New! — Hatakeyama Natsuki

The last thing Natsuki Hatakeyama remembered was the wet slap of a fish tail against her cheek. Now she was standing in a silent, rain-slicked alley in Tokyo, holding a sardine.

She tucked the sardine into the pocket of her apron. hatakeyama natsuki

It was the same sardine. The one she’d been trying to sell at the Tsukiji outer market before a rogue delivery truck had introduced her to the hood of a Honda. But the fish was wrong. Its scales shimmered with a deep, auroral blue, and when she tilted her head, she could hear a faint humming from inside its silver body. The last thing Natsuki Hatakeyama remembered was the

Natsuki spun. A boy her age—seventeen, maybe—leaned against a dumpster. He wore an immaculate navy school uniform, not a single crease out of place. His eyes, however, were not human. They were polished obsidian, reflecting the alley’s single flickering light like two dark moons. It was the same sardine

“It’s temporary,” the boy said. “Return the kuro-sardine to the Mirror Sea within three tides, and you can go back to your life. Fail, and the webbing will creep up your arms, over your chest, across your face. On the third sunrise, you’ll sprout gills and drown in the air.”

“And who exactly are you?” Natsuki asked.

Natsuki looked down at her hands. They were still her hands—chapped from cold market water, nails short and practical. But a faint, silvery webbing had begun to grow between her fingers. “That’s disgusting,” she said calmly.