Holli knelt on the cold sand and pressed her palm flat to the tide. She had come to Frostshade to learn the old magic — the kind that moves coastlines, not just water. She wanted it for the drowned-out, the exiled, the ones no one else would lift a finger for. But tonight, something deeper than her own pull answered her hand. A current woke beneath the seafloor. It was older than any tide she had ever touched. She felt it slide past her like a held breath and turn toward the flooded settlement down the shore. She ran. The settlement sat half-sunk in a green-glowing pool, its broken roofs ringed by huge dark tentacles that swayed above the water. The tentacles were not attacking. They were leaning, listening, drawn toward the same pull she felt. Far out, the sea pulled back. On the bared seafloor stood a carved stone figure on a wooden dais — a hooded thing of wings and writhing faces. The current was rising from beneath it. Holli could feel the shape of the pull, but not what it would cost. "You feel it. You do not understand it." Gotim stood beside her without sound. He held out a book bound in black and blue leather. "Read. Or watch them drown twice." Behind him, quieter, Void said, "I don't know what's inside it. Only that it answers what you're asking." Holli took the book. She opened it. The current kept moving toward the settlement, and she finally felt, for one clean second, what commanding it would break. She closed the cover with shaking hands. The tide held. The settlement stood. And she knew, now, she was not ready — and that someone older had just made sure she learned it.