Page 19 of The Beast King's Bride

But as Embar canters over the meadow, I think I see the town lurch again.

“It moves!” I blurt out.

“That’s Fertune,” my abductor says in his low, velvet voice, “or tortoise city. It’s been built on the back of a fertuin, a giant tortoise.”

“Ah. Gods. Is that normal? And your city? Is it also built on a tortoise?” My teeth are still chattering, but it’s from the shock rather than the cold. His coat is really warm.

“No.”

“Okay. Good to know. Maybe it’s built on some other giant animal? A giant snake? A giant lizard? A giant—”

“Quiet,” he says.

I snap my mouth shut, mostly because Embar has now picked up speed and is galloping, raising clouds of snow that get in my eyes and mouth. I cough. Nothing more to say right now anyway, is there? Any idea I might harbor that we’re still in the human world has been shattered.

I’m in Faerieland and the human world is lost to me forever.

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