Lilla scrambled away, Ossa prancing around him, and made a show of wiping dog drool and dust from his face and clothes. Xessa lay on the floor, laughing and feeling closer and yet farther from Tayan than ever. They’d been friends all their lives, though she liked to think the first few years he’d existed before she was born had been terrible for him. Her friendship with Lilla now was deep and genuine compared with the brittle, jealous thing it had been when he’d first come into Tayan’s life and stolen him from her.

She checked the cooking parcels of bean, nut, and ground turkey and flipped them over with two sticks. Lilla bent down to wave in her eyeline and then pointed, and Xessa felt a ridiculous and unstoppable blush creep up her neck when she recognised Toxte ambling up the plaza towards them. She looked over to Lilla instead and bared her teeth at his malicious glee. ‘Justice for stealing my breakfast,’ he signed solemnly.

‘I haven’t stolen it yet,’ Xessa pointed out, but they both knew that one of the parcels was hers – and that that was why he’d made three in the first place.

The spirit-magic was beginning to work in Toxte and his pupils were dilated as he squatted next to the fire, his dog, Ekka, tussling with Ossa. ‘Elder Tika told me two more Yaloh were taken at dusk,’ he signed without preamble. Xessa stilled and Lilla came to her side. ‘They were in the fields. The irrigation ditch was just deep enough.’

Grief and rage and frustration, at herself and the world. At Malel, even. And at the Drowned. Always at the Drowned. ‘We should kill them all,’ she signed. ‘Take the fight to them, every eja at once. No more trying to steal water, no more hiding from them. Just kill them.’

‘Tayan would say they’re part of the balance, as much as we dislike it,’ Lilla signed.

‘Well, Tayan isn’t fucking here,’ Xessa signed angrily and jumped up. ‘Even the Lesser Drowned sing for us and they can’t even eat an adult. They can barely finish a child! Yet they take us and gorge themselves and leave our bloody remains to the scavengers.’

She was shaking, racked with guilt that was as insidious as it was irrational. She hadn’t been on field duty last night; the fault wasn’t hers. Except it was, somehow. Every loss, every death or sudden disappearance that was presumed to be a Drowned attack was her fault. Ossa came to her side and pressed against her leg. His tail was low and his big eyes worried. She dropped back to her knees and wrapped her arms around him, burying her face in his short black fur.