Because this is borderline ethical behavior. Because I didn’t need you before. “Because we’re talking more soulstuff than people tend to commit out of curiosity. But you sought me out twice so far. If you’re as interested as I think, I can bring you up the mountain this afternoon.”

Glasses clinked. Water rolled over the world’s fake edge. Teo did not open her eyes, but she grinned anyway.

“It’s a date.”

Chapter 47

47

Izza lay restless through the night on her rooftop bed. Stars stared down like Penitents from the sky. When morning threatened, she rose, bought—bought!—a cup of coffee to burn off the cobwebs of undreamt dreams, and walked the seashore. She felt Kai moving in her heart.

The surf rushed and gurgled like Margot’s dying breath. She remembered her home long since abandoned, remembered how blood ran from the cut on the priestess’s neck. She remembered the joy of running, and the sick fishhook feeling when she heard Sophie had been taken. She remembered the Blue Lady’s scream.

She wanted out. She did. But her every step tied her more deeply to Kavekana and its people. Even to Kai, the lost priestess. Who she still did not quite trust.

She threw rocks into the waves, but the waves kept coming.

Two hours after daybreak, she gave up, and went to the warehouse.

Cat was packing. She’d brought little with her, and acquired less on the island. Silver chalk, the clothes on her back, a change of clothing she rolled up for use as a pillow. She folded the blankets, stuffed her few possessions in a sack, and swept the surrounding rubble into a semblance of undisturbed mess.

“You’re leaving,” Izza said from the hole by the door.

Cat smiled when she saw her, as broad and open and easy an expression as Izza’d ever seen on her face. “I hoped you might come. I would have gone looking if you hadn’t.”

“What’s happened?”

“Time to go. Next day or two. Not longer, I hope, or else I’ll have to get myself all moved in again. Say your good-byes, if you have any left. We’ll need to move fast when the time comes.”

“Yeah,” Izza said, and even she could tell that her own voice sounded flat.

Cat stopped sweeping. “Are you okay?”

Izza should have gone to her when the poet died. When the pain still bled like a wound. Now the scab had formed, and tearing it open again hurt more. “No,” she said.

“What happened?”

“Margot died yesterday.”

From how hard the words were to say, she expected them to hit Cat harder. The other woman closed her eyes and breathed and opened them again. “Shit.” Cat slumped onto a blackened, half-rotten crate. The boards sagged, but supported her. “What happened?”