A ripple of twitches ran from her scalp to her toes and he peeled back the edge of the cotton bandage swathing her from ankle to knee and sucked his bottom lip as he examined the wounds. While Drowned venom was rarely fatal in an adult, the medicine was slow-acting and it’d be a week before the burning in her bones faded and she stopped praying for death. Xessa’s fingers clenched at a spasm of pain and then she laid her hand on the dog’s head; he flopped onto his side against her flank, curled so his triangular skull was on her hip bone, tail thumping weakly into her armpit. Another shudder racked her and Ossa whined.

Tayan squinted down his nose at them both. ‘You look like shit,’ he said. ‘Want to tell me about it? Tika says you nearly died.’

‘Didn’t though,’ Xessa signed.

Tayan rubbed the back of his neck. ‘Only because your duty partner has more common sense than you do. Two Drowned? You tried to draw water when there were two of the fuckers circling you?’ He sat back and resisted the urge to shake her. She hadn’t followed everything he’d said, but she understood enough.

‘What other choice was there? We share the city with two thousand Yaloh now, plus our old Xentib friends. We need the water.’ She signed it simply, with the fatalistic calm common to ejab, and one that made him clench his teeth every time he witnessed it.

‘We’ve had early rain, in case you hadn’t noticed. People are already hanging gourds from the eaves. We’ll manage. And you’re too important to lose.’

Xessa rolled her head on the mattress. ‘Not enough rain yet. You know that. And it’s not like it was in our ancestors’ time. There are too many Drowned now; we have to cull their numbers where we can. That’s just how it is.’ She paused to cough. Ossa whined again, his pink tongue licking her belly beneath her tunic.

‘Have any more Yaloh agreed to be tested for the snake path while I was gone?’ Lilla asked, signing as he spoke. ‘It would be so useful, even if they just did it for a year or two. Once the Wet is here, all the ejab will have to work harder to keep so many of us safe and the spirit-magic … well, we cannot ask them to use it more often than they do. The toll is already too great.’