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Chapter 62 - 61

"Steady, boys!" Anouk bellowed into the downpour. "Clap all the sail we can muster!"

It'd come to a head, as they say. A great chunk of the fore had been lost to Alma's first attack, and the damage done to the hull and the canvas had launched the Echo into a stomach-turning descent through the Rift. Two men had been sucked into the storm. Another was incapacitated. She didn't even know where Orrin was. She tried to make sense of the screaming sky, but there was rain in her eyes, wind in her ears, stifling the cries of her crew.

And Ethos— he hadn't said another word to her, only breathed Alma's name and vanished into the darkness. She would look around for him now and again, thinking she'd seen him between lightning strikes, but all was sheets and untethered barrels, the flailing bones of an ill-fated ship.

Another flare lit up the clouds. "All hands take cover!" she barked, and she slid the two or so paces to Sam, who'd clung to the helm like the anchor it was. She snarled at him through the vile elements, warning him back. "Down!"

The lightning came crashing into the portside bulwark, lancing through the night like a spear. More screams. Sam lost his hold and toppled aft, grasping at slippery deck, shouting out, but Anouk could only pray that he'd land it. She gripped the helm and heaved it starboard, grimacing in the relentless onslaught. Thunder rumbled and clapped at the air. 

Clancy was cursing below, voice climbing up through the piping. Anouk hurled an order into the amplifier. "Let her easy!" she hollered at him. "Give that throttle a lick and a promise!"

The Echo lurched forward. Sam hurtled clear through the afterdeck banister, landing hard on the messy main. Peppered by splinters, Anouk shielded herself with an arm. 

"Easy, I said!" she growled. "Curse your useless bloated hands!"

Clancy was quick to reply. "There's a breach in the keel!"

"Hold the system, you swine! Leave that post and we're dead!"

Hot blood was seeping into one of her eyes. It was this, she reasoned, that caused her to miss the telltale swell of light in the storm. The deck directly beside her exploded, and what followed was little more than a vague awareness of where she'd be aching come morning. Blinded by motion, bewildered by gravity, it wouldn't have shocked her much to learn that she'd parted with the craft altogether.

But she hadn't. She'd fallen somehow down into the steerage, where above her a gaping hole in the deckhead revealed a hungry stream of fire. She struggled across the flooded floor, coughing wetly, in search of escape through the muck and the mire. 

Snowbroth spilled into her eyes, but not before a swarthy hand materialized from the chaos to help her. Ethos. She pushed her accursed muscles to reach it, to bridge the gap, to vie. 

Sei's voice hit her like a slap to the face. "Take hold of the frame!"

Surprise robbed her grasp. The steerage wellnigh welcomed her back. But Sei was there to catch her, a grip on the frame he'd been guiding her toward. She stretched for it, fueled by her indignation, fighting the ache in her leadened limbs. Her laboring lungs were raw.

And then they were free, returned to the main. Sei told her to go to the helm, so she went, but her rattletrap body resisted each step. She counted three men topside, a fourth by the capstan, and a fifth descending the burning crow's nest. A sail was ablaze, charting their plunge.

Adrenaline sent her clambering up to the afterdeck. It was there that she reclaimed the helm beside the smoldering hole to the steerage, and it was there that she saw it— the dreaded camps, rising to greet them, an assemblage of men to watch them fall. Her hands were trembling… battle shakes, or something akin. The handlers on the deck below were anxiously arguing with one another.

Anouk discarded her coat, blinded by the flaming foresail, and scanned the storm once more for Ethos. Thunder roared. Lightning flashed. She glared back at the contemptible Rift and groped for the collective lever. Wind breathed through her shirt, cooling the blood and sweat on her skin.

"It's only fear," she muttered. "Damn all, says I, if this is what kills me."

Someone screamed. Anouk pulled so hard on the lever that it snapped right off of its hinge.

The ship collided with ground. The sheer force of it flung her aft, into the bulwark, and the mast, still afire, cracked and collapsed overhead, spitting sparks. It was a fearful moment; Anouk buried her face in her hands, drew her knees way up to her chest, and prayed for a miracle. She might have been shouting. She might not have.

It seemed a great while before calm.

She remained there longer than necessary, for fear of bearing witness to decks strewn red with the dregs of her men. But after a time, throat burning, she returned to her feet. She blinked away the glaze from her eyes and assessed the state of the wreck.

