Celeste's teeth would not stop clicking. She stood barefoot on a strange shore in her wet sleeping clothes, ten years old and alone. The sea had split her family's fishing boat while she slept. She had woken already in the water. Now she needed to get home, but first she needed to live through the night. Her father's voice came back to her, steady as it always was on the water. If you ever get lost, shelter first, then food. The wind pushed through her wet braid. Her skin had gone from cold to numb, and numb frightened her more. She looked for high ground and found only trees and sand. She was already turned around. The sun sat low, and she could not tell which way she had walked. A small red crab scuttled past her foot. It did not run from her. It moved with purpose, sideways, up the slope toward the tree line. Celeste had watched creatures her whole life from the deck. Animals knew where dry ground was. She followed it. The crab led her to a building. It leaned against the dusk like a tired old man. Broken shutters hung crooked. A hole gaped in the roof. A faded skull-and-swords sign creaked over the door. She should have been afraid. Instead she noticed the flowers growing along the front wall, bright red and pink and orange, blooming out of the ruin. Something living still wanted to be here. That settled her. The door hung off one hinge. She pushed, and it swung inward with a groan. Inside smelled of salt, dust, and old smoke. Overturned chairs lay across the floor. She waited for someone to shout. No one did. The place had been empty a long time. Celeste stepped carefully through the dark room. Against the far wall stood a large stone fireplace, cold but whole. Beside it sat an old wooden trunk with iron bands and brass corners. She worked the brass latch with stiff fingers. It clicked open. Inside hung a heavy coat. Dark red, tall-collared, with rows of brass buttons. It smelled clean, which made no sense in a place this ruined. She did not stop to wonder. She pulled it out and dragged it around her shoulders. The hem pooled on the floor. The sleeves swallowed her hands. It was warm, and warm was all she wanted. She climbed into the empty fireplace and pulled her knees to her chest. The stone blocked the wind at last. The clicking in her teeth slowed. Through the roof-hole she could see the first stars. She was safe for tonight. But the coat was clean, and the trunk had been latched. Someone had cared for this ruined place. Celeste closed her eyes and did not yet ask who. Sleep took her before the question could.

Gulls screamed her awake. Gray light fell through the roof-hole. Celeste crawled out of the fireplace, still wrapped in the heavy coat. Her stomach growled loud enough to hear. Her father's rule came back. Shelter first, then food. She had shelter. Now she needed food, and the coat still frightened her. Someone had cared for this place. Someone might walk through that door. She searched the tavern fast. Under a table she found bottles, dusty, the labels peeling, all empty. She sniffed one and coughed. Rum. No food. She set the bottle down and kept looking. A wardrobe stood in the corner. She pulled the door and found clothes folded inside. She dragged out canvas trousers, cut short at the calf, a blue checkered shirt, and a neckerchief with a small white skull stitched on it. A boy's clothes. She shed the wet sleeping garments and pulled them on. They fit. Dry cloth against her skin steadied her. She could run in these. She could climb. On a row of barrels she saw a machete. The blade was spotted with rust, but the edge still held. Beside it sat a dented metal bucket with a handle. She took both. A tool and a thing to carry food in. Her father always said a fisher carried her own gear. Outside, the beach stretched wide and cold. Celeste hurried to the waterline, hoping for an easy catch. She found a crab trap half-buried in sand. Its wooden slats had cracked. The ropes hung loose and torn. She lifted it and salt-rotted wood came apart in her hands. Useless. Farther on, driftwood lay stacked and pale. Something hung snagged on it. A dip net, its handle worn smooth, the netting shredded into loose strings. She pushed a finger through a hole the size of her fist. No crab would ever stay in that. Both fishing tools were ruined. The sea would give her nothing today. Celeste stood and looked at the beach. Empty. Then she turned to the tree line behind the tavern. Green and thick and dark. Her father had never fished the woods, but he had taught her that where things grow, things can be eaten. She had watched enough shores to know berries from poison, roots from stones. She hung the bucket on her arm and gripped the machete. The rusted blade felt heavy and right. She took one last look at the crooked door of the tavern. If the owner came back, she would not be here. That thought pushed her forward instead of holding her still. Celeste walked to the edge of the jungle. Vines hung across the gap between two trees. She raised the machete and swung. The blade bit through and the vines fell away. A green tunnel opened before her, humid and buzzing. She stepped inside. Behind her, the beach and the tavern disappeared into leaves.

The jungle swallowed the light. Celeste pushed deeper, hunting for anything to eat or burn. She found dry husks scattered under a tall palm and tossed them in her bucket. Good tinder for a fire. She smiled and kept walking. She did not see the pair of green eyes watching from the leaves. Then she looked up and her smile fell. The canopy sealed the sky. No blue, no sun, no birds cutting a path overhead. On the boat she always knew her way by the birds. Here she had nothing. She turned in a slow circle. Every direction looked the same. The shore was gone, and she could not tell which way led back to it. Her father's voice came to her. When you cannot see the sky, mark your own trail. She gripped the machete. She would build a path she could follow home. She chose a game to keep herself brave. Every fifth tree, she stopped and cut deep notches in the bark. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Chop. The pale wood showed bright against the dark trunks. She worked until her arm ached and her feet dragged. A broad plant rose ahead, taller than her, its orange blooms shaped like sharp birds. She dropped under its wide leaves and set the bucket down. Just a rest, she told herself. Her eyes closed. Something touched her cheek. Soft. A paw. Celeste woke with a gasp. A cat sat on her chest, dark blue as deep water, with green eyes that studied her like she was a puzzle. She knew those eyes. She knew that fur. "Slate," she whispered. "You're the ship's cat. You lived." "So did you," Slate said. His voice was flat and dry. "Barely. You nap in a jungle. Bold." Celeste laughed, and tears stung her eyes. She was not alone. "I thought everyone was gone." "Not everyone." He hopped off her chest and shook out one paw. "You've been wandering in circles. I watched." "I marked the trees," she said. "I can find the shore now." Slate flicked his tail and walked off. "Then come. Before you forget which trees." She grabbed her bucket and chased him. He darted through the green, quick and sure, past a plant heavy with red fruit. Celeste stopped short. She knew those. Dragonfruit. Her father had given her one on her birthday, sliced open to show the white inside dotted with black seeds. She had eaten every bite. "Slate, wait!" She reached up and twisted the fruit free, one after another, dropping them in her bucket beside the husks. Food. Real food she trusted. Slate watched her pick. "So. You do know something." "My father taught me." She hugged the bucket. "Do you know the way out of here?" "I know things," he said. "More than you." He turned and led her on, into the trees.

