A glance back across the river. Another whipped forward, just in case. Another around as her heart dances wild, beating like a caged bird trying to escape. She grits her teeth to creaking, grinding. She screwed up. Oh, God, she screwed up. Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
How did this happen? Flopping back with a thump and a jolt, she boots the reeds, jarring her leg, driving splinters into her toes. The Havsrå. Sirens. She let herself relax, surrender to sleep, and Callum was left unprotected.
She could have stopped this. She should have stopped this. At the first sight or sound of the shrivelled, black-eyed beast, she could have ordered him to close his eyes. She could have slapped her hands over his ears. She could have saved him, but instead, she fell asleep.
A cry starts deep in her belly. Surging through her lungs, it barrels up her throat, getting caught in her mouth, and she chokes. Callum’s gone. He’s bewitched, or drowning, or both, or worse, being tortured in the bowels of the river. If the Havsrå are anything like the Huldra, seducing their men before gutting them…
The cry rips out of her, so harsh it tears her throat. Callum’s gone because of her. She’s alone because of her. Callum’s gone, and he’s not coming back.
How does she find him?
What happens if she can’t?
A hundred questions, a hundred more. Chasing each other’s tails as she lies, head pounding and eyes raw, coiled in the belly of the boat. Her ears ring from screaming and shock. Talons scratch her throat. She hasn’t moved for hours.
The boat has sailed on. Never slowing, never stopping, oblivious to her endlessly willing it back. Back to the point where Callum disappeared, so she can dive until she finds him. That’s what she should have done in the first place; she should have reacted more quickly, jumped in after him, wrestled the bug-eyed thorax away. She didn’t think. She never does.
But she has to carry on. The thought cuts through her quietly, and with Callum’s closed, sinking eyes branded on her brain, she slowly starts to uncoil. She has to find her family. They’re the reason she’s here, and to give up now would be close to tragedy.
But Callum.
Kira clenches her fists. It hurts like hell—the pain, the guilt, the terror of being alone—but she has to shut it off. Push it back into the wings like the thought of her mother. If she doesn’t, she could languish for the rest of her days, hiding in the bottom of a rowboat and pretending to the world that the world’s gone home. That would be a tragedy. That would be failing.
Dim and detached, Kira stiffly sits up. It feels disrespectful, selfish even, to carry on after what she’s done. Or rather, what she didn’t do. It feels wrong to do more than lie and grieve, praying for Callum’s escape, and dream up fantastical rescue attempts. After all he’s done for her—
Stop. Kira closes her eyes, just for a second. Languishing. Tragedy. Failure.
Move. Dragging her eyes open, she stretches her unhappy limbs. The day is as bright as when they first found the beach. Does the river ever get dark? Dully, she roots for the water container, rubbing her peeling lips. It doesn’t matter. She’s never sleeping again.
‘He that is…’
Kira stiffens. The last of the water trickles down her throat. There was a voice. Was there a voice?
‘…Shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord.’
There was definitely a voice. As it drifts toward her, Kira looks around. Turns around, her dullness splintering. Scan the river. There.
A short way ahead is a small, strange island, and on that island sits a large, strange fish. Her dullness cracks. He’s toddler-sized, chunky and squat, propped on his rear like a begging dog. With a bishop’s mitre sat on his head, she can’t doubt it. Oh, good God. She can’t, though it shouldn’t be possible: Callum’s long-awaited, hunger-provoking, sermon-spouting bishop-fish.
God. The boat sails closer, swift on the blue. Kira shakes her head. Flabbergasted. Flummoxed. All of those and more. Whatever she’d expected from the bishop-fish, it wasn’t this. Is this really not a dream?
No. Backed against a scraggy, solitary bush, the fish is utterly bizarre. Round, fleshy eyes bulge fiercely as he speaks in a husky human voice. Fins the translucence of frogspawn, his body a marshy green. He looks like a giant toad crossed with a snake.
And he doesn’t yet know she’s there.
‘He that is,’ the fish repeats proudly, the words deep and ringing, ‘wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord.’
He tries to persuade my travellers to stop and hear him speak.
Sofia’s words, and Romy’s face. They pang deep inside her. I am not entirely sure what will happen if you do, but I advise not finding out.