Sight was scarce at first. Perhaps it was a blessing. Anouk picked her way over toppled planks and spars and cables, intended for the helm's devastated bannister. She nervously wrung the wood with her hands, swallowed past a disgraceful knot, and called, "Sound off!"

One by one, the men answered. Two became three, three became four— the count stopped unfairly there, whereupon muffled coughing could be heard from somewhere lower, within the debris. Five, then; maybe six. She ordered Sam into the hold, where, god willing, her handlers had survived the crash. Sei and Griswold were bleeding badly, neither too injured to stand. Scorseby alone lay motionless.

The tempest was beginning to pass. Anouk cast an eye over their surroundings, at the land and the camps and the men that had gathered. Bonesteel grays. Oldden reds. All was silent. A thread of sunlight outlined the distant mountains, marking the hour, which had slowly begun to bathe the eastern earth in hues of impending dayrise.

But the striking dawn, deceptively tranquil, yielded its share of rancid fruit. At its vanguard, the distant howling swarm rushed at them like an avalanche.

Anouk threw herself over the banister and landed surprisingly well, considering, shoulders thrown back to avoid overbalancing atop the steep, ravaged main. She rifled through the debris, knees aching, and salvaged a crooked crow iron.

Sei stopped her. "No," he said. "Not yet."

She stood and used the iron to indicate the swarm. "We're about to be overrun," she replied. "I'm not dying without my cut."

A beam gave way. The Echo pitched into a forward tilt, and the burning mast promptly rolled off the ship and landed deafeningly onto soil, hissing as it went through the rain. Behind her, one of the men reported, "We've injured over here."

Anouk tore out of Sei's grip. She thrust a finger at him and held his eyes. "We're in no position to defend ourselves," she growled. "Move."

 CRACK!

She'd thought the plunge had been hard on the ears, but it couldn't compare to the resounding darkness that fell upon them then. An impact on the very air shook the inoperable ship and its contents. Shouts arose from the opposing armsmen down below. 

It came as a shock. The border wall of a colossal fortress was rooted in the space all around them, crumbling here and there from the jump, capturing both the Echo and the two warring armies within its fortifications. Banners of Bonesteel gray were erected high on an orbit of turrets, lashing about in the flatland wind.

And Peter's five thousand, armed to the gills, stared up at them from the nearest shield wall. There were faces down there that she'd known all her life— Arngeir Stonehand, Saeas Fairsky, Seren Seiler, Aeden Coalborn, Tanis, her father—

"Anouk." The infantry stirred and parted like water. Peter emerged at the front of the formation, flanked by a dejected-looking Alyce and the eerie, contemptible princess. He was nearly out of earshot, but his rage conveyed plenty. "Did you know, too?" he demanded. "Did he tell you to lie?"

Anouk had a vague idea of what he might've been on about. "Oh, aye," she called back, indifferent to their relentless squabble. "We all did. Had a good laugh like."

The silence of so many men was ruinous. Peter's glare narrowed. "Get down here."

Anouk willed herself to move. Sei and the deckhands were quiet as she passed. The fractured deck of the fore was angled so sharply that she had to catch herself on the bulwark. She braced a boot against the remains of their shelter and propped an elbow on her knee. "Not in the mood for pleasantries, I gather," she said, smiling crooked. "Harsh, cousin. Me being in the state that I am."

Princess Una stepped forward, as stunning and unmatched as queens were to be. Her thinning hair had been braided around her head, exposing all the smooth turns of her face, eyes too large, too rounded, too pale. "You've already caused more trouble than you're worth," she said. "Disembark."

Anouk waggled the crow iron at her. "He told me to keep away from you," she said. "Reckon he thinks you're a danger."

Her lip curled. "I won't harm you."

"Oh, I ain't afeard, princess. I've other concerns."

Peter intervened, throwing an arm out to cut Una short. "Where is he?"

Anouk sighed and gestured cloudward. "Up there somewhere."

"And Alma?"

"I think she's with him."

"Are they fighting? What's happened?"

She sneered down at him. "Do you not see what I'm standing on?" she asked him. "I'm in the pits, Peter. I've lost good men and there's enemy about. Ethos can take care of himself."

"It's not your place to decide what— "

Anouk held up a finger to stop him, head tilted slightly to hear the sound of their more immediate threat. The rain fled in fear with the wind. With a smile, she asked, "You hear that?"

