‘To the right.’ Petal spoke again and she realized then that he’d never been with her at all. It was a sending of some sort, or he was watching for her from his Warren. She paddled on.

‘Shimmer!’ a new voice shouted. She recognized Bars bulls’ bellow.

‘Here!’

‘Follow my voice! This way! I have an oar! Do you see it?’

Something splashed the water nearby through the cloaking fog. She headed that way. A tall cliff of darkness emerged from the bank – the side of a vessel. ‘Here!’ she called.

An oar came sluicing through the waves. She grasped for it but missed. She caught it on the second try.

‘There’s a rope here,’ Bars said. The oar pulled her along through the water to where a rope ladder hung from the side. She took hold and started up. On deck, she was met by all the landing party.

‘You’re last,’ Bars told her.

She scanned the shore; the coursing banners of fog still obscured everything. The rest of the Guard were manning the sweeps. She noticed that, oddly, Lean was at the rudder.

‘Where’s Havvin?’

Bars and K’azz exchanged glances. ‘I’m sorry, Shimmer,’ K’azz said. He motioned to where several shapes lay bundled in sailcloth.

Shimmer suddenly felt very cold as she stood dripping wet in the fog. She shivered. ‘How many?’

‘Eight,’ K’azz said. His voice, and his features, did not change at all, and Shimmer realized that he was holding himself under a terrifying degree of will. ‘Taken by the mist.’

She swallowed to dare her next question: ‘Any of us?’

‘None.’

She was vastly relieved, but then fixed her gaze upon him; she wished to take hold of his shoulders and shake him. ‘Why? Why?’

‘The … Vow … I imagine.’ He lurched away and seemed to totter off.

She let him go. He knows more than that – he must. She met Bars’ gaze, but the man just shook his head.

‘I’m very sorry, Shimmer.’

‘As am I, Bars,’ she sighed.

The Avowed helped on the sweeps, a skeletal few, yet Mael’s Forbearance made steady headway. They finally emerged from the fog and Shimmer found that they were a good way out in the bay. Behind, the thick bank obscured the shore for several bowshots. Utterly unnatural, that concentration of mist. She peered round, counting ships. Found nine. Every vessel, it seemed, had escaped – though most of the ship’s launches and their crews probably hadn’t. She turned to face ahead, and while the sky was a leaden hue, overcast, she still had to squint in the light. Three vessels were far ahead: the Letherii modified merchantmen. It seemed Luthal Canar was in no mood to offer anyone any aid. Well, that was fine: they could face whatever lay ahead first.

At that, she shifted her gaze to where a pale light seemed to glow to the north-east. ‘What is that?’ she asked Bars.