Slowly, Kira holds her breath, shrinking down into the reeds. The boat sails closer, closer still. She couldn’t avoid the sirens, but she’ll avoid him, sure as hell. Spouting his sermons to the world at large, he hasn’t seen her, hasn’t seen her, hasn’t—
‘Young woman!’ the fish cries. ‘Hello!’
Dammit. Kira tenses, uncomfortable and largely prone. Apparently, his sight is as good as his voice. ‘Hello.’
The word slips out before she can stop it. She claps a hand to her treacherous mouth. Dammit. What the hell was that?
Nothing. It’s okay. It wasn’t listening to him speak; it was a greeting. She’s been raised to be polite. Taking a breath, Kira stares straight ahead, blocking out all but the gentle blues. If the boat just passes on by…
Slowing to a crawl, the boat scrapes the island.
‘Why do you look so forlorn?’ the fish cries. Kira’s hope sputters out, but she drops her eyes, fixing on her fraying jeans. This is not ending because of a fish. ‘Is there any way I can assist?’
No chance.
‘Sirens took my friend,’ Kira says. The words march out of their own accord, as slippery as fish themselves. ‘I don’t know how to get him back. I don’t even know if he can come back. He sank into the river with a havsrå.’
What the hell? What the hell? What the hell? She covers her mouth again—it worked so well—but its explanation is over.
‘Ah.’ The fish sighs. The corners of his puffed lips droop with melancholy. ‘I see. Canst thou fill his skin with barbed irons? or his head with fish spears?’
Kira lowers her fingers and blinks at him. ‘No?’
What the hell? What the hell? Her mind hollers on, but another part, a stronger part, rallies to curiosity. ‘Even if I could, I don’t think it would help.’
‘Ah.’ The fish shakes what passes for its head. They’re parallel now. The boat sails by in microscopic increments; if she wanted to, she could stop it. ‘I see. But I can help, even if it can’t!’
He gestures widely. The mitre slips. With one slimy fin, he rights it.
‘Stop here, young woman,’ he continues. Kira leans toward the speckled sand. Her chest flutters, and it feels like hope. ‘Listen to the wisdom of my speech! I’—he dips the mitre toward her—‘will tell you how to find your friend.’
He tries to persuade my travellers to stop and hear him speak.
Kira’s intrigue pops like airplane ears. If that’s not what he’s doing, she’ll eat her own foot. She shakes her head fervently, diverting her eyes. Back to the jeans, the sandy reeds. He knows nothing about Callum; he can’t. And death by talking fish is not the way she’s going to go.
She fought the forest from her head. She can fight him as well.
And besides, the boat is speeding up. The fluttering hope billows into relief. Soon, his voice will be lost.
‘Young woman!’ the fish cries. ‘Foreign woman! I can help!’
‘I don’t need your help,’ she calls back, laconic. It’s as much of a trick as the havsrå’s song. Because of her, Callum is gone.
Stop. Kira bodily shoves this away. Sandy reeds. Manky-looking socks. She can feel the fish bristling, affronted by her rudeness, but he’s already drifting out of earshot. Stuck on his sad, l
ifeless little island, he can do nothing to exact his revenge.
‘When the king’s decree, which he shall make…’ he cries in a last-ditch attempt to win her back. Across the water, the words lose grip, and Kira slides down onto her back. The sooner they’re lost, the better; he’s a talking fish. ‘…All the wives shall give to their husbands honour…’
Humourless, Kira snorts. A talking, chauvinistic fish; brilliant. She’s Alice in Wonderland, again. She twists her mouth bitterly, kicking one foot up to rest on her knee. Pink from heat, chipping purple nail varnish. Her life is now defined by a drug-induced book.
She’s toying with the toe of one of Callum’s hefty boots when a bellow echoes out from the island.
‘Callum!’ the fish bawls. ‘Callum Reeve!’
Kira’s breath catches, stutters, and balls up in her mouth. Callum Reeve?
It knows his name when she didn’t.
‘What?’ She scrambles up, clutches at the reeds, and yells as loud as she can. The talons scrape her throat. ‘What about Callum?’ Callum Reeve. ‘What do you know about him?’
‘Callum!’ the fish hollers. He’s far, far away now, dwindling by the second. ‘I know h—’
Violent and unseen, the boat crashes into land.