Celeste found a flat rock and sat. She pulled a dragonfruit from her bucket and split it with her thumbs. The white flesh was cool and sweet. She ate fast, then licked the black seeds off her fingers. Slate sat near her, but he was not watching her eat. His head kept turning back the way they had come. Through a curtain of hanging vines, she could see a broken shape far off. The old tavern. Its slumped roof and skull sign hung in the gap between leaves. Slate stared at it the way a cat stares at a mouse hole. His ears lay flat. "What is it?" Celeste asked. Slate did not answer. His green eyes were fixed on one fogged window near the tavern's peak. Behind the soot-caked glass, something moved. A face pressed close, green and glowing, with hollow eyes and a jagged grin. A pirate's hat sat crooked on its skull. The wraith of the old captain, still guarding his ruin. It watched them leave, and it did not like it. Celeste followed Slate's stare. She squinted through the vines. She saw the crooked roof and the dark windows. She saw nothing else. "There's nothing there," she said. "Just the old building." "Mm," Slate said. He stood and turned his back on it. "Then it is nothing. Come." "You keep looking, though." She wiped her hands on the coat. "Is it a secret? Did you leave something back there?" "No." His tail snapped once. "We are not going back. That place is not for you." "Why not?" "Some doors, you do not open." He walked off between the trees. "I will find you a real shelter. Dry. Empty. No windows that look at you." Celeste stayed on the rock a moment longer. She stared hard at the tavern. She wanted to see what Slate saw. But the vines only swayed, and the glass stayed dark to her. Whatever guarded that place, it hid from her eyes. That thought did not scare her. It pulled at her, the same way the dark shape under the water once had. She stood and shouldered her bucket. "Fine. But something's there. I know it." "Then be glad you cannot see it," Slate said, not slowing. She caught up to him. The tavern shrank behind the leaves until the vines closed over it for good. Ahead, the jungle opened wider, greener, full of things she had never seen. Bright flowers. Strange broad plants. Paths she had not walked. Celeste smiled. She could not read the tavern's secret today. So she pointed herself at the next one instead. "Show me what's out here," she said. And she followed the cat deeper in, curious, ready for whatever waited.

The light was going fast. Slate led Celeste under low branches, but she had stopped following. A golden beetle crawled up a leaf near her hand. Its shell caught the last sun like polished metal. Celeste bent close. The beetle dropped and skittered off through the ferns. She went after it, laughing, pushing leaves aside. Behind her, Slate called her name. She did not turn. The beetle led her to a clearing, then vanished. Celeste stopped short. A shrine stood in front of her, tangled in vines. It was carved like a dragon's face. One eye was a red stone that glowed. The other was a black hole. The air here was still and old. No birds. No wind. She heard only her own breath. Then she saw the web. It stretched between two roots, wide as a door. A spider hung at its center, yellow and black, big as her fist. Its striped legs twitched. Celeste stumbled back. Her heel caught a vine and she fell hard. She scrambled up and ran. She ran the way she thought she came. Leaves whipped her face. A vine snagged her foot and she went down again, palms in the dirt. She got up and kept running. She burst past a flat rock, the same rock where she had eaten the dragonfruit. But she turned wrong, away from the shrine, into strange trees. "Celeste!" Slate shot through the brush beside her, tail high. "You ran from a spider and left me talking to a bush." "There was a shrine," she panted. "A dragon. A red eye that glowed." "Slow down. You will run us off a cliff." His green eyes flicked ahead. "The dark is almost here, and you have no bed but the dirt." Celeste slowed. The trees thinned. Beyond them, on open sand, she saw a dark shape. Big. Round. Her heart jumped. "A ship," she breathed. "Slate, a ship!" She ran toward it, hope pulling her legs. She ran until her sides burned. When she reached it, she stopped. It was a ship, but wrecked. A hull lay on its side, half in the sand. Salt had eaten its paint. Holes gaped in the boards. No mast. No sail. No people. Celeste's shoulders dropped. Then she looked closer. The hull was hollow inside. Dry. Empty. She ducked her head through a broken plank and peered in. No windows watched her. No spider. Just dark, quiet wood. "There," Slate said, hopping in beside her. "A real shelter. No eyes in the walls." Celeste crawled out and sat on the cool sand. The sun sank low over the water. It turned the sea gold and pink and still. She was tired all through. The wreck would hold her tonight. She watched the light fade and thought of the shrine. A dragon's face, hidden deep, with one burning eye. Slate had led her past it. But tomorrow, she decided, she would go back and see.

Celeste woke stiff inside the wrecked hull. Gray light came through the broken planks. She sat up and remembered the shrine, the red eye, the spider. Today she would go back. But she froze. Last night she had run blind through the trees. She had left no notches, no marks. She did not know which way the shrine lay. "You are thinking too loud," Slate said. He lay curled near her feet, tail flicking. "I can hear it." "I can't find the shrine," she said. "I ran without marking my path. Father always said mark your trail." Her chest went tight. "I don't even know which trees I came through." Slate stretched and yawned. "Then feed yourself first. A lost girl thinks worse hungry." He was right, and she hated that. She crawled out onto the sand. Then she made herself useful, the way her siblings had taught her. She dug through the hull's dark corners. She found a brass compass, dented but working, its needle still swinging true. She found a small jackknife with a folding blade. She cut a long strip of old sailcloth and tied it into a bundle. She lashed the bundle to a bamboo stave. Now she had a pack for the journey. The compass changed everything. She held it flat in her palm. The needle pointed north. She knew moss grew on the north side of trees. If she watched the needle and the moss together, she would not turn around again. She could mark her path and read it back. Celeste stepped onto the beach and looked at the tide. It was low. Wet rocks stood bare in the shallows. Slate trotted ahead and stopped, meowing sharp by a cluster of rocks. She came close. Oysters crowded the stone, gray and rough and open to the air. "Breakfast," Slate said. "Even I know that much." She knelt and used the jackknife to pry one loose. She worked the blade into the shell and twisted. It opened. She tipped it back and swallowed. Salt and cold sea filled her mouth. She ate three more, hands slick, and fed Slate a soft piece from her fingers. On the next rocks she saw green ruffles clinging to the stone. Sea lettuce, her favorite. She pulled a handful and chewed. The taste came straight from home, from low tides with her brothers and sisters, buckets swinging. Her eyes stung. For a moment she was not alone on a strange shore. When she stood, she felt steady and full. She checked the compass. North lay along the beach, and the jungle mouth waited where she had burst out last night. This time she carried a needle that would not lie. "Ready?" Slate asked. "Ready," she said. She slung the stave over her shoulder and turned toward the trees. She would find the shrine now, and mark every step.

