Abruptly, our lamp jolted, came loose, and flew downward. A tinkling crash sounded over the beating of hooves. Our light was gone, the blackness around us total, and the stallion reared up suddenly, blind now to the path ahead.
I yelped. Emment was dislodged from the saddle. He toppled with a grunt of surprise to the ground, where I heard him slam onto the stone and cry out.
Trying to keep from falling, I pulled the reins taut. The stallion sidestepped and snorted in alarm. Then, to my dizzying relief, he settled. I jumped down, disoriented, jarring my knees. Somewhere behind me, I heard Emment cough, then retch, then finally empty the contents of his stomach.
I swore. Still gripping the reins tightly, I picked my way carefully back down the causeway, searching for him in near-total darkness.
“Emment! Where are you?”
A groan from ahead. A hoarse voice: “…Zennia?”
My blood went cold.
I heard shuffling, then a worryingflumph.
“Emment!” I shouted. “It’s Corith! Don’t—”
But it was too late. I guessed that in his drunken confusion, he’d toppled right over the edge of the causeway, as I heard theshush shushof his boots on the slick sands.
He was moving, but in completely the wrong direction.
16
“Emment!”
I dithered for a moment. Swore again.
Dropping the reins, I left the track’s comforting solidity, stepping down onto the flats with a twist in my gut. My eyes were finally adjusting to the dark, and I could just make out the faint gray line of the causeway, the shadowy smears of clouds above. Port Rhorstin was a cluster of fireflies in the distance. Of Bower Island, to the east, I could see nothing—only black.
I hurried after Emment, following the squelches of his footsteps. My own soles sank shallowly into the sands. I heard his harsh panting, caught him whimper again: “Zennia.” With his longer legs and stronger build, he was faster than me despite his ale-addled state.
“For gods’ sakes. Emment!”
I’d heard no more howls, but that didn’t mean much. The pack could be circling, drawn by the noise. I staggered on, expecting at any given second to see the eerie pinpricks of eyes in the night.
Then: a shout of panic ahead.
I stalled, gasping for breath, then picked my way forward. The sand was growing softer, wetter, under my feet. The clouds shifted, letting through a few spears of moonslight. And by them, I at last spotted Emment ahead.
But he looked odd. Shorter. Bent over double. He was struggling, arms flailing, twisting at the waist. With a sick jolt, I realized what he was doing. His legs were stuck; sinking. He was trying to get free.
“Emment!”
I inched my way forward.
I’d known there were sinking sands out on the mudflats—swathes of the bay turned sodden by lazy streams—but unlike the fishermen, the mud pickers, the foragers, I’d not yet had cause to worry about them, to learn where they were and how to avoid them.
“Here!” I cried, stepping toward him, reaching out. But straightaway I had to dart back again. My own boots were vanishing into the gritty mulch. I wrenched them out, hopping, heart pounding a wild rhythm.
As I watched him struggle, a part of me thought,Good.
It was as much as he deserved, after what I’d seen at the Veil. Maybe I should just leave him to the sands, claim to the family that he’d vanished in the blackness.
But then I thought of my Cage contact. My agreement. If something happened to Emment out here, Rexim Shearwater would have his revenge. I’d be packed off to a mill, or maybe a cell, any hope of learning about Zennia lost to me.
Emment yelled something incoherent. He was exhausted now, sunk up above his knees. There wasn’t much time. I could save him by speaking, by telling the water to leach from the sands…but I didn’t.
I sensed a dark flicker of opportunity.
