Two tentacles wrapped around my waist. It could only mean one thing — octopus.

I was right! On the ship from Fallion, Master Leveque had tried to convince me that octopodes were perfectly natural and had no interest in humans, but even though he was obviously right about everything else, octopodes had eight tentacles. If they were natural, why did they need so many tentacles?

I tried to crawl backwards, as far from the canal as could be, but those two tentacles held tight.

“Don’t eat me!” I cried out as the octopus used me to pull its body and other three tentacles out of the water. “I’m sorry!”

The octopus groaned in some foreign octopus language, no doubt saying how it’d love to digest me. Then it relaxed its head into my lap, hind tentacles curling up behind it, and its fore tentacles still holding onto me as it nuzzled my stomach.

I stilled, my hands still raised. What was it doing? The octopus wasn’t… wasn’t hungry for a certain other thing. I groaned. I hadn’t even felt that way about other humans. And now an octopus?

The clouds slipped away from the moon. Silver light caressed the waves and illuminated the octopus’s… shoulder? A shoulder, and legs, and arms wrapped around me. No tentacles. Not an octopus at all, but some sort of nude human.

I sighed in relief, and the person mumbled in their foreign language again. I wasn’t about to be dragged to the depths of the ocean for some esoteric or erotic ritual—

Wait. There was a naked human lying in my lap. “Unhand me!”

The person groaned. “Mmm?”

I’d spoken in Fallion. “Unhand me,” I repeated in the lilting and elegant Venezian language. “Foul… foul person.”

“Foul?” They lifted their head. “Yes, that canal is foul. Who ever thought that they should flood the streets was an idiot. Worse than an idiot.” They shook their entire body, spraying me again. Not that, after being laid upon, I was dry.

“And who’s the idiot that was swimming in it?” I demanded. “Pretending to be an octo—an octopus!”

“Oh, I wasn’t pretending.” They still made no move to release me. “Why would I pretend that?”

“Why would you swim in the canal, into which they empty chamberpots, and jump up on unsuspecting strangers?”

“I’m Kayto.”

“What?” The name didn’t sound Venezian. Their skin was dark, or at least not pasty white like mine, but like Fallion, the merchants comprising Venezia originated from all parts of the world, so that meant little. Still, I could not imagine any denizen of Venezia voluntarily swimming in the pestilent canals.

“MY. NAME. IS. KAYTO,” they said slowly, pronouncing each word loudly. “WHAT. IS. YOURS?”

“Shh!”

They repeated this, even louder, “MY. NAME. IS—”

I pressed my hands over their mouth. “Yes. I understood you.” Not that yelling had ever broken through a language barrier, despite what some of my fellow Fallions presumed. “Be quiet or you’ll wake everyone up and—”

And — my heart plummeted — someone would discover me on the dock, in complete violation of the school rules, and Master Leveque would be… would be… would be disappointed in me!

A wet tongue ran across my palm.

I yanked my hand back.

“Salty,” they pronounced, grinning.

“Don’t — don’t lick strangers!” There was no explicit rule against it, but — but human decency!

“Once you tell me your name, we won’t be strangers.”

“I—” I choked. “Get out of my lap!”

“No.” They nuzzled my belly. “You’re so warm. And it was so cold in the water.”

“And you’re so wet,” I growled, meaning to point out that I grew colder as well since they’d drenched me through my banyan.

“That’s what she said.” They chuckled.

My cheeks heated. How was it that every mind but mine seemed to grasp innuendo? “Enough,” I said. “If I tell you my name, will you let go?”

“Mmm…” They nibbled their bottom lip. “That’s sort of the opposite of what I want—” They broke off as they pulled their head back and released the most adorable sneeze in the history of gods and humanity. “A-choo.”

My heart melted. Achoo. What kind of overly familiar, canal-dwelling person actually sneezed with the literal sound of “Achoo”?

One who likely would catch an ague from the filthy canal and die before the day’s end if they didn’t get warm and clean immediately. Strangers were banned from school premises, especially in the small hours before dawn. But I could hardly let him die. Especially not in my lap. “Then — then, I’ll take you up to my room,” I said. “You can warm up.”

“Ooh.” They let go of my middle and, with their hands on my knees, pressed themselves up. “It might take me a little to, you know. Unshrink.”

There wasn’t enough blood in my entire body to blush as hard as I did. “That won’t be necessary,” I muttered. “Seraphin.”

They cocked their head.

“Seraphin is my name.” Well, that wasn’t strictly true. Not yet. But that’s what everyone called me anyway, not letting me forget for one moment my fate.

Their grin grew wider.

“I’m male,” I added.

Their eyes flicked down over me. “And quite a male too.”

Gah! I stood, not caring that I unbalanced them. Kayto. Kayto scrambled to their feet a moment later. “Just… just don’t say anything and come with me.”

I squeezed back through the gate. Kayto followed, and when my back was turned, they said, “No promises.”