Sorry, Tay, but you’re not here and I need you. I need to know what to do. And what it is I might have done by hurting it and putting it in the womb. What I’ve shown it.

She didn’t go back home: to take the book out of Tayan’s house felt even more like stealing. Instead, she sat leaning close to the candle and opened the book, trying her best just to skim the words until she found mention of the Drowned.

Xessa saw her own name more than once, and Lilla’s, too, and the urge to read about herself was almost overwhelming, but when she glanced up Ossa was watching her and his faith – his loyalty – reminded her of her own. Even so, it took an immense amount of will not to read what her friend thought of her deep in his heart.

Drowned. There. Peering closer, Xessa began to read.

The darkness was complete and the winds were strong, roaring up the streets and the hill, lashing the gardens and door curtains and stands of bamboo and vines. Fires were torn to rags, their light dancing and mocking the eye, hiding and revealing and making the roads treacherous. Xessa’s foot slipped into a carved drainage channel more than once, and her ankle was sending a spike of pain up to her knee with every step by the time she reached Toxte’s house.

Xessa clapped twice and then knocked on the wall. No response. She stamped on the wooden rocker that would wake him, even though he hadn’t taken the spirit-magic today so should have heard her knock. Still nothing – and no Ekka, either.

Xessa lifted the door curtain; the house was empty. She turned in a circle, grinding her teeth in frustration. Where would he have gone? Her emotions had been wild since Kime’s death and the murders before it, and the constant simmering anger she felt now threatened to spill over into rage. He’d said he was coming home. Where the fuck was he? She needed him.

Xessa began moving back uphill, but not home this time. She headed for the upper exit and the path to the womb. She headed for the Drowned. Ossa padded at her side, enjoying the novelty of walking the city late at night. His head was high as the gusting wind brought him all the scents and probably many of the sounds of the jungle far below.

She hadn’t come out with a spear or a net, but she had her knife and the ejab on duty at the womb would have weapons. Not ideal, but now that the idea was alive in her, she had to act on it. Tonight. Now.

They passed through the northern gate and onto the trail to the womb. ‘You too?’ the warrior on duty signed in the flickering light from a fire-pit. ‘Everyone wants a look, don’t they?’