No one said anything for a few long, drawn-out seconds. Then Rhianne shook her head, her face bleached ivory. “We don’t know,” she said. “We looked, but we couldn’t find her.”
My vision swam. I curled forward, hands on the pebbles.
“Come on,” I heard Llir say. He was upright, moving. “Emment. My sisters…We have to get up there.”
“Wait,” said Rhianne, looking hard at me, stepping nearer. “First she tells us what thehellsthat was.” She pointed to the bay, where the tide was still raging. “That wasn’t a normal Morning Tide. It neverlagslike that…never floods that quickly. And the height of those waves…” She squinted, frowning.
Tigo said frankly, “You can’t have done that alone.”
My limbs trembled weakly as I hauled myself up. I had no energy to keep the truth in me, to come up with some alternative story. “It was the Cage,” I said quietly, waving a hand to the east. “They’re here. Arrived just after Crake did. And Zennia is with them—she was always one of them.”
The others, Llir included, stared at me in shock.
“Our old Floodmouth.” Rhianne had gone even paler. “She’s alive?”
Tigo and Llir exchanged a glance.
“Yes.” I looked at Llir, a weight on my chest. “I thought your brother might have done something to her, but I was wrong. Hedidsee her go down. She faked it.”
Llir said nothing, unbalanced by the news, seeming to see me anew—yet again.
“Zennia was working for the Cage all along, like you,” said Tigo, folding his arms. His voice was hard as the stones beneath our feet, but as he looked at me, the corner of his mouth quirked strangely. “I knew there was something you were hiding, but I never thought…”
I dropped my gaze.
“Hells know what your Cage would have done to us,” he continued. “What they still might do. Tell me why we shouldn’t have just left you in the water.”
“Tigo,” Rhianne said. “Corith did save us from Crake.” She peered at me, jutting her chin toward the ocean. “I’m guessing it was you who came up with that plan. You’re the only one of them who knows our tides that well…who could have predicted just how it might work.”
After a pause, I nodded. Tigo’s lips pressed together.
“Enough,” snapped Llir, his patience clearly spent. “We can do this later. Right now I’m going up there.”
Without waiting to see if any of us would follow, he turned andjogged for the path up to the castle. His face was screwed up with pain, with weariness.
Tigo set off immediately behind him, while Rhianne dithered a few seconds before joining them.
I stared after them, my heart beating a fast, hollow rhythm. Time seemed to slow. The moment felt heavy.
I could skirt around the island, go east, meet the Cage. They were probably still returning from the bay, recovering. Some Floodmouths would have had to guide the Mudmouths out on boats, while others would have been speaking to the tide, urging it onward. We could all wait this out…let the siblings face Iovawn Crake…
I almost laughed as that thought crossed my mind. I felt wild, cut loose. I knew my decision.
With a loping, limping, painful gait, I forced my legs to run upward, after Llir.
—
I tried not to think about when I’d last slept, tried to ignore the fiery burning in my body. My clothes were sodden, and they weighed me down, making me shiver in the cold, crisp air.
It was as we approached the Crake-manned gatehouse that I suddenly realized we had no weapons. Llir and the others were forging ahead, and there was no time to cry out before the soldiers spotted us.
But then I stumbled; stopped and stared. Tigo was speaking, saying something to the earth, and it rippled, great cracks shooting up toward the walls.
There were three guards, more of a lookout than a defense. Two on the ground and one up on the ramparts. As I watched, one of the gatehouse towers shivered, at the same time as a hillock of earth burst from the ground. The guard on the tower lost his footing, fell out of sight, and the ones on the ground toppled over like wooden pins.
Rhianne had pulled out her pocket tinderbox, but she was scowling: Seawater was pouring out of it. There was littleIcould do to help Tigo either, but I followed at a short distance, wishing I still had Kielty’s rapier.
Llir sprang forward, kicking a downed guard’s sword away, then darted after it before the man could get up.