Celeste stopped at the edge of the clearing. Her compass needle spun in circles. It swung left, then right, then all the way around. She turned it flat, then upright, then shook it. The needle would not settle. Without a fixed north, her whole plan broke apart. She could not read her trail back if she could not read the compass at all. "It won't hold still," she said. "It pointed true all morning." Slate sat and licked one paw. "Then stop trusting the tin box. Trust your eyes." Her father's words came to her. Watch the sky, the water, the birds. She had climbed masts before her brothers could. She found the tallest tree nearby, a thin palm with a narrow trunk. She wrapped her arms around it and pulled herself up, foot over foot, past the rough bark. Near the top she stopped and looked out over the green. There. Not far off, a splash of color broke the canopy. Bright pink and red flowers spilled in a thick cascade over the trees. She fixed the spot in her mind. She counted the trees between her and the blooms. Then she climbed down, bark scraping her palms. "I saw flowers," she told Slate. "Right by the clearing. I don't need the compass. I need the flowers." She started walking. Then she saw it. A golden beetle crawled across a leaf, its shell gleaming like a coin. The same beetle that had led her to the shrine before. It moved in the same direction she meant to go, toward the flowers. "Follow the beetle," she whispered. Slate flicked his tail. "You are following a bug now. Wonderful." But she trusted the hunch. The beetle scurried ahead, drawn by the sweet scent on the air. She kept it in sight, ducking under branches, stepping over roots. The smell of the flowers grew stronger. Soon the bright cascade hung right above her, thousands of blooms tangled in green vines. The beetle dropped to the ground. It scurried under a pale stone half-buried at the base of the flowers. Celeste knelt and pushed the vines aside. The stone was old limestone, marked with two prints pressed deep into its face. One was a child's handprint. The other was larger, clawed, shaped like no hand she knew. A dragon's. Her breath caught. She looked past the stone. There, behind a wall of vines, sat the dragon face. Its one ruby eye glowed red. The other socket was a dark hollow. She had found the shrine. Celeste pressed her small hand into the child's print. It fit. The stone was warm. Deep in the vines, something groaned. A hidden door began to move. It pushed against the tangled growth, then stuck fast, held shut by years of vines. She stood and stared at the trembling door. "It wants to open," she said. "Something behind it wants to open."

The vine-covered door groaned open a hand's width, then stuck. Celeste turned to call Slate forward. Her cat, the ship's cat who had survived the wreck and found her in the jungle, stood frozen at the threshold. His dark blue fur stood up along his spine. His green eyes fixed on the black gap. "Do not go in there," Slate said. His accent came out sharp. "Whatever waits inside will not let you leave easily. I am telling you now. Turn around." "You always say some doors should stay shut." Celeste pushed harder on the door. It would not budge. "But this one opened for my hand. It wants me." "That is exactly what worries me," Slate hissed. He did not move a paw closer. She found a narrow gap where the boards had rotted. She wedged her shoulders in and squeezed through. Three brown bats burst from the dark, wings snapping past her face. She yelped, then swallowed the sound. She would not run this time. Inside, small lights drifted in the black. Fireflies. Their soft glow spread across the wall and lit a picture drawn in colored chalk. A mermaid held a round dragon egg in both arms. Celeste stared. Her breath came fast. A mermaid and a dragon egg, on this wall, in a shrine no one had entered in years. The fireflies floated lower and gathered above a spot on the floor. A wooden hatch sat there, its warped boards leaking a faint violet glow through the cracks. A heavy latch held it shut. She knelt and pulled. The latch did not move. She braced her feet and heaved. Nothing. The hatch was sealed, and not by rust. The violet light pulsed like it was breathing. Celeste sank back on the floor, out of breath. She watched the fireflies drift over the room. Their light slid across the boards. It caught something pale in the corner. Teeth. A scatter of them, small ones and large ones, gray with dust. Beside them rose a heap of old shoes. Boots. Buckled shoes. A red child's shoe, cracked and dry. Sailors' shoes, mismatched, tangled in a pile taller than her knee. Her stomach turned cold. These had belonged to people. People who came in and did not walk out. Her hands shook. She scrambled to her feet, backed to the gap, and forced herself through the boards into the daylight. Slate sat waiting where she had left him. His tail curled tight around his paws. "I told you," he said. He did not sound pleased. He sounded afraid. Celeste pressed her back to the warm stone and gulped the clean air. The mermaid held a dragon egg. The hatch below glowed and would not open. Whatever crossed between worlds lay under that floor, past a door that ate everyone who tried. She had to open it. But not with her bare hands, and not today.

Celeste sat in the shrine doorway and turned the problem over. The mermaid on the wall held a dragon egg. If a mermaid was real, she could help open the hatch. But Celeste had never seen one. A drawing was not proof. She could not chase a picture forever. By her foot lay a chip of stone with a fan-shaped grain. Petrified palm wood, hard as rock but still shaped like a leaf. She picked it up and rubbed her thumb over the ridges. From the tall palm yesterday, she had seen a strange lagoon far off. Bright water ringed with coral, orange and red and yellow. If mermaids lived anywhere near, they would live in water like that. "A drawing is not a mermaid," Slate said. He watched her pocket the stone. "You could walk all day and find seaweed." "Then we find seaweed." Celeste pulled the compass from her coat. The needle spun in slow circles, useless in the clearing. "But the picture and the lagoon are all I have. I would rather look than wonder." They set off toward the coast. Celeste kept the lagoon's direction fixed in her head and checked the compass often. Near the shrine the needle wandered. Twenty paces out it steadied. Fifty paces on it pointed true again, firm and sure. Each step away calmed it. "Better," she said. "The shrine was scrambling it." "The shrine scrambles more than compasses," Slate muttered, trotting at her heel. The jungle thinned. Sand crept between the roots. Then the trees opened, and Celeste stopped short. The lagoon lay before her, exactly as she had seen from the palm. The water glowed a deep, impossible blue. A ring of coral circled the edge in bright branches, orange and pink fading to pale yellow, each cluster ringed with smooth stones. She had never seen water hold such color. Celeste ran to the shoreline. Shells lay scattered across the wet sand. She knelt and lifted one, a scallop the size of her palm. Its layered ridges fanned out just like the petrified wood in her pocket. She held them side by side. The same shape. The stone leaf and the shell matched, ridge for ridge. "Slate, look." Her voice shook. "The mermaid's wall, the fan on the stone, this shell. Same pattern. This is the place. Something wants me here." Slate sniffed the shell, then the water. His ears flicked forward. His fur settled flat. He did not argue. "Fine," he said quietly. "You were right to come." Celeste scanned the blue water for any shape below the surface. Then she saw it near the far coral. A line of scallop shells lay on the sand in a neat row, spaced by an even hand. No wave stacked shells that way. Someone had placed them. She stood and stared across the lagoon. The mermaid was not a story on a wall. Someone lived here. And they had left her a trail to follow.

