She raised her arms above her head and swept them down to her sides like wings.

As she rose, she scanned the sea floor one last time for her—what were they? Not quite friends. Izza, maybe, though they’d barely known each other. And Teo, she’d never known Teo at all.

She’d almost breached the surface when something struck her in the head.

Twisting in the water she choked and clawed at her assailant. In the confusion she saw nothing, but her fingernails scraped a slick curved surface. She kicked and pummeled this thing she could not see. One out-flung hand breached the water’s surface, and struck something long and thin and hard. She grabbed it and pulled down, hard as she could, but instead of pulling whatever it was into the water she pulled herself up, and rose sputtering and cursing into air.

She held an oar draped over the side of a black shallow-drafted boat. Teo and Izza braced the oar’s other end. Izza wheezed, bent over. The oar must have caught her in the stomach as Kai thrashed.

“What the hells,” was all she could say at first.

“Here.” Teo held out her left hand. The light had mostly faded from her skin, but the scars still glowed. She saw Kai’s expression, and offered her other hand instead. “It’s not much, but it’s all I have.”

Kai pulled herself into the boat. Water slopped from her shirt and pants and thin sandals. She’d lost her jacket, shrugged it off for speed. Sea breeze on wet skin set her shivering. She sat and hugged herself and breathed.

The boat was Kavekana make, shallow draft for crossing shoals and sandbanks, a vessel for short distances. An anchor chain ran over the side, though she’d seen no anchor in the water. Teo sat on the bench. Izza leaned against the stern, watching them both. All shivered.

“This boat wasn’t here before,” Kai said.

Teo pointed to the prow. A charm hung there, a shark’s tooth marked with foreign glyphwork, glowing green.

“That means nothing to me.”

“Keeps people from noticing the boat. For a little while.”

“Cool, right?” Izza said.

“Who are you really?”

Teo shrugged. “Does it matter?”

“You got us both stuffed inside Penitents. You owe me.”

“I’ve been thinking about that,” Teo said. “Had a long time to think inside that thing. I thought at first you might have been punished because of me. But then I realized how hard you tried to get me into the mountain, into the pool. Profit wasn’t your goal: you brushed me off twice, easy. When your boss showed up, he treated me like a routine nuisance, but you—you were special. It’s a bit excessive to lock a prospective client inside a Penitent without trial, isn’t it?”

“But you’re not a client, are you? You never were.”

“No,” she said at last.

Chapter 57

57