The thought pulsed through her, as clear as if the words had been spoken aloud. “Please,” she said. “Take him.” Her bundled child became an offering of trust and kinship as she slid him over the railing and lowered him gently onto Tarman’s deck. Her baby was out of her sight now, and out of her reach, and yet for the first time since she had birthed him, she felt he was also out of danger. The ship’s strength flowed through her. She drew a deeper breath.

“Help me! Please, help me!”

The ship’s awareness seemed to echo her cry, a demand that the crew must obey. And from the deck, from a baby she could not see, a sudden angry crying rose, far stronger than any she had yet heard from him.

“It’s a baby!” a woman’s voice suddenly cried out. “A baby, a newborn, on Tarman’s deck!”

“Help me!” Malta cried again, and suddenly a very large man leaped down from the deck to land on the dock beside her.

“I got you,” he said, his voice deep and his words simple. “Don’t you be afraid, lady. Big Eider’s got you now.”

Thymara ran through the darkening streets of the city. Rapskal had left her, with a cry of “Heeby’s here! I’ll get her to help us.” He had run off into the darkness while she had set off on a different course through the city, following not a memory of how they had come but the pull of her heart.

Anger fueled her. She was furious with the dragon for putting herself in danger. The anger was much easier to feel than her underlying fear. It was not just her terror that Sintara was drowning but her general fear of the city and its ghostly denizens. Some of the streets she ran through were dark and deserted. But then she would turn a corner and suddenly be confronted with torchlight and merrymakers, a city in the midst of some sort of holiday. She had shrieked the first time, and then she recognized them for what they were. Ghosts and phantoms, Elderling memories stored in the stone of the buildings she passed. Despite her knowledge she ran jaggedly through them, dodging vendors’ carts and amorous couples and small boys selling skewers of smoked and spicy meats. Their huckstering cries filled her ears, and the smells taunted her with memories of the delicious tidbits they offered. Hunger assailed her and, as the running dried her mouth, thirst as well.