The row of shells pointed across the lagoon. Celeste wanted to follow it. But the light had turned gold and low. Shadows stretched long across the sand. Slate padded up beside her, tail twitching. "Trail can wait," he said. "Dark cannot. You have no place to sleep." Celeste looked at the treeline. He was right. She could not track a trail she couldn't see, and she would not sit exposed on open sand all night. "Then we make a place," she said. "You watch the edges. I will build." Slate slipped off toward the water to hunt. Celeste searched the shore. Near the coral she found a sheet of weathered sailcloth, half buried, stiff with salt. She dragged it free. Along the treeline she snapped four stout sticks and drove them into the sand. She stretched the cloth over the frame and lashed the corners with strips of vine. Then she cut broad banana leaves and layered them thick across the ground inside. She pressed a hand to the leaves. Dry. Soft enough. With the shelter done, she went to find supper's makings. A dense patch of glossy leaves grew at the jungle's edge. She dug at the base and pulled up a knotted bundle of ginger roots, tan-skinned, pale inside. The sharp smell stung her nose. She cut several thin sticks from a nearby guava tree and sharpened each point with her knife. Back at the shelter she ringed a fire with stones. She heaped dried coconut husk and twigs inside and struck sparks until the husk caught. Small flames climbed. The stones held the heat close. Slate returned dragging three sand eels, dropping them at her feet. "Dinner," he said. "You are welcome." "Thank you." Celeste threaded each eel onto a guava skewer. She waited for the flames to sink to embers, then propped the skewers over the glow. Fat dripped and hissed. When the eels turned brown and firm, she pulled them off and blew on them. They ate. The flesh was hot and good. Afterward she laid a knob of ginger on the coals. It smoked and gave off a sharp, spicy scent that drifted into the trees. "Father said strong smells keep animals back," she said. "They will not like this." Slate sniffed the smoke and wrinkled his nose. "Neither do I." He climbed a tree upwind, close enough to see her, and curled into a fork of the branches. "Wake me if the trail grows legs and walks off." Celeste crawled under the sailcloth and lay on the banana leaves. The fire ticked and settled. For the first time since the shrine, she had a dry bed and a full stomach. Tomorrow she would follow the shells to whoever laid them. Whoever knew the mermaid. Whoever might know the way home. She closed her eyes and let the lagoon keep its secrets one more night.

Celeste woke with a dry throat. She crawled from the shelter and blinked at the sky. The clouds burned red at the low edge of the water. Her father's voice came back to her. Red sky at morning, sailors take warning. A storm was coming. But first she needed water. She took only her jackknife and walked to the trees. A young banana tree stood there, slim and green. She cut a deep V into the base, chipping through the outer skin until she reached the pale core. She sliced free a wet chunk and sat on the sand. She chewed. Sweet water ran down her throat. She spat the tough fibers into her palm and drank more from the next piece. Her thirst eased. She looked at the lagoon, where the mermaid was supposed to live. Someone had drawn her on the shrine wall. Someone had laid the shell trail. But the mermaid herself had never come. Celeste chewed slowly and thought. A mermaid could not climb the jungle. She could not reach the fruit that grew high and inland. Maybe that was why the shells pointed to shore. Maybe the mermaid wanted what Celeste could bring her. The idea took hold. If she could not find the mermaid by asking, she would offer her something. A gift. A reason to rise. Celeste worked fast. She cut a long, wide banana leaf with a trailing stem and folded it into a carrier. Into it she gathered guava, ripe bananas, and dragonfruit she had picked before. She tucked plumeria flowers over the top so the pile looked bright and cared for. She added the pale core pieces and folded spare leaves flat beneath. She carried it all back toward camp to leave at the water's edge, where the shell trail began. But when she reached the shelter, it was empty. The fire had gone to ash. The banana leaf bed lay flat. Slate was not curled in his tree. "Slate?" she called. No answer came. She set the carrier down and turned in a slow circle. His paw prints trailed off along the sand toward the trees, then stopped where the ground turned hard. She had counted on him. He knew the island. He knew when to run. Celeste stood alone with her gift of fruit and no cat to guard her back. The red sky darkened. Wind pushed the first cold breath off the water. She looked at the shell trail, then at the empty prints, and made her choice. She would carry the fruit to the water and wait for the mermaid to come. And if Slate did not return, she would face whatever answered the offering by herself.

Celeste carried the fruit to the water's edge and set it on the sand. The wind bent the palms. Waves climbed higher up the shore with each pull. She knelt beside her gift and watched the lagoon for any shape rising. Nothing came. The sky flashed white far out over the water. Thunder rolled behind it. The surf reached her knees now, cold and fast, and it dragged foam past the banana leaf. If she waited, the next wave would take the offering. Her chest tightened. She had come alone. Slate had not come back. Her eyes stung, and then the tears spilled and she could not stop them. "Little one." The voice came from the shallows. Celeste rubbed her eyes and stared. A creature floated where the deep water met the sand. Blue skin. A long silver tail that caught the lightning's glow. Dark hair spread on the surface like kelp. Green eyes watched Celeste, worried, not cruel. The mermaid from the shrine wall. The one who had never come. Now she had. "Do not cry," the mermaid said. "I am Nyrimia. I saw you leave your gifts, day after day." She looked at the fruit and her purple lips softened. "No one has brought me sweet things in a long time." Celeste grabbed the banana leaf and waded closer, holding it up out of the surf. "They're for you. Guava. Dragonfruit. All of it." Nyrimia reached out a webbed hand. Then she looked past Celeste at the black sky. "The storm will drown you here. Come. I know a dry place inside the cliff." She pointed to the wide leaf. "Set your gift on that. It will float. Pull it beside you." Celeste hesitated. The cave was dark. The water was deep. She could not swim well. Lightning cracked, closer now, and the thunder came fast behind it. She thought of Slate returning to an empty shore, finding her gone with no word. She splashed back and dug the charcoal tip from her pocket. On a strip of sailcloth she pressed hard, spelling one bold word for the cat who could read the sea better than she could: SAFE. She tied the cloth around the tent pole so the wind could not steal it. If Slate came, he would know she had not been swept away. Then she turned back. She eased the fruit onto the floating leaf and gave it a small push. It rode the swell and stayed. With one hand she pulled the leaf tray. With the other she gripped Nyrimia's cool arm. The mermaid drew her forward, away from the crashing surf, toward the mouth of the cliff cave where the water lay still and pale blue. Behind them, the wave she had feared rushed the empty shore. It found only the flapping banner tied to the pole. Celeste held on, and the mermaid pulled her into the dark.

