracious curiosity, she needed an explanation, just as much as the oxygen she breathed, or more.

Seeing the travelers disappear behind the carved door, Bridget gave in to impulse. She walked down the hallway that circled the throne room until she found the back door. She asked the guard for silence with a gesture. Among the guardians, those who made up the royal guard were the only ones who knew her identity. Captain Foster stood to attention and let her through. Bridget walked in silently, lay down on the floor and witnessed the meeting hiding behind the thick curtains that decorated the back of the hall. Too late realized that her visit would not go unnoticed by the King and Queen, who always heard of her exploits, either from her mentor, William, or Daphne herself -who in turn got her information from Annie or nanna Bertaliz- or through captain Foster, who would be forced to report her entrance. How to explain why she had entered uninvited or without permission, when not even she knew the answer? She would have to think of a credible lie.