Peter's crossness didn't waver. "Hear what?"

"You'll want to steel yourself."

The howling horde exploded at once over the eastern ramparts, slavering and shrieking. The excess of movement was bewildering, tricking the eye, rivers of teeth and flesh and hair. They spilled in a flood of ravenous droves, mindless. 

Anouk turned away, using the crow iron to climb back to Sei. Tanis was barking something at her unit from somewhere. Peter's voice joined hers, slightly louder. "Hold the line!" he shouted, and he clapped his hands to get their attention. "Bowmen, ready! Wake the fuck up!"

Peter's five thousand men and a terran finally gave a proper reaction, shedding their paralyzed silence for panic. The collective peal of forged arms was accompanied by a viridian gleam, and it spread to the inner walls of Wulfstead's impregnable husk. Another roll of thunder passed overhead.

Anouk paused to address her tired and broken deckhands. Most were sitting, some still emerging topside. "Live, if you can," she told them. "Die, if you must. We're in it, one way or another." She met Sei's eyes and said, "Alyce is down there. If Peter doesn't jump her off the field in the next thirty seconds, get in there and do it for him."

Sei just stared at her. "What about you?"

She continued her climb, securing her iron as she maneuvered through rubble. "Don't bother with me," she said. "Just do it."

"Anouk."

"Fine. Stay, leave, haul on, haul off— I don't care."

"Anouk."

She straightened with an aggravated sigh, hand at her hip. "Aye?"

But Sei wasn't looking at her. His bearing was one of undivided resignation.

Anouk slowly followed his gaze, to where two tawny feet had roosted atop the charred stump of the mast. Nine wrinkled toes curled over its edge. "And so this is it," their owner mused. "The dead of tomorrow. The dead of today. The dead of a world gone hungry and gray."

Tono sea hag. God, so called. Anouk glared. "Is he dead?"

It was as if Alma had expected to be ignored. She glanced in surprise, blinked a few owlish times, and asked, "We've met, haven't we?"

"Not really, no."

The god hunkered down. "They call you jackal."

"Some do." Anouk told herself to be still. The iron was heavy. "Is he dead?"

Alma smiled, and the expression made her appear decades younger. The lines in that haggard face seemed meant for it. "Are you his friend now?"

"I'm his something."

"A something, is it," she sang, and she shook out her flood of hair, animalic, like a dog returned to shore. With a happy sigh, she hugged her knees. "How sweet."

Someone was shouting for Anouk. Peter, perhaps, but she dared not look away. "He's alive?"

The howling swarm engulfed the assembled infantrymen. Steel rang. Viridium hissed. Cobalt fire danced in Alma's flawless golden eyes. She was studying Anouk, unreadable, focused, as if she were trying to memorize the moment. "A something," she whispered. "A what. A where."

"You're a coward," Anouk said. "Too spineless to die alone."

"A what. A where. A snake. A breeze."

A howling shrieked nearby, at the fore, diverting the perplexing exchange. Peter was there, having felled the foul fiend, and was watching it burn at his feet. He stepped over embers, eyes rising. "Alma," he greeted, quite ungraciously. "Get away from her."

"If it isn't Peter the wise," Alma crowed. "Are we playing at hero again?"

He dropped the blade in favor of a bow. He knocked it slowly, almost wearily, yet with a practiced gesture. The string creaked. "Don't act like you know me."

Anouk took the opportunity to gander at the deck. Sei and the men had vanished— to where, she couldn't be sure. The steerage was dark. Alma's throaty laugh filled her ears. "Hans isn't here to protect you, wise one," she said. "Shoot if you'd like to die."

"Did you kill him?" Peter demanded. "You'd better say no."

"Scary," she teased. "But foolish. So foolish. You put all fools to shame. I wish I could have seen your eyes when you first saw the mess I made of Wulfstead."

"Kacha's dead," he replied. "She'd never have done what you did to those people."

Alma returned to her feet, serious. "Insolent cub," she called him. "We've been with you since you first set out. We know you. We've heard you. If you were half as smart as Hans, you'd have known better than to follow through with a plan that was already leaked to the enemy."

He advanced, vigilant. "You had nothing to gain from it."

"But we knew how much it would anger you."

"You're better for a bleeding, witch." 

