Tayan was calm, but there was an intensity about him she didn’t like, as if he’d taken the journey-magic. He gestured again but Xessa wouldn’t look at the book. She frowned: there was something different about the Drowned. It was still curled against the back wall, huddled as far from her as it could get, but those eyes she’d once thought of as empty were anything but. They evaluated her, inspected her and her weapons, her dog. Her lack of armour. Its throat sac rippled and Tayan turned back to it. He was talking to it. As if it was human. As if it understood him.

And perhaps it did, because slowly the Drowned relaxed and sank back to put one gill beneath the water. Those big, black eyes flitted between eja and shaman and dog, back and forth, and its throat did that same ripple again. And again Tayan spoke to it. Answered it.

Xessa eased forward another step to try and read his lips, but again the Drowned thrashed away from her and Tayan whirled, his hands out. ‘Please don’t come any closer. Any time there’s an eja down here, it’s too afraid to communicate. Please, if you insist on being here, then wait over there.’ He pointed to the cave mouth. ‘Safer for everyone that way.’

Xessa licked her lips. This was wrong, but she knew the instant she put down her spear to sign, it would attack. If all she could do was stand and watch, then that’s what she’d do. But not over at the fucking exit. The eja took five steps sideways, with her toes in the water and a clear line of sight between her and the Drowned. Unless Tayan did something spectacularly stupid, he couldn’t get between her and it – and the rope harness shouldn’t stretch too much closer to it anyway.

She caught a glimpse of Tayan’s marriage cord hanging around his neck and suddenly wondered how it would feel to wear one herself. One given her by Toxte, knotted with the promises they’d make to each other. Tayan’s was sweat-stained from his travels, but he wouldn’t make a new one until he was back with Lilla. That was how it worked. That was what marriage was. Or one of the things.

Xessa blinked and gripped the spear hard, focusing. She could feel that weird vibration again, but when she looked the Drowned’s throat sac wasn’t bulging. She snapped her fingers and when Tayan looked over, she tapped her ear.