The coastal road ran long and straight and lonely north. Kai’s carriage stopped, and Izza watched her pay the horse and pick her way downhill over jagged rocks. She stumbled, and swore, and Izza laughed. “Watch your step!”

Even in the fast-fading twilight she had no trouble reading Kai’s murderous stare.

“Never thought I’d miss the damn cane,” Kai said when she reached Izza. She slid her foot from her shoe, picked up the shoe, and dug out a piece of gravel with her finger. “You’ve been well?”

“Yes,” she said. “Busy.”

“Tell me about it. The Craftsmen alone in the last few weeks have been murderous.”

“Not really.”

“No,” she said, suddenly sober.

“We’re telling the stories,” Izza said. “Quietly for now. But people listen. And the kids know our gods won’t go away again. Smiling Jack is dead.”

“What happens next?”

“Next?” She shrugged. “I guess it depends on what we do here.”

Kai stared out into the ocean, then turned back to Kavekana’ai. Sunset clad the mountain’s lower slopes in red and gold, and the peak bristled with lightning and aurora as Craftsmen continued their dark work within. “This is the easy part,” she said. “Working with people on the margins. The priests will take longer. And, gods, imagine what will happen when the rest of the world finds out the market’s come alive—even our little piece of it. I haven’t found an edge to the Lady yet, you know. She’s wound all around the world. They’ll try to burn us off the map.”

“Maybe,” Izza said. “Maybe not. The mainland gods and Deathless Kings won’t mind that their subjects have one less place to hide. Alt Coulumb’s on our side, because of Seril. Iskar will want to help us, because they think we’re more useful to them as a god-fearing island than as a protectorate of the Deathless Kings. I hope. Though, yeah, maybe they’ll just kill us all.” She glanced over at Kai. “Why are you smiling?”

“You said ’us.’ Meaning Kavekana.”

Izza stuffed her hands in her pockets. “Anyway, what’s the worst your clients could do? The Lady already owns their souls.” She grinned. “You could look at this as the biggest theft in history. We stole an entire island.”

“If we can keep it.”

“Right.”

Waves crashed against the cliffs beneath. The sun sank, and stars emerged. Over the swell of East Claw, the city glowed; off to the north, on the long barren coast, the lights of leeward golf resorts blinked on. And still the Craftwork beacon burned on Kavekana’ai.

Kai laughed.

“What’s so funny?”