On other visits to the Basin and the Lowmarket, Adare had seen grinning, naked children riding the Chute. They would leap in from the bridge above, then let the frothing current carry them away west, out of sight between buildings cantilevered out over the water. It had looked easy, fun. As she hoisted herself onto the wide, low balustrade, however, she froze, staring in dismay at the water below. She had remembered a short drop, maybe a few paces, into a swift, refreshing current. Her memory, evidently, had failed her.

Something had transformed the Chute from a giddy little overflow suitable for childish games into a churning, roiling current thrashing over and into itself, tossing foam a dozen feet into the air. Adare clung more tightly to the rail. There were no children in sight.

Autumn, she realized, her legs trembling from the frantic run and this new shock. She had seen the children swimming the Chute in early autumn, when the canals and the Basin itself sat at their lowest level. Now, though, it was the tail end of spring, and the current chewed ferociously at its banks like some hunger-maddened beast trying to break its bonds. Adare had learned to swim in the Emerald Pool back in the Dawn Palace. As a child, she had even prevailed upon her Aedolians to let her paddle around in the harbor on calm days. This, though—she wasn’t even sure she could swim in that furious current, certainly not in her exhausted state, not with the weight of the wool dress pulling her down. She started to climb back from the rail. She could keep running, outdistance her pursuit on foot, lose them in the alleys and side streets of Annur, hide out somewhere. . . .

A shout from the base of the bridge froze her in place.

Fulton and Birch had already reached the span, the younger Aedolian one pace in front of his companion, both of them bellowing something incomprehensible. Both were red-faced and sweating, but both looked ready to run another mile. She wouldn’t escape them on foot. She couldn’t. It was the Chute or nothing. Adare stared as they approached, paralyzed by her fear, her indecision.

Do something, she snarled at herself, glancing once more at the raging current below. Do something!

And then, with a cry that was half sob, half defiance, she was over, tumbling uncontrollably toward the thundering current.

4

Well, that’s not on the ’Kent-kissing maps,” Gwenna shouted from her perch on the Kettral’s other talon, pitching her voice to carry above the wind’s fury.