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When she turns to look at Yennes, the woman’s fingers are a blur of disquiet. Her eyes watch them intertwine and untangle but see something else entirely. “There was no walking,” she says woodenly. “Only running.”

CHAPTERFIFTY-THREE

Dawsyn watches the water rush through the Chasm’s opening and recede, pulling in and out of a mountain split in two. A side for the Ledge, a side for Glacia.

And a path between the two.

“There is much I’d like to tell you, Dawsyn Sabar,” Yennes says, finally bridging the gulf between them. She places a timid hand on Dawsyn’s arm. “But this night has drained much from us, and… I would ask for a few hours more to gather what I will say. I am not so accustomed to speaking with others. Not anymore.”

Dawsyn nods. Behind them, the agitation is swelling. This night has revealed much more that it ought have. There are other things more pressing. Always other things more pressing.

“Upon morning,” Dawsyn says to the woman named Yennes, the second returned prisoner to the first.

Yennes nods, the shawls over her head and shoulders sliding back. “Upon morning,” she vows, though her eyes do not meet Dawsyn’s for long.

All of them cluster within the cabin, somehow finding space in a place meant for one. Salem stands on two feet, his injury now healed by Baltisse, but not without her uttering threats. “If you make me come so near your feet again, I’ll replace them with stumps, old man. How can feet so small smell so abominable?”

“They ain’tsmall!”

“Theyarerather small,” Esra had added. “I’d never noticed.”

“Aye, come here, Es. I’ll boot one up yer arse!”

“It would certainly fit, now, wouldn’t it? Best boot them both, Salem, if you mean to make an impression on me.”

“Fuckin’ smart-mouthed, loose-legged, empty-headed…”

It had occurred to Dawsyn that Esra and Salem would be something of a hindrance in their ploy to liberate the Ledge. They had neither wings, nor magic. They possessed nothing in the way of skill to be used in battle. Even Hector, who was without any ethereal aptitude, could fight well. There was simply that of their need to besomewhere,and with someone who might heal their injuries. But there was this: on a night that saw them killing and fleeing, that saw Dawsyn stripped and remade, they still managed to make them all grin. A certain magic the rest sorely lacked.

Yennes’s cabin is a replica of one found on the Ledge, and it sends a strange slither of familiarity through Dawsyn. The hearth is clean, a waiting stack of wood at its side, neatly sorted. A cot rests on short stilts along one wall, a bench and basin along the other. The floor, which is covered in soft animal skins, does not creak underfoot. The makeshift insulation muffles one’s feet. One small, solitary window beside the door, so the inhabitants might see who approaches. Through it, there is a scattering of salt-crusted wisps of trees, their anaemic foliage blowing haphazardly between the sea and the mountain, back and forth, as though in warning. Then the ocean itself, turned black in the night, rolling like oil onto the waiting sand. She can hear the soft sound of it, the rush and whisper as it unfolds. Farther away is a sound more violent – the water colliding and collapsing against rocks as it funnels through the Chasm.

“Garjum has not given up yet,” Dawsyn whispers to herself, listening intently to the ebb and flow.

“Garjum?” Esra asks loudly. He stands closest to Dawsyn and draws every face toward her.

“Nothing,” Dawsyn mutters, shaking her head.

“Garjum?” Yennes repeats, the word falling hesitantly. “The sea monster?”

Dawsyn’s lips part, but no answer comes. Her grandmother’s stories – she had not thought them known outside of her den of girls. “You… know the tale?”

Yennes nods. “I know it.”

For a moment, Dawsyn and Yennes stare at one other, forgoing the others. Dawsyn has looked at this person these past days as a reclusive woman of magic. A woman of Terrsaw, living as Baltisse does – on the edges. It is only now, standing in this familiar cabin with the knowing look in Yennes’s eyes, that Dawsyn sees it. She sees it in the lines that crease her face, the scars on her fingers that work and worry constantly. This is a woman of the Ledge, as tried and true as Dawsyn.

“I don’t know it,” Hector yawns, his back sliding down the wall until he finds the floor. His eyes already closing.

“Well, don’t hold us in suspense,” Esra prompts, sitting as Hector does alongside him. Dawsyn watches as Hector leans instinctively toward him, his head falling to Esra’s shoulder. “Tell us the story, dear Dawsyn.”

Dawsyn wants to decline, but the others are drooping toward whatever surface they can find, eyes expectant. And when she finds Ryon’s, the protest sticks to her throat. His dark gaze is so attached to hers, so hungry for this piece of her, that she finds herself expelling the tale, her grandmother’s voice passing through her.

She tells them of how Garjum was pulled from the valley and into the ocean, of how he looms in its depths as a prisoner. She tells them of the endless cycle for his freedom, clawing for the shore and pulling the tide with him. When she’s finished, all are asleep but for Yennes, Baltisse, and Ryon.

“All things find a way back home,” Ryon repeats quietly, his stare still holding Dawsyn’s.

“I always thought it was nonsense,” Dawsyn says.

“And yet you’ve proven it true.”