She braced herself for impact, too late.

They stopped in darkness ringed by light.

Cat’s silver skin glowed in the pool’s black. Kai saw her shock, saw Izza scramble to tread water that wasn’t there, to orient herself toward a surface that did not precisely exist. Kai had felt the same way on her first entry to the pool. Momentum and distance did not work here the way they worked outside.

Which gave Kai the opportunity she needed.

In the pool, strength of will mattered more than physical power. Here Kai could, and did, twist her wrist and slip away from Cat. And before the other woman recovered, Kai swam up, pulled herself out of the nothing, and stood, dripping, on the shore where she had watched a goddess die.

Below, Cat and Izza sank.

Kai crossed her arms.

Penitents ringed the pool—the guardians who’d caught her earlier that day, and one smaller, the Penitent in which Mara was trapped. They watched Kai with gemstone eyes.

Jace stood in front of her.

Her suit was torn and salt-stiff, her hair tangled. Unreality dripped from her, but enough had soaked into her skin and clothes to work her will upon. Her hair slithered straight. Her clothes were clean, pressed, and whole. She slid her hands out of her pockets. Light sparked off lacquered nails. The cut on her face knit, and the pain in her hip faded.

When she was quite done, she smiled at Jace.

“I see you got my nightmare.”

Chapter 60

60

“How could I miss it?” For the first time in his years since taking office, Jace stood unbowed, shoulders straight and back, immaculately calm. “You shouted through dreams.”

The smell of dust and rock hung about and between them. Shadows watched from lit office windows overhead.

“You worried me this afternoon in my office, Kai. You didn’t seem to understand the situation. When you disappeared from the Penitent, I feared the worst. That you’d left us for good, that you were working against Kavekana all along. Stupid of me. I know you’re loyal. I’m glad to see that loyalty manifest.”

Mara’s Penitent stood behind Jace, ready for battle. Ready to kill, if needed. “How could I abandon this island?”

“How indeed,” Jace said. He kicked a pebble, and smiled like a boy as it bounced. “What gifts have you brought us?”

*   *   *

Izza drowned in starlight, and Cat with her. They fell together, and the bright circle of the surface receded overhead. Cat’s silver arms surged against the nothing, but nothing was not water.

She betrayed us, Cat said. Her voice was a razor down Izza’s back.

“No.” She inhaled the darkness, and did not die. “I trust her. And it doesn’t matter, anyway. Let’s do what we came here for.”

As they sank, strange stars assembled into many-colored shapes. Thousands, hundreds of thousands: a crowd of idols. A gaggle of gods.