“I’ve seen evidence of them,” Jack replied carefully. “They don’t often reveal themselves to mortal eyes.” He inevitably recalled the countless hours he had spent roaming the hills as a boy, eager to snare a spirit amid the heather. Of course, he never had.

“Sounds like a bucket of chum to me.”

Jack made no reply as the vessel glided closer.

He could see the golden lichens on the eastern rocks, luminescent. They marked the Tamerlaine coastline, and Jack’s memories surged. He remembered how things that grew on the isle were peculiar, bent to enchantment. He had explored the coast countless times, to Mirin’s great frustration and worry. But every girl and boy of the isle had been drawn to the whirlpools and eddies and secret caves of the coast. In the day and in the night, when the lichen glowed, golden as leftover sunlight on the rocks.

He noticed they were drifting. The fisherman was rowing, but they were angled away from the lichen, as if the boat was hooked to the dark stretch of western coast.

“We’re sailing into Breccan waters,” Jack said, a knot of alarm in his throat. “Here, row us to the east.”

The fisherman heaved, directing the boat the way Jack instructed, but their progress was painfully slow. Something was wrong, Jack realized, and the moment he acknowledged there was trouble, the wind abated and the ocean turned glassy, smooth like a mirror. It was quiet, a roaring silence that raised his hackles.

Tap.

The fisherman ceased rowing, his eyes wide as full moons. “Did you hear that?”

Jack lifted his hand. Be quiet, he wanted to say but held his tongue, waiting for the warning to come again.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

He felt it in the soles of his shoes. Something was in the water, clicking its long nails on the underside of the hull. Testing for a weak spot.

“Mother of gods,” the fisherman whispered, sweat shining on his face. “What is making that racket?”

Jack swallowed. He could feel his own perspiration beading his brow, the tension within him taut as a harp string as the claws beneath continued tapping.

The mainlander’s scorn had caused this. He had offended the folk of the water, who must have gathered in the foam of the sea to hear Jack’s legend. And now both men would pay for it with a sinking boat and a watery grave.

“Do you revere the spirits?” Jack asked in a low tone, staring at the fisherman.

The man only gaped, and then a flicker of fear crossed over his face. He began to turn the boat around, rowing with great heaves back to Woe.

“What are you doing?” Jack cried.

“I go no further,” the fisherman said. “I want nothing to do with your isle and whatever haunts these waters.”

Jack narrowed his eyes. “We had an agreement.”