“There were all these prophecies,” she said, “about the gods’ return. Unnatural ships would come over the sea, bearing the world’s wealth. Our greatest poets would sing on the seashore before Makawe. Kavekana’ai would be crowned with light. And they’ve all come true, and nobody realized.”

“Guess that’s the way with prophecies,” Izza said.

“Guess so.”

Neither of them spoke for a long time.

“You’re sure this is the right one?” Izza said, and pointed to the Penitent by their side. It stood alone on the cliff’s edge, staring impassively into the night and ocean.

“Sure as I can be,” Kai said. “The Watch keeps good records, and I asked nicely.”

“They sent her out here, to the end of the earth.”

“Not at first,” Kai said. “She was on patrol in the city for a while. New catches spend their first few nights on the Ridge, then a season on patrol. If they don’t take to police work, they stand sentinel again—time to stare at the ocean and think as the voice sets in.”

Izza walked to the Penitent. She tensed as she drew close, old terrors engrained on muscle and bone. When she was near enough, she touched the statue. The stone was warm. She thought she felt a tremor there.

“Hi, Sophie,” she said.

The wind whistled and the waves rolled and no birds sang.

Kai approached behind her. “How long has she been in there?”

“A year.”

“Gods.” Kai let the word out on a breath. “She’s not herself anymore.”

“Not yet,” Izza said. “That’s why I’m here.”

And she opened her eyes, and let go.

When Cat took on the mantle of her goddess, she shone with the ecstasy of light, a leaf borne on a torrent. Izza’d expected the same sensation, and was surprised at how gentle the goddess felt. She was that same leaf trembling dead on a branch as a strong steady wind blew—and when she released her tenuous hold, the wind bore her up, and she flew into night on the strength of a single yes.

She did not shine. The world did: became a web of webs, interlaced and ever changing. Even the mountain spoke, even the stone, though slowly.

The statue before her was a web, too: an orb woven around and through the girl at its center, touching nothing but her, complete in itself, scornful of surrounding transformations.

Not for long.

Green threads wound out from Izza’s fingertips, into and through the Penitent, like vines twining the bars of a cage. It resisted, at first, pulling closer, tearing into the girl—into Sophie. But the vines wound, and wound, and in the end the web began to part.

The Penitent was built, after all, to heed Kavekana’s gods, and wait for their return.

A voice vibrated through the web, small, lost.

Izza?

She had told herself she wouldn’t cry.