He nodded. “Touchy situation. If a whole flotilla drops in, the stealth move is blown big time. And maybe Dan with it.”

No, no, no. Leaving was one thing. If he was. But dying . . . no way. “I’ll do what I can.”

I peered ahead at Unca Joe’s façade, a tower of darkness against a hint of dawn sky, then back at the Melville. Hannah came out on deck with a canvas sack in hand and a camo-covered tube slung across her back. One foot up on the gunwale, she stared after us. I remembered Daniel standing just so, not long ago, and I finally saw the resemblance. Not in their features, more a shared body language: the same upright, can-do posture, shoulders open to the world, as if nothing was impossible. How could either of them still believe that?

Then I was fielding sentry challenges as we slid beneath the arch toward the dock, but got a landslide of luck. Finally. The dawn dock watch was Poppy and Rivera. I wondered if they’d been to bed since I’d left them.

I waved to Poppy, squatting like a tawny bear at the foot of the ladder, her machete laid flat across her knees. She yawned, as if disappointed it was only me returning.

Rivera’s eyes were sharper, and she had the lantern. She bent at the edge of the float to catch Sea Sprite’s bow. “Oh, no! Not more!”

I snugged the kayak at the far side, making space for Julian. “He says more to come!”

Roused by Rivera’s hushed concern, Poppy grabbed my bow line. “I’ll call the . . .”

“No!” I leaped out. “Rack this for me, will you? We’re going back and it needs to be quiet.” I couldn’t have said when ‘he’ became ‘we.’ “A crowd will blow the whole rescue!”

“But . . .”

“Wait till we’re gone before you take ’em up.”

“You can’t go alone!”

“I’m not. Take my word for it, okay? You have to!” I leaned into Sprite to lift the closest small body onto the dock.

Rivera was already wrangling kids. I admired her doing it so willingly. She handed a filthy, sobbing toddler to an older child who scarcely looked strong enough but had managed to climb out on her own. Once out of the boat, the others mostly collapsed to the dock, able to weep at last. They recognized a rescue. Their dulled, haunted eyes followed Rivera as she took a last half-conscious boy from Julian and settled him into her own arms. Poppy and I herded the children around her.

“Now, we’ll wait for help getting up the ladder,” she told them. “But you know who’s already up there . . . ?” As I turned away, she was sharing out some of their denmates’ names. Leave it to Rivera to have actually learned them.