She saw no reason to argue about that, given how solid and warm and secure he felt after the salt water’s deceptive embrace. In fact, his shoulder, as she let her forehead rest against it, was her new favorite thing in the world. “I’m . . . all right.” Probably.

“Mabena!” This cry came from farther away and carried with it pounding feet and a new beam from another torch that made her wince when it flashed over her face. “Casek! Get away from her!”

She didn’t know how it looked to Ollie, exactly. Though she could imagine, when viewed through his eyes, that bad was at the top of his perception. She’d screamed, and he came in to find his lifelong enemy crushing her against him. Still, it took a surprising amount of energy to hold up a hand to halt his assumption. “It’s not—” More coughing interrupted her, though only briefly. “Wasn’t him. He saved me.”

Saved her. She squeezed her eyes shut against that awful reality. She, Mabena Moon, had needed saving.

“You expect me to believe that? That he didn’t—”

A crack sounded so loud as it ricocheted with the light that Mabena thought for a moment her skull had given up and split in two. Her ears rang, shouts rang, everything rang. Then water again, though her head didn’t go under this time, just under the cover of the rock ledge. It took her a moment, through the muddle of her own head and the chaos of it all, to realize the crack had been a gunshot, and that Casek had dragged her to the safety of the water again, his arms never letting go of her.

And he fairly vibrated with rage. “Did you just shoot at me, Tremayne?”

“Don’t be an idiot, Wearne!” Ollie’s shout sounded even farther away now. He must have retreated back to the entrance of the cave, presumably with Libby. “Who’s there? Show yourself!”

“Oh, I don’t think so.” The new voice made Mabena go still with its very wrongness. It had a clipped London accent instead of rolling Cornish vowels—but not educated London, like Libby had said her attacker had used. And it was punctuated with another crack, followed frighteningly by the ping of bullet off rock and the hiss of it reflecting into the water. Too close. And how close had its rock target been to where Oliver and Libby must be hiding? She shivered and wrapped herself more tightly around Casek, closer to the protective shelf of rock.

“You islanders just won’t learn, will you? I didn’t think it needed to be said again to come alone. Do I have to teach you the same lesson I taught your young friend? I will not be crossed!”

Your young friend. Johnnie.