It wasn’t. Samm could barely reach the barge with the hose tied off on the light post, and even after they moved it, he found the current almost too strong to work with as he dove for the docking ropes—not one, as they’d hoped, but five. He tied off the hose and spent nearly half an hour under the water, hacking on the series of ropes and coming up only briefly for air. Kira couldn’t see him well, but he had lost most of his color and was shivering against the cold. Each time he dove back down she found herself holding her breath in sympathy, seeing how long she could last, and each time he seemed to stay down longer, dragging the time out impossibly, until at last she was certain he had drowned. With a sudden lurch the barge shifted, the cut ties making it less stable, and still Samm didn’t come up. Kira counted to ten. Nothing. She waded in, counting to ten again, to twenty, and soon Heron was swimming with her, using the taut garden hose for balance as it stretched toward the breaking point. The barge moved again, spinning and slamming into the buildings downstream, and Samm erupted from the river, gasping desperately for breath. Kira caught him, holding his head above water as gulped down air.

“Got it,” he said, his teeth clacking together. “Let’s pull it in.”

“We need to warm you up first,” said Kira, “You could get hypothermia.”

“This hose is going to snap if we wait any longer,” said Heron.

“He could die,” insisted Kira.

“I’ll be fine,” Samm said, shivering. “I’m a Partial.”

“Back to the shallows,” said Heron, “or it’s all for nothing.”