The pain is appalling. Lying on a beach of stones, dazed and barely there, Kira’s skull throbs like she beat it with a mace. The water swims through slitted eyes.
The water’s all there is. The fish has gone; the island has gone. Even the boat has gone. It kicked her out and buggered off.
Taking with it all hope of finding Callum. Although it was probably nothing, a trick, Kira can’t help but hope that it wasn’t. The fish knew Callum’s name.
Did it? It could have said anything, and she’d be none the wiser. Callum Tartt. Callum King. Callum Schwab. Callum Reeve is as believable as any.
But it’s so human. So human and so plausible for who he is and where he’s from. What’s more, when the alternative is to be alone, living with the knowledge that she caused his disappearance, if not his ultimate demise—
No. With a colourful grimace and a series of groans, Kira pushes herself upright. She’s been through this already, a hundred thousand times. She has to keep moving.
Dizzily, she touches her temple.
Mistake. The contact ignites such a shock of pain, a firework display of colourful rain, that she almost faints back away. Kira blinks. Breathes. Her eyes are flecked with black, swarming at the edges of her vision. That blossoming lump will become a beauty.
Blink. Breathe. Bit by bit, the black recedes.
A heavy hand lands on her shoulder. Kira jerks away with a strangled shout, scrabbling round to face him. Stones bite her palms. The world sways like stormy seas.
‘Sorry,’ the man says quickly. Raising both hands, he takes a step back. ‘Didn’t mean to frighten you. Are you okay?’
His voice is throaty, twisting around the words as if his tongue wants to reject them. Each syllable is carefully formed. Kira doesn’t speak. It’s all she can do to shake her head, unwieldy and woollen and thick. Her sharp retreat brought the swarming back. Her vision is sick, and her stomach is tipping. The flecks are dancing to black.
Severe and sharp-cheeked, the man kneels beside her. He’s dark, browned further by the hiding sun, and knotted with sweat at the neck, his hair rough, curling, chestnut. Too hot, Kira thinks faintly; his bare chest gleams with heat, a pair of loose, dusty trousers tied with twine at his waist. She could do with something like that. Jeans too much, bra digging in. Too hot, too—
‘Girl.’ The man tips up her chin, forcing her giddy eyes to his. The words are quiet but cogent. ‘You don’t want to be here when night comes, and night’—he moves her face to the side, to the horizon—‘is coming.’
Oh, oh, dizzy. The tug on her chin was too much.
‘If you don’t leave,’ the man continues, ‘many things you don’t want to see will—oh.’
He catches her torso as she slumps. The giddiness thumps in her belly, but as the black takes over, she smiles. The sun. Setting gold across the land, she’s found the sun.
‘You can’t stay here,’ the man urges, but she’s going. Alongside the pain, and the churning nausea, the swarm is just too strong. The blackness swirls and connects. Going, going.
Going, gone.
Oh, to the sky. Klaus bows his head. The girl has gone limp in his arms; a sleeping, half-dressed, injured girl, who looks to be an outsider. If he takes her home, the talk will fly.
If he leaves her here, she’ll die. The sun is setting, and the land looks friendly, warm, and lulling, but it’s not. If she was to get caught by the Night Hunter, she’d be lost. If a myrling was to find her, she’d be terrified for life and never shift it from her back. What can he do?
He can save a life. Lifting the girl to his chest, he stands, steadies, and starts up the beach to Maja, snuffing and scuffing her hooves. To the sky with village talk, too. If they wanted a ruthless patroller, they shouldn’t use him.
He won’t reach Rana for some time, at least. Manoeuvring them both onto Maja’s back, it’s some small form of comfort: he has a while to steel himself. In all likelihood, he’ll need it.
The pebbles of the beach give way to a sand dune, littered with purple-rimmed shells. From there stretches a rolling vastness of flat, gentle plains. The grass waves tall in the lethargic breeze. The evening sun bleaches everything yellow. It’s a wonder compared to what he’s heard of Atikur; assuming the forest is where the girl has come from, were she awake, she would have marvelled. The trees grow sparsely, scattered, leafy patches of oasis, and although the ground is hot, rivulets of water trickle freely to the river. It’s life over nothingness, colour over white. Positioning her more comfortably in front of him, he takes the reins, casts his eye over the violent sunset, and nudges Maja into the wilds.
