She realized she must be hallucinating. Dying. And she imagined great kraken-arms reaching up from below to seize her.

Galvanized by terror, serene with strength, Baru drew the dive knife from her ankle. She sawed the ties that held the iron curtainrods to the table. The ballast dropped away. Baru pulled herself back on top, on top with Tau-indi Bosoka and Iraji.

Buoyed up by empty casks and light wood, they rocketed for the surface.

The water parted across Baru’s back. She yawned against the roar, to make her ears crinkle and pop. As they rose they began to tumble, and Baru clung, watching starlight and sea-shadow sweep across Tau-indi, watching their warm eyes open and fix on Baru and smile. Iraji’s cheeks were pulled back by current: he stared at her with a squirrel rictus.

They struck the surface upside down.

They were trapped—she hadn’t thought of this, so stupid of her—Baru tried to kick hard enough to tip them over, but the whole weight of the table was on her, pressing her down, and she had no leverage to flip them. Iraji was drowning. The Prince was drowning—

—and a long oar reached under the table and tossed them upright. Storm air and pelting rain needled her skin. Lightning split the sky. She laughed and howled in victory, and the thunder answered her.

“Baru!” It was Apparitor, shouting. “I’m going to cut your feet off, you idiot!”

“Do you have them?” The Enact-Colonel Osa. “Do you have the Prince?”

Baru spat seawater and cheek-blood, rolled up on her knees, and bent to check Tau-indi’s breath. They were alive. Their pulse was steady, their breathing deep and ragged but strong. The waves swelled beneath them but did not tip their table over: well done, Engineer Cormorant.

She went to Iraji, who coughed up brine but shook his head when she tried to help.

“Oh,” Baru gasped. “We made it out. Oh Himu, I am clever!”

He looked at her in wonder. “The spell worked!” Iraji said. “The spell of protection! I’m a genius!”

*   *   *

IN Helbride’s middeck, surrounded by the warm protection of Cheetah’s rescued crew, Tau-indi Bosoka spooned soup from a tin mug Baru had brought down to them.

“What I don’t understand,” the Prince said to Baru, “is why, if you really are trying to save your own people, you’d do so much to destroy their rebellion.”

Baru had been warming fresh blankets for the Prince over a hot stone. Now she looked up in wary fear. “What do you mean?”

“Well, as I’ve, ah, brought up before, your actions in Aurdwynn lured Abdumasi Abd to his death or capture.…”

And Baru had been too stupid to realize her rebellion would draw in bigger conflicts. But she couldn’t deny it. “Yes…”

“Aurdwynn wasn’t the first place Abdumasi interfered.”

“No?”

“He was funding the resistance on Taranoke out of his own personal wealth.”