“I would prefer T.T. to giant talking rat, if you don’t mind,” the mouse said primly. It still held the open packet of chenna murki between its paws. “And I’m a mouse, not a rat. I think. Apologies for scaring you. I just wanted to warn you. The water is coming.”

“What do you mean?”

The mouse started to count.

“One . . .

Two . . .

Three . . .”

The sky, which had already been dark—but, at least, a comforting dark, broken through with the distant twinkling stars of occupied apartment windows—was now ominous, curdled with seething clouds and occasional claps of lightning.

Water seeped from the ground beneath their feet. It lapped about Winnie’s ankles and she danced from foot to foot with a shudder. “Ahmad? What’s going on now?”

Ahmad couldn’t answer her, but a familiar feeling coiled in his spine.

Dread.

And then the river broke free around them.

CHAPTER EIGHT

AHMAD HAD TAKEN HIS first swimming lessons in Bangladesh. They were not the eased-in, water wing–inclusive fare of the local city pool. One of his cousins had simply tossed him in. But rather than sinking like a stone, it was as though the river itself had risen to embrace him, welcoming him back into his heritage along with the silvery fish that darted between his toes and the petals tangled in his hair when he resurfaced to his family’s giddy congratulations.

This water was different. It hit Ahmad hard, every drop feeling like shards of cold, sharp glass. He groped in the inky dark, relieved when he felt Winnie’s hand grasp his, and tore against the current until they broke the surface.

He sputtered out a mouthful of river.

“This way,” T.T. the mouse called, paddling ahead of them. Were mice always such adept swimmers?

A dock had emerged over what was previously a street and now was overflowing with water.

By the time Ahmad and Winnie worked their way onto the lip of the deck, they were exhausted. They sloshed and skidded back and forth on the wet wood, holding each other for balance as they gingerly picked their way forward.

“Giving us some rain boots would have been a good idea!” Ahmad hollered over the wailing wind. “Or maybe some of those sticky cup things to put underneath our shoes.”

“I’m not sure if those would actually help in this weather,” Winnie called back. “At least we now know how life feels when you are a stick of butter.”

“Did we actually need to know that, though?” Ahmad shouted back, but the winds swallowed his words.

Ahmad squinted upward. Through the damp in his eyes, he could just make out the glowing Minaret. That awful red timer was still there too, broadcast over the horizon with all the subtlety of the Bat Signal. Five minutes.

Ahmad exclaimed, “Five minutes? Really? After dumping us into that without warning?”

He reached into the soggy depths of his knapsack.