“But you can’t fake belonging to a Concern rich enough to need our services.” Kai looked down at the sacrifices piled on the altar. Pocketbooks, purses, novels left towelside, three gold necklaces. A handful of rings. Coins stolen from a bliss-dealer at a topless club. Three tiny porcelain cats from the Shining Empire. Light seeped through chips in their enamel eyes. “Look. You want to find out the truth. But you’re worried I might betray you.”

“Yes.”

“Well,” Kai said, with a smile Izza didn’t quite understand, “if you can’t trust me, why don’t you hire me?”

“What?”

“Priests sometimes consult on the side. This qualifies: I’m consulting you about your gods’ nasty tendency to die.”

“What.” This time Izza’s voice stayed flat, rather than rising with the question.

“Here’s the deal: You hire me. I investigate your gods. The consulting agreement binds me to secrecy. If I betray you, the contract hurts worse than any torture you could invent. Old Island stuff. Sharks gnaw my bones. Vines twine through my eyes. My guts strangle my lungs; my blood turns to lava. Figurative, mostly, but the pain’s real.”

Silence, and water.

“You need my help,” Kai said. “All you need to do is pay me for it.”

“You’re asking me to pay you.”

“A contract requires payment, or it doesn’t take.”

Gods watched from the walls, but the room was empty save for Kai and Izza. Candles flickered. Waves lapped at the dock. Kai dripped on damp floorboards.

Izza reached to her neck, untied the leather string there, and advanced on Kai. “Sit down.” The woman sat. “Here.” Kai’s breath stilled as Izza leaned in close. She sank a bit of soul into the necklace, into the pearl, and tied it around Kai’s neck, tight enough the other woman couldn’t slip the string off over her head.

“Thank you,” Kai said. She touched the gray pearl at her throat.

“Is that it?”

“We shake hands, now.”

They shook. Izza felt the agreement spiral up her arm from Kai’s, and bite her wrist. The other woman’s eyes glowed briefly, then faded. Izza stumbled back and sat on a bench. Her world grayed out briefly before she adjusted to the lost soul.

Kai looked small, under the gods’ gaze, in the starlight.

“Can you find your way out?” Izza said.

“Yes.”

“You’re a good swimmer.”

“My father taught me.”

“What happened to him?”

“He died.”

“Oh.” Izza didn’t say, I’m sorry. “Where can I meet you?”

“Tomorrow after sundown, at Makawe’s Rest. A poetry club in the Palm, near Epiphyte and Southern. Thatch roof, open walls, lofted hut. I know Mako, the old blind guy who works there. You can trust him.”

“Okay,” Izza said. “Now go. Someone might come. I don’t want to have to explain you.”

“That makes two of us.”