“I didn’t want you to have to make that call,” Caledonia said.

“Cala.” Pisces dipped her chin in exasperation. “I have been by your side from the beginning. My job is to stay by your side, even when our choices get terrible. That’s my job. Yours is to let me do it so that you can focus on everything else.”

She was right. Their choices had been difficult before. Even terrible. But not like this.

“What about when our choices are more than terrible? What about when our choices demand that we become like them in order to win? Because that’s what is happening.” Caledonia dropped her voice, letting the confession spill from her like a breaking storm. “I’m afraid I can’t win this war without becoming like them. Like him. And if that’s what it takes, then I’ll do it, but I won’t take you with me.”

Pisces stared at her, her lips parted in horrified surprise, her brow creased with sorrow. “Oh, hell, Cala. You’re protecting me?” she whispered, eyes darting to a spot over Caledonia’s shoulder. “Is that why you take Oran? You think he’s already like Lir?”

But before either of them could speak again, an alarm rose over the town.

“Captain!” Nettle raced toward them, cutting through the crowded wharf like a fish through water. “Captain!”

Behind her, Caledonia spotted Sledge and Pine. All three rushed toward her.

“What is it, Nettle?” Caledonia asked as the girl skidded to a stop.

“The Hands,” she breathed. “Of the River.”

“Here?!” Pisces’s hand darted out to grab Nettle’s shoulder. “Are you sure?”

Nettle nodded. “Completely. Spotted them from the towers. There’s no mistaking it. Such strange boats! They’re on their way into the harbor now.”

Sledge and Pine arrived a beat behind her proclamation, both with expressions of hopeful anticipation.

“Thin boats just like you described, Captain,” Sledge said. “It’s them.”

Caledonia’s thoughts whirled, and for a second she wasn’t sure her feet were planted to the ground. She had so many questions, so many hopes, and she didn’t know where to begin.

Pisces’s fingers threaded through hers, squeezing lightly as she turned to Nettle and said, “Find Hime.”

Nettle didn’t have to be told twice. They watched her go, their minds churning around the thought none of them was brave enough to vocalize.

When Nettle vanished up the thoroughfare, Caledonia nodded and said, “Let’s go greet our guests.”

Two narrow boats entered the harbor, weaving between the breakers like the current itself. They were similar to the boats Caledonia had seen on her one visit to the rivers, but these were larger, each carrying six people. Caledonia and her team waited at the end of an open berth as the Hands cut across the harbor, their shallow hulls barely leaving any tracks in their wake.