She scampered up the stone, and held out a hand to help Nick after.

“I wish,” he said, breathing hard, as they climbed, “we could do this back at the docks.”

“The mountain’s holy,” she said. “There were gods here once, even if the priests build idols now. Where else should we hold the Lady’s funeral?”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t know what they were doing. Neither did she. No one had ever taught them how to pray: they made most of it up as they went along.

They cleared the trees and spidered up the scree, exposed to sky and sun. Izza fought her urge to hide. The mountain, Kavekana’ai, was a holy place, but it wasn’t hers. For all she knew the Order’s priests could feel them crawling flealike on the cliff face. Or a Penitent might see them exposed against the stone: their jeweled eyes were sharp as eagles’, and hungrier.

They climbed. Izza helped Nick, and he helped her. A dragonfly watched them both from its stone perch, then buzzed off, wings scattering light to rainbows.

By the time they reached the funeral ledge, the sun had just kissed the western horizon, and the mountain’s shadow lay long upon the ocean to the east. The other kids were here already, ten of them, representatives of the rest. They’d built the pyre, and crouched back against the rock. Izza felt their eyes, eyes of every hue in faces of every color, all hungry, all watching her. She’d heard them whispering before she reached the ledge. They fell silent now.

A row of ash smears lined the cliff, one for each funeral past, and in their center stood the pyre, a small pile of twigs and palm thatch. On the pyre lay a jade-breasted bird with folded blue wings.

Ivy had found the bird outside a hotel, neck broken. At least, she claimed she found it dead. The girl had a crooked sense of humor, and an even stranger sense of worship. She hugged herself and smiled grimly at Izza. Breath whistled through the gap between her front teeth.

Izza crouched beside the dead bird. Nick took his place with the others, and waited with them.

Izza felt her age. At fifteen, she was the oldest, had been since Sophie was taken for a Penitent after the Green Man died. So the story was hers to tell.

The others waited. Little Ellen curled her legs up under her chin. Jet ground his teeth, and picked at the side of his sandal where a strip of rubber had come loose.

Izza licked her lips. She’d seen Sophie do this before, for other gods. Her turn, now. That was all.

“The Blue Lady,” she said, “is gone.”

The others nodded. “Yes,” a few whispered. There was no ritual beyond what felt right, and nothing did.