“No, something else.” She rested a hand on her belly and extended the other arm as if hoping to touch something she could not quite see. “A child. I heard a child calling to me.”

Blessed Tanit, keep me in your heart. Do not let me die.

I will not die.

I bit my lip hard enough to raise blood as I reached for and grasped the memory of her hand.

21

“Catherine! Stop fighting me! You’re impossible to keep hold of when you wriggle like this.”

I slithered out of a grip that was dragging me through icy water, but my numb limbs had no strength. The tide dragged me under as it hauled at my skirts.

A man lifted me above the water. I spewed all the cursed salt water I had swallowed. My bitten lip stung. I sluggishly realized that Vai was carrying me out of the sea. He dumped me onto a stony shore, then slapped me repeatedly on the back as I retched.

I found my voice, although it was sadly thin and mewling. “Why must I always swallow seawater? It tastes so foul.”

Vai collapsed beside me onto the pebbled strand. He fumbled to unbuckle himself from his carpenter’s apron, wheezing as he gulped in air.

I thought the weight of the pack was going to crush me. Rolling onto my side took all my strength. The hard stones felt heavenly because they were solid. The sea sloshed up to tickle my boots, then receded. Fiery Shemesh, but I was freezing!

The wind was coarse and unforgivingly cold.

Vai was still wheezing. I tugged my arms out of the straps to shed the pack. With the sodden basket bumping on my rear, I crawled over to him, only to realize he was not wheezing but laughing in a hoarse sort of way.

He smiled at me. Smiled!

His smile acted as an infusion of hope. My lips twitched, fighting upward.

“Look!” He gestured.

A blustery gray sea stretched away from the shore. Across the channel, barely visible under a haze of cloud, rose the blue-dark shore of another land. But that was not the strange thing. A ship glided atop the waves, three-masted, sails unfurled but unmoving despite the stinging breeze. As I gaped, wondering why I could not see any sailors racing about on the deck or climbing the masts, one of the sails began to ripple, then the second, and then the third. Where there hadn’t been one before, a man appeared halfway up the mainmast.

It was illusion, taking form in front of my eyes as he wove cold magic with a speed and dexterity that astounded me.

“We’ve been washed back into the mortal world, love.” The ship vanished as he sat up and spat. “Gah. What I wouldn’t do for a glass of my mother’s hoarhound tea sweetened with honey. Catherine! You’re shuddering.”