The cave swallowed the storm's roar. Nyrimia pulled Celeste through pale water toward a wide stone stair. Its steps rose in smooth waves of blue, cream, and sand, with no rail to hold. Celeste climbed, dripping, the floating leaf of fruit bumping her leg. Above the stairs stood a great smooth arch. Beyond it, a dark tunnel ran into the rock. Celeste stopped and stared. She had never seen stone shine like water. "It is old," Nyrimia said. She lingered in the shallow pool below, unwilling to follow far. "Older than the shrine you found." Her green eyes moved to the tunnel, then away. She did not offer to show Celeste inside. Celeste turned in a slow circle. Crystal spikes hung from the ceiling. Water gathered on their tips and dripped, bright and slow. "It's beautiful," she whispered. Nyrimia's purple lips softened, but worry stayed in her face. "Sit at the top," the mermaid said. "The water climbs when the storm feeds it. It will not reach you there." She looked at the leaf tray. "Bring your gift. We will share it. I will stay in the rising water beside you." Celeste climbed to the highest step and sat. Below her, the pool crept up the stone, step by step, and stopped short of her bare feet. Nyrimia floated at the water's edge, close enough to reach the fruit. Celeste split a dragonfruit and passed her half. They ate. The mermaid closed her eyes at the sweetness, as if it were the first kind thing in years. Celeste chewed and looked past the arch. Far down the tunnel, a faint violet light glowed. She knew that color. She had seen it under the shrine floor, leaking from a locked hatch. Her heart jumped. "What's that light?" she asked. "The purple one. At the end?" Nyrimia's hand went still on the guava. For a moment she said nothing. Then she smiled, too quickly, and pointed at the fruit. "Do you know pearls come from shells like the ones on your beach?" She lifted a small pale bead from her palm and set it on the step. "I gather them here. Take this one. It brings calm dreams." Celeste took the pearl. It was smooth and cool. But her eyes drifted back to the violet glow. Nyrimia pushed more fruit toward her and spoke of oysters, of deep water, of anything but the tunnel. She hoped the child would forget. Celeste ate the last piece. She thanked Nyrimia and rolled the pearl between her fingers. She did not forget. The same light burned under the shrine and here, at the end of this old tunnel. Two places, one glow. Whatever the mermaid guarded, it was the thing Celeste had been chasing. The flood had trapped her. It had also carried her straight to the door. When the water dropped, she would not leave. She would walk into the tunnel.

The floodwater fell at last. Nyrimia showed Celeste a low crack in the cave wall, then slipped back into the aqua pool. Before she left, she pressed two clams into Celeste's hands. "Eat," the mermaid said. "The alcove sits high. You will need your strength." Celeste squeezed the calm-dream pearl in her pocket, thanked her, and climbed out into gray morning light. Near the shore she found smooth rocks thick with sea lettuce. She pried the clams open on a stone. One held soft meat. The other held a small lilac pearl, glowing faint as a moon. Celeste laughed out loud. Nyrimia's kind of luck. She ate the sea lettuce and the clam meat, and the food steadied her shaking legs. A meow cut through the trees. Then another, sharp and cross. Slate padded out onto the sand, tail high, chartreuse eyes fixed on her. He was the ship's cat who found her in the jungle, and he had warned her against the shrine since the start. Seeing him whole made her chest ache with relief. "You left the lagoon," he said. "Alone. In a storm." His voice stayed flat. "I read your cloth. SAFE. Big word for a girl who walks into shrines full of bones." "I found the mermaid," Celeste said. "She's real, Slate. She'll tell me how to cross. I just have to bring her a shell horn. It's in a dry alcove, up high." Slate sat. His tail curled slow around his paws. "High places on this island are not kind. That shrine ate the ones who tried." He studied her face and knew she would go anyway. "So. We split the work. You do not know these cliffs. I do. I checked the perimeter days ago." Celeste knelt in the sand beside him. "Tell me where." "The alcove is above the reef, east side. Follow the tide rocks until the sand runs out. Climb where the stone steps up, not where it crumbles." He flicked an ear. "I will check the wrecked hull for rope and a blade. You will need both. Then we meet." "Meet where?" "The grotto. Vines over the door, still water inside, white crystal like teeth." He said it plain, but his eyes held hers. "I walked it myself. Nothing waits there. It is safe. Do not wander past it." Celeste nodded hard. "The grotto. I'll be there." "You will get turned around," Slate said. "You always do. Keep the sea on your right until you reach it." He rose and stretched. "Do not die before I bring the rope. It would be very rude." She almost hugged him, then remembered his rules and stopped. "Thank you." He was already trotting toward the beached hull. Celeste turned east along the tide rocks, the sea on her right, the pearl warm in her fist. She had a route now, and a friend who knew the way. For the first time since the lagoon, she was not walking blind.

