He let her go and stood. He walked away with a wandering gait, and didn’t look back. Hatred flashed into Xessa’s throat, hatred for the Drowned and spirit-magic, for the spirits themselves. Hatred for Otek, that he had left her and Kime both, not just now but years ago when the magic broke him. Shame followed it, cold and vicious, but it couldn’t quite smother the burning hate. Toxte was kneeling at her side; the other two water temples had both been successful and the Sky City would live another day.

Kime won’t. And I’ll have to break the news to Otek every time he asks. I’ll have to tell him, over and over, that his love won’t be coming home, and watch it shatter him.

Toxte touched her arm but she shook her head and stood and walked past him. He let her go. Xessa got halfway home and then changed her mind; she didn’t want anyone to be able to find her. She turned away and lost herself in the streets.

It was the end of the afternoon and the ejab had finished in the water temples hours before when Xessa and Ossa returned to the Swift Water. Her spare spear was smooth in her hand and her net swayed from the back of her belt with each step. She also carried a club, borrowed from Tayan and Lilla’s house.

She didn’t pray; she didn’t wear her paint. She did wear her armour, but a second layer of protection, formed entirely of cold, calm rage, encased her heart. The dirt and mud and shrubs were wet and cool from the rain, and rain ran from her hair down her face and back. Her salt-cotton was saturated and losing its tension, but the bamboo scales above and padding beneath would do enough. Or not.

Xessa stopped a hundred paces from the Swift Water. The bamboo cage lay where it had been left, big but light, the cords wrapped in hardened rubber to defend against the Drowned’s claws. She pushed the handle of the club into her waistband and then dragged the cage through the shrubs, its corner leaving a furrow in the earth behind her. Ossa shied away from it and his tail wagged uncertainly once or twice, but he was at the water and that meant he was working.

Xessa took a deep breath and wiped sweat and rainwater from her palms and face. She put the club down on the dirt a few paces behind her. Then she cast the dog along the bank to wake the Drowned.

Come on then, fuckers. Come and get me.

Spear in her left hand, net in her right. Waiting. It didn’t take long.