The beetle retreated into the shadow of a piece of broken masonry. Izza knelt, grabbed another stone, and judged the distance. “She was a bird, and a shadow, and a friend.” She tossed the stone in the air and caught it twice, testing weight. “The noise to make a rich man look the other way while you reach for his pocket. The hand that catches you when your grip slips and you’re about to fall. Speed and silence.” She threw the rock as hard as she could. Crack. The beetle’s guts smeared black through the dust. “You wouldn’t have liked her very much, I guess.”

“A goddess of thieves,” Cat said, as if the thought was funny.

“I don’t know about thieves. She was ours.”

Cat nodded. “My goddess back onshore, she was moonlight and order and water and stone. A lantern in dark places.” For the first time, she didn’t sound angry at her old life. Sad, instead, and distant.

“I guess they wouldn’t have got along.”

“No,” she said, though she didn’t sound as if she saw the humor. “There is one thing about bards you should know.”

“What’s that?”

“They attract stories. They’re sensitive to them, pick them up out of the air, out of dreams. If Margot knows about the Blue Lady, it doesn’t mean much more than that he’s good at his job.”

“He doesn’t just know the story,” Izza said. “He believes it. He thought the Blue Lady led him to me, even though she’s dead. That’s why I asked you what happens when gods die.”

Light glistened off the sweat that slicked Cat’s arms and face, outlined contours of muscle. Izza remembered her as a silver statue, breaking Penitents bare-handed.

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know,” Cat said. “If I were you, I would keep away from this guy. Dead gods are trouble, and so are men who’re mad for them.”

“He could help the kids after I’m gone. They can take care of themselves mostly, but it’s always nice to have a friend. Besides, I feel like I owe him something. He got me out of jail, and I ran because I was scared.”

“You don’t owe him.”

“What does it matter to you?”

She laughed, hollowly, into the floor, and shook her head. “That’s a good question.”

Izza felt something sharp and small break inside her.

Cat looked up. “I care about you, kid. I won’t say I know what you’ve been through, but I understand why you want to get away from this life. I want to help you before you hurt yourself, or someone else does the hurting for you. You need to let all this go. The island, your kids, the Blue Lady, the poet. They can take care of themselves.”

“You’re scared,” Izza said.

“Yes.”