Celeste kept the sea on her right until the sand ran out. Then she climbed. The stone stepped up in wide ledges, just as Slate promised. Above the reef, a dark opening cut into the cliff. That was the alcove that held the horn. But the noise reached her first. Screaming filled the air, sharp and endless. A cluster of rock spires rose beside the opening, packed with nests. Gulls perched on every ledge, feathers ruffed against the wind. When Celeste climbed higher, one launched off its nest and dove. Its beak snapped near her ear. She ducked. Another followed, then a third. Their cries drilled into her skull. She threw her arm over her head and backed down two ledges. "They think I'm here for their eggs," she said aloud. She wasn't. But the birds didn't care. She crouched and waited, thinking. A hard weight scuttled across her bare foot. She yelped, then looked down. A crab, broad-shelled, claws raised, glared up at her with round black eyes. An idea struck her fast. Celeste pinned the crab from behind, the way her father taught her, thumb and fingers on its shell so the claws couldn't reach. She lifted it high and waved it. Sunlight flashed on its red back. A gull swung its head. It saw the crab, screamed, and dove straight for her hand. Celeste hurled the crab far down the slope, away from the alcove. The gull peeled after it. Three more followed, then the whole shrieking flock. She ran. Feet slapping stone, she scrambled up the last ledges and threw herself into the alcove's mouth. Behind her the gulls fought over the crab, ignoring her now. Her chest heaved. She had made it inside. The space opened wider than she expected. Still water lay in a pool at the center. Pale crystals hung from the ceiling like teeth, catching a dim glow. Vines dangled across the entrance. This was the grotto Slate meant. Along the back wall stood carved stone figures. One was a tall totem stacked with dragon faces, their eyes worn to a faint green. Beside it crouched a smaller one, a stone baby dragon, its surface crusted with pale sea minerals. Celeste searched the ledges for the horn. She found only a hollow in the limestone wall, smooth and cupped, exactly the size and shape of a horn. The tide song was gone. Someone had taken it. She pressed her fingers into the empty hollow. Her stomach dropped. She had fought the gulls for nothing. Nyrimia's secret still hung out of reach. Celeste sat by the pool to wait for Slate. He knew this island. Maybe he knew who had emptied this shelf. She traced the carvings on the baby dragon totem while the water lapped quiet at her feet. The alcove was hers now. But the horn was not, and she needed a new plan.

Celeste sat by the pool until footsteps scratched the stone outside. Slate slipped through the vines with a ball of rope in his mouth. He dropped it at her feet and looked at the empty hollow in the wall. He already knew. "Nothing left in the hull worth taking," he said. "But I believe I saw the thing you want." He paused, tail flicking. "On a shelf above the fireplace. In the tavern." Celeste jumped up. The horn was not lost. Someone had a face and a place, and the place was one she had seen. She grabbed the coiled rope and grinned so wide her cheeks hurt. "Then we go there. Right now." Slate did not grin back. He sat very still, the way he did when he decided something hard. "I did not want to tell you," he said. "You are too stubborn to leave it alone. So I will help." His green eyes held hers. "An evil spirit haunts this island. You may have felt it near the tavern already. It stays there. It does not want visitors." Celeste remembered the fogged window on her first day. A pale shape had moved behind the glass while Slate refused to look. She had backed away then. She would not back away now. "I felt it," she said quietly. "But the horn is what opens the tunnel. Nyrimia won't tell me anything without it." "I know." Slate stood. "That is why I am coming." They left the grotto together and followed the tree line along the shore. Slate stayed a step ahead, ears turning at every sound. Celeste kept the rope looped over her shoulder. The jungle noise thinned as they walked. Soon she could hear only the wind and her own breathing. The tavern rose ahead of them, leaning and gray. Its skull-and-swords sign creaked on one nail. The shutters hung crooked. Through a small fogged window near the door, soot caked the thick glass. Something moved behind it, slow and pale, like breath crossing a cold mirror. Celeste stopped. The air near the building felt heavier, as if the whole shore held still. Cold pressed against her chest. This was the presence Slate meant. It was real, and it was watching. "There," Slate whispered. He pointed his nose at the window. "Above the hearth. Look through, but do not go in yet." Celeste crept to the glass and wiped a circle clean with her sleeve. Inside, above a dead fireplace, a shape rested on a high shelf. It glowed faint purple, carved and round, marked with pale swirls. The tide song. It was there, exactly where Slate said. Behind it, in the dark of the room, two white eyes opened and turned toward the window. Celeste froze. The spirit had seen her. Now she knew where the horn was, and she knew what guarded it.

The white eyes swelled behind the glass. Celeste stumbled back from the window. Inside, a pale shape rose from the dark, tall and thin, a pirate's hat crooked on its head. Cold rolled off the tavern like a wave. This was the spirit Slate had warned her about, the thing that guarded the horn and its buried gold. It fixed on her and did not look away. "Move," Slate hissed. "Now." Celeste ran. Slate had told her about a den of mangrove roots near the shore, twisted low to the ground with a narrow arch to crawl through. She dove for it and squeezed into the muddy hollow. Roots closed over her like ribs. She pressed flat and held her breath. The tavern door banged open. The wraith drifted out onto the sand, its glowing blade trailing mist. It turned its head slow, hunting. Celeste watched through a gap in the roots. The white eyes swept the shore and passed over her hiding place. They stopped one breath too long. Her heart slammed. Then the spirit moved on, gliding toward the tree line. "He does not see you," Slate whispered from somewhere close. "Good. Stay down." Celeste bit back a question. Slate was not beside her. She caught a flash of dark blue fur slipping through a crack in the tavern wall. He had gone inside. Inside, Slate climbed the cold stone hearth. His claws found the rough blocks and the iron hooks. He reached the high shelf and pushed his shoulder against the purple shell. It rolled, tipped, and dropped. It struck the floor with a hollow clack and rolled once. Not a crack in it. Slate leapt down, took the shell in his mouth, and ran for the crack in the wall. Outside, the wraith spun. Its head snapped toward the tavern. It rushed back through the open door. Slate burst from the wall crack and shot across the sand. He dove into the root den and dropped the horn at Celeste's knees. It shimmered pale purple in the dark, carved with swirls and marks she could not read. From inside the tavern came a scream. It tore through the wood and made Celeste's teeth ache. The wraith had found the empty shelf. Furniture crashed. Something splintered. The white light flared through every broken window as the spirit tore its own tavern apart. "He knows it is gone," Slate panted. "He does not know where. Stay still until he tires." Celeste wrapped both hands around the horn. She had it at last. The tide song could open the tunnel and buy Nyrimia's secret. But the screaming did not stop. It rose and circled the shore, searching. The spirit had guarded this horn for longer than she had been alive, and now it would not rest until it found the thief. She had the key she needed, and a wraith that would hunt her for it.