His arm tensed. Anouk stepped out of his line of fire, and in that moment, at speeds unthinkable, a blur dropped out of the sky beside her, imparting a glimpse of unruly hair, a low crouch, and a bottle-green glare. Ethos, in truth, and he dallied not; he instantly launched himself up at Alma, and the two went sailing into the steerage. Peter stood gawking, thrown by the shift.

The arrow was gone. Anouk gave a start. "Who'd you— "

His expression was blank. "I— I don't— " 

Something crashed into her from behind. The unexpected impact sent her colliding with Peter, and together they plunged partway down the deck and onto the resilient forward hatchway. They landed in a pile of limbs, motionless for several stunned moments, until they noticed the third in their midst. Ethos coughed and rolled off his back.

Anouk's head spun. "You left," she said, in a daze. "We went down."

Ethos wiped his face with the back of his hand. He peered sidelong at her. "I'm sorry," he replied, and he tried to smile. "I'm glad you made it."

"Aye, of course I made it. What do you take me for?"

A motion from Peter caught his eye, and he ducked to avoid a thrown bit of wood, one arm raised to fend off another. Peter shoved at Anouk to get her off of his leg. "You asshole," he spat— not at her, but at Ethos. "I'll have you hanged as the worst friend alive."

Ethos watched on while he angrily searched for more pelting material. "Sorry," he repeated. "It was to keep you and Alyce away. It's not safe."

"You let Anouk help!"

"Anouk wasn't supposed to land."

Peter flung a swab handle at him. "You're a selfish prick."

"I'm a pragmatist," Ethos replied, deflecting the attack. "And you're difficult."

"Difficult! I've been losing my mind, you fucking pigeon! I've been worried sick!"

Ethos apparently had no retort to that. He warily let his arm fall.

Peter threw his hands in the air. "You don't care, is that it?"

"I'm waiting for you to chuck something else at me."

For a long moment, Peter just stared. He looked disgusted. And then he shook his head, over and over. "What a fucking embarrassment," he said. "An actual national fucking embarrassment. You never used to be such a shithead."

Steerage crates suddenly shifted and fell, showering them with mud and rainwater— a reminder of where they were. But before Alma could reemerge, the forward hatchway swung open beneath them, and the force of it cast them sideward at bulwarks as Syan viciously surfaced topside. Half of her delicate face had been crushed in the fall, exposing a dark, calciferous framework. Wraithlike steam curled thickly around her. The stench of it.

Laughter, from the steerage. "Toasted crows and octopus toes," Alma cackled, alight with genuine throaty amusement. "To think you'd actually still be alive."

"You'll wish for an honest death when I'm done," Syan seethed. "I'll see that you suffer— for ours and yours, of whom none deserved what anguish you gave them." 

Anouk stepped into a standard lunge, but Ethos stopped her before she could pass him. "Wait," he said, in her ear. "Wait. Look."

Syan fully arose from the hatch. Her ever-growing extremity had undergone a violent shudder, and Anouk watched in mounting horror as the flesh hideously unrolled from its tip, stretching and webbing round eight vile legs she'd cultivated within it. One by one, they unbent and extended, creaking and rasping like ten thousand voices, barbed tips scraping over ravaged planks.

A threatening rattle tumbled out of her lengthening, crumbling throat. "I'll snap your brittle bones to bits and use them to pick your face from my teeth."

Alma sneered. "Degenerate whore."

"Dried up hag."

Anouk glanced back at the sound of hushed voices. Peter, who'd gone a different route, had circled around the hatchway; he was discreetly crouching down behind Ethos, eyes forward, and was pointing at something ahead. Interest piqued, she followed their example and squinted in the same direction. 

Ah, the arrow. Alma had it sticking out of her shoulder. But as if she'd heard what Peter had said, and maybe she had, she tore the thing clean out. Her open-kiln eyes moved to Ethos. "Craven," she said, just loud enough for her voice to carry. "Typical of a Battlefrost. Cowards, all."

Another howling appeared portside, claws raking up lacquered oak siding, but it was quickly shot down by an ally below. The ship was being covered, Anouk realized, and she shouldn't have been so surprised. There were allies in every direction around them, including yesterday's enemies. As Ethos had said: solidarity in the face of sure death. 

A blue shock of energy, practically white, tore through Wulfstead's lofty shield wall and burned a near perfect hole through the stone. The dayrise beyond it flooded in, kicking off steel like it would from the sea, but the Echo's elevated backend preserved the main in heavy shadow. 

