Gareth Pell had eight days to reach the lighthouse, and no boat would carry him there. He sat in the corner of the inn's taproom, a strange gold coin turning between his fingers. The coin bought him food and a bed, but it bought no answers. Six months ago a ship had passed through this harbor. His daughter had sworn she would wait for him at the lighthouse across the cove. He meant to keep that meeting, even if he had to swim. The trouble was the water. Fishermen called the cove's channel a killer. Rocks, fog, and a current that dragged boats under. Only one kind of sailor ran those waters at night, and nobody would say who. Gareth set the coin on the table and spoke to the innkeeper. "I need a pilot for the cove. Someone who knows the quiet work." The innkeeper wiped a mug and looked away. "No such person here." Two men by the fire went still. A woman near the window stood and left her stew unfinished. The whole room decided, at once, to forget him. Gareth understood. Fear kept these people quiet, not ignorance. He pushed back his chair and climbed the stairs to his room. Something glowed under his door. He opened it and found a kitten on his bed. Its fur gave off a soft light, pink and gold, like a lantern wrapped in fog. A scrap of paper lay beneath its paw. Gareth lifted the kitten and read the note. Three words, in a shaky hand. "The gray net." He went back down. Along the harbor wall, fishing nets hung drying in rows, all brown with tar and age. One was gray. Beneath it sat a man mending line by a single lamp. The man did not look up. "The channel kills men who ask too loud," the man said. "You asked loud." Gareth crouched beside him. The kitten glowed inside his coat. "Someone put you up to this note." "My girl." The man nodded toward the inn. "She hears things. She likes you. Says you've got a sad face." He tied off a knot. "I run the cove. Not for coin that marks a man. Where'd you get it?" "A place I can't go back to." Gareth pulled out three of the strange coins. "Take me to the lighthouse. Eight days, before the new moon." The man's hands stopped. He stared at the coins, then at Gareth's face. "I know that mint. Only one ship ever carried it here." He set down his needle. "Six months back. I unloaded her myself." Gareth's breath caught. "You saw what she carried." "I saw a girl come off that ship," the man said. "Alone. Crying. She paid me a coin just like yours to row her out to the lighthouse." He met Gareth's eyes. "Nobody's rowed back for her since."

The boatman named his price before Gareth could speak. "The channel almost killed me the last time. I'll run it again, but not for three coins. I want twenty." He set his needle down. "Twenty of your strange gold, up front." Gareth counted what he carried. Nine coins. He had spent the rest on the bed and the bread that kept him alive this week. "I don't have twenty." "Then you don't have a boat." The man returned to his net. "The rocks don't care how sad your face is." Gareth walked the harbor wall to think. The kitten glowed inside his coat. He needed coin the island would take, and he had none. Then the water shifted below him. Something pale rose under the surface. A long white shape, bigger than any boat, slid past the pilings. Gareth saw a sweeping body and wide fins, bone-white in the lamplight. The creature turned one eye toward him and sank again, calm, ancient. The water settled. He stood very still. He went back to the boatman. "There's a leviathan in your cove." The man's hands froze. "You saw the white one?" "Just now. It looked at me." The boatman set his net aside and stared at the black water. "Men here pray to see it. They say it marks safe passage. Sailors who sight it live through the channel." He rubbed his jaw. "I've worked this cove thirty years. I never saw it once." Gareth pulled out his nine coins and laid them on the boatman's crate. "Nine. That's everything I have. But you have a sign now. You have the white one swimming your water tonight." The man looked from the coins to Gareth's face. Fear and want fought across his mouth. "Nine won't fix my boat if the rocks take it." "Then take the sign instead," Gareth said. "You wanted the channel safe. It just showed you safe." The boatman was quiet a long time. The lamp hissed. At last he swept the nine coins into his palm. "Low tide, two nights from now. The water's kindest then." He pointed a thick finger at Gareth's chest. "If the white one's still with us, we go. If it's gone, we don't. I won't die for your daughter." "It'll be there," Gareth said, though he did not know. The man spat in his hand and gripped Gareth's. The deal was struck. Gareth had a boat at last. But the price had taken his final coin. He walked back to the inn with empty pockets and a bill still owed for his room. The innkeeper would want paying soon, and Gareth had nothing left to pay with. Two nights stood between him and the lighthouse, and he would have to spend them with no gold and no roof he could keep.

The innkeeper found Gareth at dawn. She stood in his doorway with a ledger and held out her hand. "A week's lodging. You pay now, or you're out before the tide." Gareth had nine fewer coins than he needed. He had no coins at all. He asked for one more day. She shook her head and told him to be gone by noon. Gareth walked the shore to think. The sun was low and the water lay flat. He had two nights until the crossing and nowhere to sleep. Then he saw something caught in the rocks below the tide line. It was wedged among the stones, half in the foam. He climbed down. A carved figure lay there, tall as his arm. A mermaid queen, cut from pale wood, with a crown of coral and a scaled tail that caught the light. Pearls lined her arms. Someone had lost her, or thrown her away. The paint was bright. The gold was real gold leaf. Gareth lifted her from the rocks. She was heavy and finely made. He carried the carving to the trading post. The shopkeeper there bought odd things off sailors. The man turned the figure in his hands and ran a thumb over the crown. "Ship's carving. Off a prow, I'd guess. Hasn't been in the water long." He looked at Gareth with narrow eyes. "Where'd you get it?" "The rocks by the shore. The tide left it." The shopkeeper named a price. It was more than Gareth owed the inn, with a little over. Gareth took the coins. They were island coins, worn and plain, the kind the innkeeper would take. He felt the weight of them and thought of how close he had come to sleeping in the cold. He paid the innkeeper before noon. She counted the coins twice, found them good, and marked her ledger. "You keep the room through the crossing night," she said. Her voice was softer now. "Lucky you found something to sell." Gareth nodded. He went up to his room and sat on the bed. He had a roof again. He had two nights of sleep before the boatman rowed him out. But his pockets held only a few coins now, and after the inn took its share, almost nothing was left. The boatman had his nine. The channel waited. If anything went wrong at the lighthouse, if his daughter needed more than his two hands, he had no gold to buy it. He had traded a drowned queen for a bed, and he would reach the lighthouse with empty pockets.