Toxte came back soon after they’d finished eating. He squeezed each man’s hand and kissed Xessa’s mouth with soft hunger. She painted the glyphs for speed and skill onto the backs of his hands, and then his forehead and cheeks. Grief and pain combined in her stomach – Tika had done this for her after she’d been injured. Then she painted Kime and he her, while Toxte shivered at the spirit-magic moving in him, making his fingers and eyelids flicker.

Eventually, he nodded his readiness and they gathered their weapons and made their way downhill through the city. Otek wandered along behind them. It was Xessa’s turn at the river, and she left him and Toxte behind in the water temple, Kime angling away to the west and his own part of the river.

The cage. The cage was still there, between the temple and the Swift Water, mocking her with Tika’s absence, Tika’s death. Xessa’s heart was cut free of its place in her chest and beating its way up out of her throat. She swallowed, pushing it down, and walked past it towards the river, Ossa prowling at her side.

Bulbous skulls, hair drifting like weed, and dark, dead eyes rose above the lip of the water. Faces emerged, mouths open to reveal needle teeth, and no doubt the song rang across the slope and the fields from four speckled throats. Four. She’d never dealt with so many at once – wasn’t sure she could.

Tika could. Xessa took a steadying breath and even smiled a little. All right, Tika, you’re an ancestor now, and I know that probably makes you really fucking angry, but there it is. So if you could lend me a little of your aid, some of your strength and cunning, I’d appreciate it. I don’t want to die on this riverbank.

She cast Ossa left and three Drowned followed his movement, drifting with the current. Xessa used the distraction to check the pipe; it seemed intact. The fourth Drowned rose into the shallows, squatting on long, webbed hands and feet like a frog. The ejab lip curled as she took a step forward. There was a flicker in its eyes and it beckoned, the gesture so human it sent a shiver down Xessa’s spine. She took another step, her peripheral vision marking the three to her left, almost out of sight now.

Thump-thump. Faint but there: the heartbeat of the world. Ossa, signalling her. Xessa ran back half a dozen paces, spear up and ready by her jaw, and then looked left. Ossa jumped, back feet, front feet, and then pointed right, beyond her.