For a fraction of a second, Anouk was blind.

Syan lurched into action. She reared her spindly appendages, exposing a repulsive, complex mass of a squirming underbelly. At once Peter made a break across the debris field of the deck. He snatched something up near the mast— his fallen sword. And as Syan closed in on the same position, his hand jumped to the scar in his belly.

 crack

A quieter sound. Peter rematerialized within arm's reach, heel catching on a spar. Ethos caught him, but the look in his eyes made it obvious that his save had been unintentional, just a gut reaction to seeing someone fall.

The women clashed in the steerage. Topside rubbish clattered downdeck and forced the three of them sideward still. "It's not working," Ethos said, watching on. "You shouldn't have made assumptions on the grounds of me being a similar species."

Peter hushed him. "Give it a second to enter her bloodstream."

"I don't have a second." Ethos yanked on the tongue of his belt. Anouk thought his hands might have been shaking, but it was hard to tell. "Anouk," he said, glancing. "If there's ever a time to slay a monster, now's it. Syan's yours."

She brushed a splinter off of his shoulder. "Consider it done, seabird." 

The heavy scabbard dropped to the deck. He'd shed Clancy's boots sometime in the chaos, and his feet were turned wicked— crowlike, in truth. He gently pushed his sword at Anouk. "Use this," he said, and he held it between them to search her eyes. "She's stronger than you. But you're faster."

She smiled. "You know better than to look so serious in front of me."

It made him smirk back at her. "Just don't drag it out."

"You, too," she said. "Don't lose any parts of yourself that I like."

The smirk spread, subtly, but he didn't respond. He instead unleashed himself at the steerage. The deckhead exploded apart as he and his creator collided, leaving Syan alone updeck. Anouk watched him clear the great white walls and go alight in the cutthroat sunrise. 

Eyes high, Anouk asked Peter, "Reckon you can keep up?"

Peter's voice was low, maybe bitter. "With you?"

"Aye, it'd be a mortal shame if I severed your giblets on accident." She tilted her head back to leer at him, slanted. She teased, "You've got those, right?"

He rewarded her with a scowl. "I've never hit a woman, you know."

Fragments of the wreck were tumbling again. Syan struggled out from the steerage, weighed by a heap of the deckhead timber. One of her arms was slick with blood. "If you want to help, disable her legs," Anouk said. "I have claim on her life, so don't kill her."

 crack

Peter took immediate shape beside Syan, just as she freed herself from the rubble. His cutlass whistled through one of her vile mutations. She screamed.

"Oi!" Anouk snarled. "I wasn't done talking!"

With a roar of rage, Syan spun on him. She lashed out blindly to strike him down, but he'd already sidestepped into the bulwark, caught himself hard and ducked down. She made chase, faster than she'd seemed from a glance; he yelped when a barrage of attacks violently stippled the overhead rampart, driving him lower, onto his knees. 

But Syan's movements were hinting at the extent of her injuries. Her injured leg caved, propelling her forward partway downdeck. Anouk evaded a flailing, barnacled appendage and cut through another, intending to lob off the thing in a stroke. The steel caught on bone.

Impact. Heavy, to the side of the face. Another appendage, no doubt. Anouk went airborne. When she came to, she was worryingly balanced on the fore's broken bowsprit, not far above the havoc below, where pillars of blue flared up here and there amid the endless movement and contrast. She tried to rise, but the undertaking radiated pain down her spine.

The Echo shook, jarring her perch, and Anouk scrambled for something to grab when her feet rolled out into open air. Miraculously, she found a handhold, fingers screaming, legs dangling. She hung there for a bewildering moment, breathless, before she mustered the strength to climb. She'd managed to swing a knee over the bulwark when someone apprehended her ankle.

A soldieress, Anouk thought at first, until a second glance yielded Una, her nails tearing through oilskin leathers, growling low betwixt pointed teeth. Anouk's skin jumped at the sight. She scrambled to get herself topside in time before Una clawed up the length of her. 

They spilled onto the fore, but Anouk's exhaustion was taking its toll. It made her slow. Una stole the high ground and delivered a solid punch to the face, expressioned to kill. It was a startling look to see on a woman who'd never said more than a few words to her.

