Menon, she thought hard, searching.Are you there?
River hauled her back and Ione bowed her head, her cheeks burning.“My apologies,” she stammered.“My eyesight is – I mean, personal space isn’t always a consideration – ”
“It’s time to go, Ione.It’s…” River hesitated, visibly thinking.
“Lunchtime,” Cynthia supplied.
Nice try.“Come to lunch with me,” she told Lina.“River has all the cooking skills I haven’t.”
River pulled her close, his expression weary as he whispered, “Ione.She is tired.She is grieving.She has been here for hours and, I’m certain, wants nothing more than to bathe and sleep.”
Lina, behind him, made a noise that implied River was right.
“Tomorrow, then,” Ione said.
River suppressed a groan.
That somehow earned another chiming laugh from Lina that sent Ione’s stomach to her feet.She released a breath, felt Menon rising and falling within her.How could River not see it?
“I think Ami’s finished with the healer,” Lina said, pointing behind Ione at them.“I should check on her, but…” She tucked her chin and folded her hands behind her back.“It’s a small island.And I’m sure they’ll have me doing the same as I was in Caelos, so…” She smiled, sweet and bright.“If you have any beds that need making, you’ll know where to find me.”
Ione jittered as she allowed River and Cynthia to walk her out of the atrium.Finally – after all this time!She ran through the details, memorised them.The burns on her wrists, the crescent moon on her throat.
A sign, a sign, a sign.
“River,” she said, hoarse, as her seleneschals ushered her up the hill towards the altarhouse.“Tomorrow, can you make that crab salad?”
“Ione,” Cynthia chided, “it sounded like she was letting you down easy.”
“It’s too bad she doesn’t have a choice,” Ione snapped, wounded.“Menon likes her, and I’m going to find out why.”
River rubbed his face.“Ione.Genuinely.Leave her alone, if only so I don’t have to explain to your mother why you’ve started bringing home strays.”
“Did youseewhat I did?I’ve no idea what could’ve – ”
“Oh, I’ve got an inkling,” River said, like it pained him.“Look,” he went on before Ione argued: “I want you to make friends, Ione, but not with someone Saros hasn’t properly vetted – ”
“Saros would set me up with a scorpion if he didn’t have to dispose of my corpse after.”
“ – and who might not even stay here for long.”
Ione quieted, considering.Eventually, Caelos Shrine would be repaired, and all of its denizens would return there.Lina included.
She laid her fingertips over her pulse.Still trilling away, even with Lina gone.
She wouldn’t let this go, not for anything.
Cynthia took pity on River: “Until Oseidos can be fully protected, no one is safe.”
River nodded.“At least wait until the new warden arrives.”
Ione winced.Even River, now, hung his hopes on Saros’s new dog.“You promised you’d hate him with me.”
“I can at least acknowledge his abilities,” he said, although his tone implied that he wasn’t happy to acknowledge anything about Kai Mahina.
“Wait until Saros calls himsonand you’ll feel far less tolerant.”She squared her shoulders and looked beyond the sea to the mainland, to the dark, watercolour blur of the mountains rising over Lodestone.To the shell of Caelos Shrine, the bodies reduced to ash inside its broken walls.
“For the first time in my life, Menon stirred,” she whispered.“Menon sent her here.And mark my words, River, Lina is going to help me.”
