Then she was close enough to feel the Tidewitch’s power. It sizzled through the water, sizzled through Vivia’s senses. The water did not want to be controlled, yet it couldn’t fight a witchery such as his.

He noticed her approach. Water thundered toward her, sudden rapids to pummel her down. But she was ready. She rolled, she ducked, and finally, she surfaced. Her water, loyal and true, punching beneath her.

Air eddied against her. Her vision cleared and her lungs gasped. Blood and water streamed off her. There was the boat, there was Vaness unconscious upon its floor, and there was the Tidewitch.

His hood had fallen back, revealing a mustache and smooth skin. He was young; he was skilled. He kicked more water her way, whips like he’d used at the shore. Too slow, though. Vivia had reached his deck.

Sinking to a crouch, she caught his whips. The water did not want to be dominated, so she set it free. Go, she told it, and it obeyed in its own way: a funnel that sprayed wide and briefly blocked all sight, all sound.

Vivia couldn’t see the Tidewitch, and he couldn’t see her. She used that moment to burst forward. Water shed off her. Blood speckled the wood, speckled Vaness slumped nearby.

She slammed into the Tidewitch. He was ready for her, though, his feet braced and knives—real knives of real steel—in hand. He sliced, he swung, and Vivia let him. Because he had miscalculated one thing. He had assumed she would resist those blades. He had assumed she would evade.

She didn’t. She let the left one slide into her shoulder and the right one slide into her thigh. It hurt. Hagfishes claim her, it hurt. But she was so far removed from her body, so deeply bound to the water, that she could fight on.

Or fight on long enough to end this exactly as the water wanted it to end.

Her body pounded into his. A low tackle that had her arms, bleeding and weakened, flying around his torso. Too much momentum for him to stop, too much clumsy force for him to have expected. He was an assassin, not a brawler—and this was another trick she would have to thank Stix for.

His balance tipped out beneath him. He and Vivia fell overboard. He with Vivia’s arms still wrapped around him, and she with two knives still shredding against her bone.

Down, down, she swam. Like a crocodile carrying its prey, like the Hagfishes bearing the souls of the dead to Noden’s court. The water was not deep here, but it was deep enough for darkness to reign, and the current at the bottom to slow to near stillness.

Come! the water cried. Come and stay!