Icecaller pouts. ‘“Morning darling daughter, so nice to see you, what an unexpected surprise when my raggedy old cheeks are still catching the breeze.” No? None of that?’
Kinghammer pins back Nigh’s hair and starts on another section. ‘None of that. You know it all already.’
‘I do, but I like to hear it.’
‘Fine, beloved daughter, sweetest little eagle that ever flew the coop, what are they like? What do you think?’
Icecaller’s face goes still as she looks up. High above, the light is beginning to cut through the cold. Thell is waking.
‘I think they’re trouble, whether they know it or not. They probably don’t. Quickfish seems … wet. He wouldn’t survive up here. His mama’s ghost is sitting on his shoulders.’ She slowly refastens the necklace around her neck, settles it on her collarbone. ‘That’s what he’s here for. One last swing at bringing mum home, using our mysterious mountain ways.’ She smooths the beads of the necklace, garnet glistening against the skin.
Kinghammer nods, picks something out of Nigh’s hair. ‘What the fuck is this? Fish skin?’ He waves it at Icecaller. She takes it between finger and thumb. ‘Bit of old lizard, I think. They’re moulting down in the low galleries, and little Miss Maggot here thinks they are cute.’
Kinghammer smiles. ‘We should get her one. Might do her good, having a wee thing to care for.’
Ice looks at her sister ruefully. ‘Can’t say as it did me much good.’ She elbows her father and he kisses the top of her head.
‘I’m trying to figure out which way to jump, Ice. It’s a big risk.’
She nods. ‘It is. And you’ve been awfully shy of risk the past while. Why is that?’
Kinghammer looks at her flatly. ‘Think, beloved.’
Ice rolls her eyes. ‘We are big enough and ugly enough, Da.’
He tuts. ‘You might be. She isn’t.’
He adds another burnished clip to Nigh’s hair, gives her a toy to tinker with. A square of beautiful, polished little tiles that slide and click.
‘That used to be mine,’ Ice says.
‘Yeah, and you were too daft to solve it,’ he grumbles.
She mimics his tut, pulling a face. ‘I can solve this for you though.’
His glance is sceptical. ‘Can you, aye?’
‘I can.’ She crosses her legs. ‘Look, I understand how it’s been.We were fresh out of a war, last thing we needed was a whole new catastrophe crawling onto our doorstep to die. We’d lost enough.You’dlost enough. Wee monkey-nuts there needed some peace to grow up in. All the kids in this echoing madhouse needed a bit of breathing space.’
‘No arguments here’. Kinghammer ties off Nigh’s hair with a few twists of ribbon, and sets her down. She squats and watches her sister, fiddling with the click and shift of tile.
Icecaller leans forwards. ‘Get ready to argue, father mine. I get it, but it was a mistake. We built all this because of them. Because they got off their arse and helped us when no one else would. Were they slow? Sure. Did it all go quite to plan? No. But they werethere. They showed up. The Fallons showed up, and that spooky pair you barely even mention. Shipwright. Shroudweaver.’
He opens his mouth and she holds up a finger. ‘Ah! Be patient. Don’t think I haven’t seen how you, Skin, Bell, and the singing twins all carefully dance around the subject when we’re planning for the future. And I get it. But we can’t sail a ship over a reef by pretending it’s not there. We need to know the shape of it. Where it will cut. Where we need to make ourselves strong.’
Kinghammer’s expression changes, and he keeps his mouth shut.
‘And Quickfish? This isn’t even official. This is a boy who lost his mother, and aren’t we in some kind of position to feel a shaved hair of sympathy towards that? Stone and spit, we might even be able to do something about it. I’ve seen Skin work. I’ve seen what Steel can do with ink, and she’s still just learning.’
‘It’s a …’
‘Risk,’ she finishes. ‘It is, but I’ll tell you what’s riskier. Sitting with our fingers up our holes until the rest of the world comes knocking.’
She slips an arm around his shoulders. ‘Think of it this way. Think how grateful they will all be if we help that boy. Quickfish is the only thing Fallon has left. A puff-headed, undergrown hope for the future. We don’t even need to succeed. We just have to try.’
She taps his temple. ‘We owe it to them. We owe it to ourselves. And it’s the smart thing to do.’
Kinghammer sighs. Nigh echoes him, for fun. ‘I raised you smart after all, eh? Too smart.’