The end comes into sight when the colour is almost bled. Huddled around three low, sprawling trees, some way beneath Monte Yuno, appears a pinprick of civilisation: his isolated, close-knit pinprick, ringed by pastures, scrawny but enough. Glancing at the raging sun, Klaus nudges Maja faster. If he’s not in Rana when the mountain takes it, the wards will go up and he’ll be stranded. Prey for the Night Hunter. Prey for the world.
He digs his heels into Maja’s sides. The reddened disc is barely a sliver, peeping over the summit; it won’t be long.
Just as it dips, he’s there. ‘Dad!’
A tiny voice springs from the outskirts of the village. Dusty and brown, Marcus bounds out, bouncing about Klaus’s legs as he slides from the horse. ‘It’s nearly—’ He breaks off to goggle at the girl. ‘Who’s that?’
Before Klaus can answer, he bounds away. ‘Mam!’ he calls. ‘Mam!’
Klaus frowns at his back. And so it begins.
‘Marcus says you’ve found a girl,’ a new voice calls, preceding her out of the trees. Marya, in a thin, wraparound dress, ducks under a branch to meet them.
The ideal first inquisitor. ‘She was on the beach,’ Klaus explains, lifting the girl in his arms. Her head lolls backwards. Her bruises stand stark. He flicks a fly from her cheek.
Marya ducks back into the shade. ‘Bring her in.’ She beckons for him to follow, and dotting between gratitude and defensive apprehension, he weaves his way into the village.
Two dozen people are waiting, as he expected them to be. Half of the villagers are always here, lying against trunks, wrapped in idle tasks, or talking by their tipi flaps. As he steps into their midst, they look up.
‘You cut it fine,’ Ingar calls, grain trickling absently through his old, stubby fingers. The horses at his side protest, but he nods at the girl and ignores them. ‘Who’s she?’
‘I’ve never seen the like,’ little Heike comments. Her head pokes out of a slouching tent, and her girls poke out their own.
‘Me neither,’ they say from her armpits. Amusement rumbles through the congregation, but Klaus brushes it off. He needs to get the girl insid
e, and when his wife slips beneath a heavy, bowing branch, he follows without a word.
Still inclined to goggle, Marcus waits inside the tipi. ‘Who is she?’ he asks eagerly, shuffling to the edge of a low-slung bed. Lowering the girl on top, Klaus says nothing. ‘Do you know what happened? Why is she sleeping? Why is she here?’
Their larger bed rests by the first, surrounded by a parted scarlet screen. Motioning for Marcus to run and play, Klaus sinks down heavily onto it.
‘I found her on the beach,’ he repeats when, with much scowling, his son leaves them alone. Stretching his strained arms, he winces. Even before the beach, it had been a long day. ‘I don’t know who she is or where she came from. There was a boat disappearing as I got there, so I assume she was sent by the shapeshifter. All I got before she collapsed was that she wasn’t okay.’
Marya kneels beside her. ‘For a start, she’s from the outside.’
Deft fingers check her pulse, feel for her temperature, brush back her hair to reveal the lump on her skull. ‘And she’s taken a beating from something. If I were to guess’—she skims her hands over bruises on the girl’s arms, her chest, the skin where her skimpy clothes have ridden above her hips—‘I’d say she’s linked to the travellers.’
Climbing to her feet, Marya moves to the large chest beside the beds and pulls out her medicine pouch. ‘Which travellers?’ he asks, between suspicion and intrigue. ‘No one mentioned them to me.’
‘Last night.’ Marya retrieves a cream, speckled with herbs, and returns to the girl’s side. Carefully, she parts her hair around the inimical lump. ‘I saw them in the distance. Clara did, too, but we didn’t think it important enough to report. They showed no interest in the village.’ She pauses, the poultice almost complete. ‘We thought at that point they might be linked to the woman; the one the children said they saw earlier in the day. You knew about that?’ She glances at her husband.
Forehead wrinkling, Klaus nods. ‘A woman’—he runs his eyes over the girl’s pale skin, her dark clothes, her long, white-blonde hair—‘who looked like this one.’
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