The screaming rolled across the shore. Celeste crouched in the mangrove den, the purple horn cold against her chest. She had the tide song at last. But the wraith prowled the sand between her and the lagoon, and she had no way past it. Slate pressed close, his fur bristling, his green eyes fixed on the pale light flaring through the tavern windows. "You cannot stay here," Slate said. "He will comb every root by morning." His voice stayed flat, but his ears lay back. "The hull is closer than the lagoon. You shelter there tonight." Celeste shook her head. "I can't cross the beach. He'll see me." "He will see me first." Slate's tail flicked. "I will keep the old ghost busy. It will be fun, I think." He did not sound like it would be fun. He pushed his head against her cheek, quick and warm, and held her gaze one breath longer than usual. Then he darted out of the den and streaked down the sand. Celeste watched through the roots. A small black shadow raced across the beach, low and fast. Behind it, the tall pale shape of the pirate wraith swung its glowing blade and gave chase. Its ragged coat trailed mist. Its white eyes never blinked. "The horn," it rasped, voice like grinding stone. "Bring back my horn." It did not shout. It only got harder, more final, as it hunted. "Nothing leaves my shore." Slate led it toward the trees, weaving between them, always just out of reach. Celeste's chest ached. She wanted to call him back. She did not. She was too scared to move. Then something tickled her hand. A hermit crab crept over her fingers, its shell shining pearly pink and blue in the dark. It stopped. It lifted one red claw and pointed down the shore, away from the wraith, toward a hollow shape half-buried in sand. The wrecked hull. Her shelter. Celeste stared at the little crab. It waved its claw again, firm, like it knew. She thought of the scallop trail at the lagoon, of gifts left where she would find them. Nyrimia. The mermaid was helping her still, even here. She wrapped the horn in her arms and crawled from the den. She kept low, following the crab as it scuttled ahead. The screaming stayed behind her, circling the tree line where Slate ran. She reached the hull and slipped through a jagged gap in its side. Inside, the salt-scarred timbers closed around her. She pressed her back to the wall and breathed. She had the horn. She had a place to hide. Slate had the wraith. The hermit crab settled beside her foot, claw folded now. Outside, the pirate's cry rose and faded, rose and faded, chasing a small blue shadow through the dark. Celeste held the tide song tight. Come sunrise, she would carry it to the lagoon, and Nyrimia would tell her the secret at last. If Slate lasted the night.

Gray light seeped through the cracked hull. Celeste had not slept. The screaming had stopped hours ago, and the silence scared her more. She clutched the purple shell horn to her chest and listened. The wraith had stopped chasing Slate. That meant he had lost the cat, or something worse. She needed to reach the lagoon before full dawn, but the open beach lay between her and the water. No trees. No cover. Just sand. She crawled from the gap in the timbers. The tide had pulled back, leaving wet sand that shone pink under the low sun. She ran. Her bare feet slapped the shore. Halfway across, a shadow fell over her. "There." The pirate wraith stood between her and the lagoon, blade glowing cold blue. His white eyes found the horn in her arms. "Mine." Celeste froze. Then a dark blue shape shot from the dune grass. Slate. He threw himself between her and the wraith, fur spiked, teeth bared. The glowing blade swung down. Slate twisted, but not fast enough. The edge caught him. He hit the sand and lay still, one paw trembling. "Slate!" Celeste screamed. A voice cut across the beach from the shallows. "Celeste! Give me the ocarina!" Nyrimia rose from the surf, her indigo hair streaming, her silver tail flashing. The mermaid who had guided her, who had promised the tunnel's secret, stretched out one webbed hand. "Throw it! Now!" Celeste did not think. She hurled the shell horn across the water. It spun over the waves. Nyrimia lunged and caught it just before it struck the sea. She pressed it to her purple lips and blew. The song poured out, high and bright and strange. Light burst from the ocarina, a spinning wheel of green and pearl rays. It rolled across the sand toward the wraith. He raised his blade against it and hissed. "This is my shore," he rasped. "Not anymore," said Nyrimia, and played harder. The light swelled. It swallowed the pirate whole. He shrieked, thin and fading, and his ragged shape tore apart like fog in wind. The blade dropped. The screaming stopped. As the sun cleared the water, the bright light broke and settled onto the sand as scattered pieces of smooth sea glass, pale green and blue and frosted white. The wraith was gone. Celeste ran through the shallow water to Slate. She dropped to her knees beside him. His breath came fast and shallow. Blood matted the fur along his side. His green eyes opened a crack. "Told you," he whispered. "The beach. Bad idea." Tears ran down her face. She looked up at Nyrimia, who floated close now, the ocarina still in her hand. "Please," Celeste begged. "He's hurt because of me. Can you help him?" Nyrimia looked at the cat a long moment. Her chartreuse eyes softened. "Bring him to the lagoon," she said. "Quickly. The water there can mend. But we must go now."

Slate's breath came in shallow gulps. Celeste knelt over him in the shallows and knew she could not carry him. Blood soaked his side. Every time she lifted him he cried out. Nyrimia floated close, her indigo hair spread on the water, her chartreuse eyes fixed on the cat. "The lagoon lies deep in the cave," the mermaid said. "I cannot leave the water. You cannot carry him across the sand without hurting him worse." Celeste stared at the stretch of dry beach ahead. Too far. Too rough. Then she saw it, half buried near the tideline. A broad plank of driftwood, flat and wide, its edges worn smooth by years of surf. She dug it free with both hands and dragged it to the water. It floated. She turned back to Slate. "Hold still," she whispered. She slid her arms beneath him, slow, and eased him onto the wet wood. He hissed, then went quiet. She pushed the plank into the shallows until it bobbed free of the sand. Slate rode it like a raft, his paws twitching. Nyrimia gripped the far edge with her webbed fingers. "Good. I will guide him. Keep his head above the water." She looked at Celeste. "But first, gather the glass. The spell left it on the sand. Do not leave it. That song is not gone. It only rests in those pieces." Celeste followed her gaze. Scattered across the pink sand lay the sea glass, pale green and blue and frosted white, all that remained of the wraith. She hurried up the beach and scooped the smooth stones into her palms. They were warm. She did not ask why. Her bindle lay where she had dropped it in the sand. She untied the sailcloth bundle from her bamboo stave and spread it flat. Into it she packed the sea glass, the purple shell horn, and the small pearl Nyrimia had given her in the cave. She knotted the cloth tight and tied it back to the end of the stave. She waded in beside the plank. One hand steadied Slate. The other held the stave over her shoulder, the bundle swinging behind her. The water rose past her knees, then her waist. Slate's green eyes cracked open. "A raft," he rasped. "Now she uses her head." "Save your breath," Celeste said. Her voice shook, but she smiled. Nyrimia pulled from the front. Celeste pushed from behind. Together they steered the driftwood past the surf, toward the dark mouth of the cliff cave where the lagoon waited. The current took hold and drew them in. The beach shrank behind them. Ahead, deep in the cave, the turquoise water glowed faint and clear. Slate was moving. He was still breathing. And everything Celeste needed to open the tunnel now hung safe from the stave on her back.

