Nettle took the wheel with a delighted grin, revving the engine once before letting the boat dart forward. Caledonia knew just how Nettle felt. The shift from the sturdy deck of the Luminous Wake to the thin shell of the bow boat’s hull was exhilarating. As the small vessel bounced across the waves, Caledonia felt the ocean beneath her feet, catching them in its deep embrace before flinging them back up again.

The rain fell harder, streaking from the sky in heavy sheets that reduced their visibility to twenty feet or less. Amina and Hime sat pressed together, hunched behind the shallow lip of the vessel, their eyes narrowed against the slashing rain. When Caledonia had raised the possibility of coming here for skintech, Amina had resisted.

“They do not welcome outsiders,” she’d said. “They are my family, and when I left, I knew what that meant. I am in their hearts, but I have no claim to their aid. I can’t promise they’ll speak with us. I can’t even promise they’ll speak with me.”

There had been two kinds of fear in her resistance. She’d been afraid that she wouldn’t be able to give Caledonia what she needed, and she’d been afraid of rejection.

“I can make the approach on my own,” Caledonia had said. “You don’t have to come with me.”

Caledonia knew what she was asking of her friend. When Amina left the Braids with a small group of her extended family to fight against Aric’s oppressive regime, it had been with the knowledge that they would never return. The Hands did not fight. And any who chose that way of life acknowledged that the cost was exile. To return was to disrespect their entire people.

But Amina knew what was at stake here. And she had answered Caledonia in a firm tone: “I won’t let you go without me, Captain.”

Now Amina raised a hand and gestured straight ahead. When they had traveled for a mile or more, they cut their engine and let the vessel drift. Cold seeped into Caledonia’s skin, making her fingers ache and the tip of her nose go numb.

Fog made it impossible to know how far they’d come or whether or not they’d reached the rivers. Behind them, rain swallowed the silhouettes of their ships and ahead the world was nothing but gray water. All she could hear was the urgent scatter of rain against the ocean, all she could smell was cold and salt. They were completely, uncomfortably alone out here. It was as if they’d sailed into the sea and the sea had decided to keep them.

Then the rain thinned, and the clouds began to sift up from where they’d come to rest against the water, and suddenly Caledonia and her crew were no longer alone.