“Nobody. And I’ve told nobody. Wasn’t my place. The wars are done. I’m a private citizen. Margot himself barely understood what he was. I take it you know he died.”

“I was there,” she said. She hadn’t planned to, but the words slipped out, as if she were talking to empty air or to an ancient friend rather than someone she’d known for five minutes and didn’t trust.

“I’m sorry,” the old man said. “Now. Tell me about Kai. Quickly.”

“She thought the gods, my gods I mean, the ones that died—that they might have something to do with the Order. With Kavekana’ai. So she went in to investigate. She came out inside a Penitent. Screaming.”

“What will you do now?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you want a drink?”

Yes. “No.”

“Fair.”

“If the Penitents took her,” Izza said, “they’ll know everything she knows soon. Which means I need to get out of here. On the one hand. But.” The next part took some preparation. “She trusted me when she had no reason to. She tried to help, and she ended up inside one of those things. I can’t leave her.”

Mako laughed as if she’d said something funny. “You’re young. Maybe this is the day you learn that some debts can’t be paid.”

She’d worn out inside herself already, talking. This last scrape burned, and she hated him for it. “Look. I don’t know you. I don’t know if Kai’s your friend, or your student, or your pet project, or whatever. I’d save her if I could, but I can’t. And I won’t sit here at a bar and drink self-pity until this world looks like the best possible. I won’t accept this. That kid on the beach might be an idiot, but at least he knows the way life is isn’t the way it ought to be.”

Mako stayed bent by the bar, an echo of something old and vicious and set in its ways.

She was about to leave when he spoke. Before, his voice had sounded as if filtered through cobwebs and dust and layers of mud. All that remained, and more: He had grown new depths, or accepted old ones. “Can you find her?”

“Yes.”

“Show me.”

Chapter 55

55

The first stars shone at sunset. As blue gave way to black their comrades joined them, mockingly bright. Skyspires on the horizon ate starlight and moonlight and sea reflections alike.

Cool wind blew off the water.

Penitents watched, and waited.