She knew all this but kept her mouth shut, glad to hear him lecture her because it meant he was talking to her. Anyway, it was the outcome she’d aimed for, because he would be better at the first crossing. “All right. I have a safety loop.”

He hitched a shoulder in refusal. “It’ll just slow me down. I’m not going to fall.”

“How are you going to do it?” Ipis asked. “That rope’s just … stretched there and if you fall … your head’ll crack open.”

Kem gave Ipis a saucy look. “Watch me.”

He set down his pack, took off his boots, and secured them by their laces to the pack. Without a glance at Elen, he swung down to set his feet on the rope. For an instant she thought he was going to balance his way across, as he and Joef often did on a rope strung an arm’s length above the ground, but he knew his business. Elen and Kem had indeed made this crossing not ten days ago—although with the safety loop—because she’d wanted him to understand he was capable of so many things, whatever life brought to his doorstep. And here they were.

A thirty-ells-long coil of rope was securely fastened to and tucked beneath the right upper ring. He slung it over his shoulder and chest, then swung down to hang by his knees as he loosened the rope so it could unspool. Hand over hand, he crawled backward across the gap, pausing every time he needed to let out more loops of the rope. Despite the constant tug of the wind, his movements remained deft and sure, legs anchoring him in case his hands slipped. But they never did. As the new rope extended behind him, he reached the first intact pier and its iron anchors. He clambered onto the pier, which had iron posts and rings driven into it. He looped the new rope through the two rings and tugged until it was taut, then fastened it with secure knots.

He waved. Now it was Elen’s turn.

44 DON’T LOOK DOWN

Elen’s task was to haul two more ropes over, the ones fixed to the two other rings. It was tricky because, while she now had two fixed ropes for her crossing rather than one, she had to trust that Kem had fully secured the lower rope. If he hadn’t, she’d fall.

The setup was deliberately meant to make it hard to get across. While Elen suspected the archon of Fisherman’s Rest knew of and profited by the smugglers’ bridge, she could not ask, nor did she want the archon to know she knew. So much for that, with the archon’s people in pursuit.