Luce was just able to see him stare at her and nod before a swirl of dim blue cloud erased him from her view. She could hear his footsteps grating hard against the stones as he took off running again, and Luce drifted along parallel to the shore. She’d go as close to his village as she dared; she couldn’t make it too hard for him to find her. The long note trembled and coiled in her throat, becoming a hovering lullaby. Luce closed her eyes as she pitched alone in the fog and sang to comfort herself. Anything to soothe the dreadful chill in her heart, to hold off the sense of creeping evil. Her heart raced as she tried to lull it with unearthly music, but even the beauty of her own song wasn’t enough to protect her from the brutality of what she was planning.

Theres no other way, Luce told herself, letting the thought sway with her song. Theres no choice, but tomorrow . . . She finished with an image: floating on her back through Bristol Bay, eyes closed, until the water surged below her and sharp teeth snapped shut around her sides. She stayed suspended in her song and that awful vision for what seemed like a very long time, before she caught the steady beat of oars coming closer. The waves out here were too rough for a small rowboat, and its hull slapped down hard with each passing swell. When she opened her eyes again and looked around, the fog was so thick that the world seemed engulfed in deep blue velvet, and she could barely make out the slightly sharper form of the rowboat first approaching and then gliding past her, the boy’s body tipping forward as he spotted her. His oars thumped as he pulled them in, and Luce swam close enough that they could see each other clearly. The lift and fall of her face wasn’t quite matched to his, so that they stared at each other in a kind of vertiginous dance. Of course, she remembered, his night vision wouldn’t be nearly as good as hers, but the subtle light of her skin would help. She noticed a strange look on his face, awkward and bitter and, she suddenly thought, resigned.

Did he guess what she was planning? Suddenly her heart doubled its speed, and dizziness rushed through her.

“Hi,” he said flatly. “Going to talk to me now? Or you can’t be bothered with that?”

It would be so much better for both of them, Luce thought, if he would only succumb to the death song. Tentatively, she tried it out, letting her voice slide up into the soaring note where it began. It was disturbing to hear that fierce, haunting song sound so choked and shy.