Anouk parried a second blow, salvaging some of the strength she'd lost. She was attempting to catch Una's wrists when the princess reared back on her knees and took aim— with her hand, where a swell of light came to life. In horror, Anouk threw all of her weight to one side as the blast breathed by, sucking at hair, annihilating all in its path. Anouk bucked free and split for the main. 

Peter and Syan were in a fine state. They'd both suffered wounds. Anouk hit the ground running, quite unaware of her own weariness. She slid beneath one of Syan's great sweeps and scooped a fallen blade from the deck. A clean slice through the sweep that followed sent her skating into Peter.

They shouldered together while Syan writhed. "Do something about your woman," Anouk seethed, inviting a single sidelong glare. "She tried to kill me."

Peter blinked at her over the screaming. "Una did?"

Inebriated by blood loss, enflamed by resentment, Syan chose then to make a last stand. Her reach took them both by surprise, and they dropped to the deck as another of Una's devastating attacks tore aft like a beacon of ice; it razed the poor steerage and deckhead to nothing. Syan was shouting. Peter was shouting. Everybody had something to shout about. But Anouk was seeing doubles and aching, holding fast to buzzing planks and just hoping not to be blown apart.

And then something crashed hard into the main. The planks split through. The vessel cried out. But silence followed, tense enough to drown out the battle around them, and as much as Anouk was afraid to look, the blistering presence beside her demanded it. The turn of her head was a deep-sea endeavor. Her pulse beat ceaseless against the cage of her chest.

Alma clawed at broken wood. Sludge was seeping from a gash on her head, steaming and slow and black as sin. Her blazing glare was as beautiful as it was fearsome.

Ethos stood over her, hands at his sides. Bloodied but unbroken.

Anouk was suddenly struck by a surge of perfect, profound fear. It was unlike anything she'd ever experienced before, constricting within her like the great leviathan itself. She didn't want to see it, she realized. She didn't want to see what he'd do.

Alma cackled. "What bearing."

He stared at her, calmly. "Get up."

" 'Won't you help me across this river?' "

"Get up," he repeated. "I want to do this while you're able to stand."

Her smile dissolved into something indefinite, something that could transform easily into great joy or inscrutable fury. She, too, repeated herself. " 'Won't you help me across this river?' "

His expression belonged on a face elsewhere. Stillness incarnate. He wasn't quite angry, but rather dispassionate. Disappointed, perhaps— but only a little. It seemed he'd come upon a hurt doe, and was mourning the life but still hungry, unhesitant. Anouk had seen it all before. There was no good or evil there. Just an animal with nothing to feel guilty about.

When Alma didn't rise, he reached for her. "Have it your way."

Peter appeared and seized his arm. "Stop it," he hissed. "This isn't you."

"It's what I'm here for." Ethos patiently rolled his wrist, working his bones against Peter's grip as he raised a tranquil glare in warning. "Let go. You're annoying me."

Anouk saw it all through a lens of fragility. Peter flinched back, and just as he did, Alma dove for the fallen arrow, fingers closing hard on the shaft. Witness to every moment of it, Anouk only managed a soft sound of protest. It didn't even reach her ears.

But it reached Ethos. He glanced as Alma drove the arrow deep into his chest.

He didn't react immediately. As if startled from some distant dream, his gaze just fell to the wound in confusion. He seemed mildly surprised. But then he grabbed Alma's hand before she could run, and a muted impact rattled the bones of every man alive in the Rift. 

Anouk lunged to break them apart, but Peter stopped her. Enraged, she threw out a wild punch that he easily parried away. A string of oaths fell from her tongue, each one crueler than the last. "You shit!" she spat at the end, out of steam. "Let me by!"

"You can't touch them," he said. "You'll get sucked in."

Indeed, they'd frozen there; Alma half-risen, tight-fisting gooseshaft, eyes round, like she'd come to a frightening understanding the moment Ethos glared down at her— and Ethos himself, maintaining that glare, which shone with finely polished rage. They budged not an inch.

A sizeable portion of Wulfstead's wall crumbled deafeningly to the earth. People screamed. Syan looked dead. Una was standing off on the fore, and the fire had gone from her entirely. Anouk glanced back at Peter and asked, "How long do we need to protect him?"

"Not long. Time moves quickly in there."

"You know this how?"

"It doesn't matter. Are you with me?"

Anouk thumbed her nose at him. "Sprat," she said. "I'll take port."