She shoved her thieved dumplings into her bag and jabbed an elbow at Tavin. He blinked up around a mouthful and sighed, resigned. “It’s that sort of day, isn’t it?”

He stuffed the second dumpling into his mouth and led them away from the road, into the great swells of grass-studded sand betwixt them and the bay. Fie couldn’t say how long they stumbled through the dunes, sharp seagrass whipping at her legs, only that the walls of Cheparok had shrunk too far and yet not enough by the time they stopped.

“Here.” Weariness sapped the expected lilt from Tavin’s voice as he gestured to a copse of squat sandpines at the edge of the beach. “This is … this is good.”

Jasimir didn’t say anything, just staggered to a patch of seagrass and dropped. Fie cast a last look behind her, then found her own sandy hassock and allowed her legs to give out. The hilt of Pa’s sword jabbed into her ribs until she laid it aside.

Then, finally, she pulled the dumplings from her bag and took a bite.

Pa should have salted it for her first, as a Crow chief did.

Pa wasn’t there.

The pastry dough was dry, the maize and tripe gooey. It glued to the inside of her mouth and stuck there as she chewed, a thick wad that hurt as she gulped it down. A faint snore said Jasimir had already fallen asleep.

Through the bottlebrushes of sandpine needles, she saw the pale streak of sand, a gray blur of ocean, and, too far away, the unyielding walls of Cheparok.

The next bite was harder to chew, harder to swallow.

A faraway part of her wished for a drink of water. Then the absurdity hit. She’d had plenty of water today, from the gentry’s freshest reservoir to the canals of Third Market. She’d just been drowning at the time, was all.

A bubble of broken laughter turned to a shuddering cough, then a sob, and then Fie curled in on herself as she drowned again, this time in salt and fire running from her eyes, from her nose, from her mouth.

She wanted a campfire, she wanted a kettle of stew, she wanted Madcap’s jests and Swain’s nebbish sneer and Wretch’s scoffs. She wanted walking songs and salt. She wanted Pa’s voice.

She wanted her damned cat.

Fingers brushed her quaking shoulder, then vanished, a misstep corrected. Sand shifted at her right as someone sat.

“I’m sorry,” Tavin said.

Part of her shriveled with shame at weeping like this before him. The rest was too raw and furious to give a damn.