The current drew the driftwood raft deep into the cave. The lagoon opened before them, a wide pool lit turquoise from below. Nyrimia, the mermaid who had destroyed the wraith on the beach, slid ahead through the water. Her indigo hair fanned out. She guided the raft toward a smooth stone basin set into the cave floor. But Slate had woken fully now. He smelled the water, and he began to thrash. "No," the cat rasped. His claws scrabbled at the wet plank. "No water. Keep me out." His green eyes rolled white at the edges. Blood still darkened his side. Every jerk of his body reopened the wound. Nyrimia's chartreuse eyes narrowed with worry. "The healing waters cannot work while he fights them. He must lie still and calm. If he keeps struggling, he will bleed out before they take hold." Celeste pressed her hands to Slate's shoulders. "Slate, please. It's warm. It will help you." He hissed and twisted away. "You're safe. I promise." But he did not believe her, and the more she pushed, the harder he fought. Nyrimia looked at the basin. Warm water welled up inside it, fed by pale crystal stalactites overhead that dripped in a steady patter. "I will put him in the font," she said. "The water there is warm, and the crystal drips heal on their own. But he will not settle for the water. He will settle for you." She turned to Celeste. "When you came earlier I set out clothing. Old, but sound. Put it on. Bring the pearl." Celeste climbed out onto the stone. She found the folded garment where the mermaid had left it, a summer robe patterned in white and deep blue, cut with waves and falling water. She pulled it on over her wet sleeping clothes and knotted the sash. From her bundle she drew the small lilac pearl and closed it in her fist. "Now lie in the basin," Nyrimia said. "Put him on your chest." Celeste stepped into the font. The water rose warm around her legs, then her back as she lay down. It did not frighten her. It felt like the bread she used to dream of, soft and close. Nyrimia lifted the shaking cat and laid him on Celeste's chest. "I've got you," Celeste whispered. She cupped one hand over his back. The pearl glowed against his fur. "I'm here. Feel me breathing." Slate went rigid. Then, slowly, his claws drew in. His breath matched hers. The crystal drops fell, and the warm water climbed his soaked fur without a single struggle from him. His wound began to close. The torn skin knit pale and clean. After a long while he let out a low, tired sound, almost a purr. "Do not tell anyone," he murmured, eyes shut, "that a cat let the water win." Celeste laughed, and did not let him go.

Slate slept on Celeste's chest, his wound closed clean. The warm basin held them both. But Celeste's bundle lay open on the stone shelf beside the font, and the sea glass inside still hummed. She heard it under the drip of the crystals, a thin buzz like a wasp behind glass. The pale stones had come from the wraith's broken spell. Even destroyed, they carried something. Celeste had no safe way to hold them, and every hour they sat loose, the buzz grew louder. "They should not stay open," Celeste whispered. "They feel wrong." Slate did not lift his head. "Then close them," he murmured. "Quietly. I am resting." Nyrimia slid to the shelf. She was the mermaid who had killed the wraith on the beach, and Celeste trusted her hands more than her own now. Her webbed fingers opened the bundle's cloth. She gathered each stone slowly, the way you lift something that might sting. "These remember the spell that made them," she said. "Loose, they call to it. Sealed, they sleep." She drew out a glass jar from a niche in the cave wall. Into it she dropped the sea glass, green and blue and clear. Then she pressed a ring of small barnacles around the neck and worked a cork down tight. She held her hands flat over the jar and hummed low. The water on the cave floor rippled toward her fingers. A thin skin of it climbed the glass and hardened, and the humming inside the jar went silent. Celeste felt the change in her chest. The buzz was gone. "You quieted it," she said. "For now." Nyrimia carried the jar to a low crystal spire near the pool. Its wet surface caught the turquoise light in bright layers. She set the jar on a stone ledge partway up the spire, safe above the water. "It will hold. But you must hear the warning that comes with it." Celeste sat up in the font. Slate stirred and cracked one green eye. Nyrimia lifted the purple shell horn from beside the pool. She turned it in her hands and did not raise it to her lips. "This island keeps a curse," she said. "The violet light in the tunnel is part of it. So was the wraith. So is this glass. They are all one thing, split into pieces." She looked at Celeste with tired chartreuse eyes. "You want to cross between this world and yours. The way runs through that light. But the curse takes a price from every child who tries. The last one never came out." The cave went quiet but for the dripping crystals. Celeste looked at the sealed jar on the spire, then at the horn in the mermaid's hands. "Tell me the price," she said. Nyrimia's grip tightened on the horn. "When you are strong enough to hear it," she said. "Sleep first. Tomorrow I show you the tunnel."

Morning light slid green across the cave pool. Celeste sat with the purple shell horn in her lap. Nyrimia, the mermaid who had killed the wraith and healed Slate, floated near the tunnel's violet mouth. Her chartreuse eyes watched the girl and would not soften. The light down that tunnel had already killed grown men. Their bones still lay inside. Only the horn's song could hold it back. But Celeste had never played a note in her life. "You must play it yourself," Nyrimia said. "The light listens for the tide song. It does not care who carries the horn. It cares who wakes it." Celeste turned the shell in her hands. Its face was pearly, marked with old carved lines like waves. Small holes ran along its side. She lifted it to her lips and blew. A dead whistle came out, flat and ugly. Nothing in the tunnel stirred. "No," Nyrimia said. She glided closer, over the flowered rock at the pool's edge, past the sealed glass jar on its spire. "Not from the chest. From the breath under it. The way you hum when you are afraid and do not know it." Celeste tried again. The note broke. She tried a third time, and her cheeks burned. "I can't. I watched. I never played anything. I watched the sky and the birds. That was my job." Her voice cracked. "I don't know how to make it sing." Nyrimia was quiet. Then she rested one webbed hand on the horn beside Celeste's. "Watching is knowing. You know how the wind bends over a wave before it turns. Blow like that. Long. Then let it fall." Celeste closed her eyes. She thought of birds banking on the wind above her father's boat. She drew a slow breath and let it out steady, then eased it soft at the end. This time the shell answered. One clear note rose and curled through the cave. The violet light in the tunnel shivered. It pulled back from the mouth like water off sand. A path opened in the glow, dark and cold and safe. Celeste lowered the horn, shaking. "It worked." "It worked," Nyrimia said. But she did not smile. "Now you can walk the tunnel and live. That was the last wall between you and the crossing." She looked at the open dark. "Which means I can no longer stop you with danger. Only with truth." Celeste stood. Slate padded to her ankles, ears flat at the tunnel's chill. "Then tell me the price," Celeste said. "You promised. When I was strong enough. I made it sing." Nyrimia's dark lips pressed thin. She drew back into the water. "Yes," she said. "You did. So I will tell you. But not here. The tunnel is open now, and open things listen." She turned toward the deeper pool. "Come. Before your courage cools."