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No one answered, of course. The water wasn’t as icy the second time, and I waded in without hesitation, coming up to the very edge of the submerged fence again. Holding three corners of it, I let my cloak down into the seawater like a basket with one side open, refusing to feel upset at how ruined it was. I could sew it shut after I escaped.

After we escaped.

The cloak drifted with the lapping waves, froth coating the upper edge I held as I watched the schools of minnows and held still. I knew it could take a moment for them to settle. No sooner had I thought that than the minnows surged through the bars, as if they were fleeing a predator larger than me.

Not just minnows. A larger dorsal fin flashed silver as it passed by my hands. I closed the cloak quickly. More than one of the tiny fish slid out the openings, but the larger one was still trapped inside.

“Yes!” I waded ashore, stomping on the sand over to Mirrim, who was still boiling down the yam roots for the tincture. “We’re going to eat well today!” I announced, then stopped. None of the children had moved even a step closer. “Well, come on.” I pretended to be insulted. “Aren’t you going to help me unload my net so I can go catch more? Anybody got a stick? We can cook the little ones whole over the fire, eat ‘em bones and all. Get another shell and we can simmer the blood for stew. The big one needs some⁠—”

“There aren’t any fish that size in those waters,” Mirrim whispered. “I’ve lived my whole life here and never seen more than a few minnows. You truly are Her chosen one.”

“No fish?” She shook her head, and I thought for a second. The Goddess hadn’t been in my head… but the clawing in my heart had eased when I was in the water. “I’m chosen all right,” I muttered, suspecting the fish’s appearance had something to do with Lusca. “And my fish boy better get his ass here soon. Or send some more fish.”

Mirrim took a breath as if to ask, but decided against it when one of the children whimpered and edged toward the still-raw fish. “Quickly, little ones. Sticks and a flat stone. Rada, may I have your knife?”

“She has a knife?” The tall girl made an odd, hungry sound as I unloaded my cloak and pulled out the larger fish, leaving the minnows for later.

“It’s just a shard of ordinary obsidian,” I corrected. “Breaks easily.” I held the blade out, but the sharp edge of it caught my hand and sliced it. Blood spilled out over the stone, and the air filled with my faint mint-and-rain scent. It didn’t hurt, but the fear in Mirrim’s face had me hesitating as I held the shard out to her.

That same fear must have been why her grip on the shard was too loose. It fell from her hand into the very heart of the fire, the smell of my burning blood perfuming the air until the sea breeze whisked it away.

“Crap. Hope it didn’t already break,” I muttered, gripping the side of Goran’s shirt to put pressure on the shallow cut. With my other hand, I grabbed one of the sticks next to the fire and used it to move the shard out of the flames.

The tall girl kneeled next to me, the others behind her like curious kittens peeking out. “Is it ruined?”

“No,” I said as I examined it. The blood was gone, and the shard gleamed oddly in the hazy sunlight. It didn’t look like a piece of normal obsidian now. It looked a lot like a blade I’d held for the past decade and a half, though.

RADA

The shard didn’t just look like my old dagger. When it had cooled enough to pick up, it felt like it, too.

“By Her holy hair and hangnails,” I murmured as I examined it. I tapped it on a piece of granite rock, hard. The rock chipped, but the blade stayed whole. I tried it again, and it cut the stone again. Holy shit. “It’s really, really not ruined, ah… your name?”

“I’m Godla,” the girl said, her eyes narrowing as she peered over my shoulder. “Why does it shine like that?”

“Good question.” I glanced over at the young guard, who was now paying attention to our conversation and had moved closer. “I’m just glad it’s not broken. Now, anyone know how to cook?”

Mirrim huffed a quiet laugh. “We haven’t had fish large enough to cook in years, Rada.”

“Right then, I’ll show you all how to gut this fish and truss it up to cook so you can do the rest.”

The other children had edged closer, eyes wide. They hardly blinked as I sliced down the fish’s belly and pulled out the organs, then placed everything but the truly inedible bits in a shell, letting the blood drip over it.

“Where I grew up, they throw these away, but we won’t,” I told them. “Godla, watch closely. You can boil all of this together with some fresh water and make a good fish stock. It’s healing and strengthening. If you haven’t had a solid meal in a while, it’s best to start with soup. When it’s cooked down, you can take out the bones, or if they’re soft enough, eat them too. Add some greens and a few chunks of the fish to the stock to make soup.” I handed the stirring stick I’d been using to her, and headed back into the water. “We’ll need more shells, bigger ones if you have them, to cook it all. You can eat the raw meat, but it might make you sick.”

My next trip into the water made it clear something was sending fish into my cloak. An enormous halibut swam straight into the cloth, hardly struggling when I pulled it out. Some of the children were crying as they watched, but more than a few laughed in that terrifying, near-silent way.

My heart ached like it was being crushed. I’d felt this way as a child, when I was starving on the streets, and a meal had appeared. Once, a baker’s cart had overturned on a muddy alleyway the week before winter solstice, and the baker had gone to get help. My crew and I had cleaned up every bite before he returned. I could still taste the cinnamon-orange bread on my tongue more than twenty years later. I could almost hear the delighted laughter of my brothers and sisters as we crouched in the corner of an abandoned warehouse and ate like kings for the very first time.

No, that was the laughter of Godla’s toddler sibling who was gnawing at a lump of roasted fish. “Gaz,” she said in Pictish. “Gaz dal.”

“Good food, yeah?” I asked in Mirrenese, and her sister nodded. “I love learning languages. Teach me some more?”

She nodded again and began murmuring a few words for the things we could see: sand, water, sun, moon, and fish.

The others had brought more driftwood to the fire, and it burned merrily now, the flames still yellow. An enormous clamshell full of broth bubbled. Some of the children were dipping small shells into it and sipping it as soon as it was cool enough. Others were roasting the minnows on sticks, then blowing on them and popping them into their mouths whole.

“Not too fast,” I warned, knowing they might not listen. But when Mirrim repeated it in Pictish, they all slowed down.