"He won't stay warm," Kahldar said. He was still rubbing Lydris's hands. The water was now at their feet, cold and inexorable.

It felt like hours had passed in this close, damp dark, but Selida knew it had only been minutes. Her second healing prayer had sent a brief flush through the child's body, but it was gone now. His lips were faintly blue. "I know."

"The barnacles on the wall climb halfway to the ceiling. If at highest tide, we have to tread water and hold him–"

"I know."

"Can you conjure some sort of heat?"

"Not today." Her shift was drying, in places, and growing stiff from the salt.

"Would that we had a Welded Dawncaller with us."

She did not dignify this with a response.

"I—don't suppose there's something in the treasure we could use to wake or warm him? If there were, would the lightning fish allow you to reach it?"

He must be desperate. So was she, to not call him on it. Selida crawled to the edge of the ledge and stared down into a tangle of discarded altarpieces. "I'm not afraid of the eels. But—" she paused. "Why is the treasure here?"

"Lydris thought it was an act of your Goddess."

Selida looked upwards, her brain sloshing into motion. "Well, yes, but this isn't just some pirate's lost treasure. These cups and coins belonged to the temple that once stood atop these caves. The acolytes must have hidden their remaining wealth when they knew they would be overrun."

Kahldar picked Lydris up and cradled him in his arms to share more heat. "Your point?"

"Well—how did they get all of it here? It was heavy, and hard to carry. They wouldn't have had time to bring it through the caves. Certainly not along the route you followed." She scanned the walls and ceiling now, looking for scales and coils under the barnacles. "Didn't you notice that you led me first down, and then up?"

"Are... you saying there is a passage that connects this room to the main body of the keep?" He shook his head. "Lord Magnus has occupied this castle since its construction. We would have found it by now. Or the engineers would have, when they were building the foundations."

"It wouldn't look like a passage you could use. It would be a gently roiling surface like—" her eye spied a likely stretch, broad as a man's shoulders, and covered in lichen, slime, and barnacles. Underneath, the rock was coiled and scored like a mass of ropes, heaped on the deck of a ship. It was exactly like the patches she remembered in the Grand Abbey, and the one in her own father's keep.

Her enthusiasm chilled. Kahldar had made a good point, though not the one he thought. A sister cleric surely gave her life to hold this treasure, and its route, secret. Who am I to betray her trust? There were other considerations, as well. She glanced at Lydris; skin chalky, bright hair gone dark. He was too cold even to shiver. She heard the words in Laurence's voice: "What if this is what She intended? What if this is how he is meant to serve the Tidelands?"

"Then why did She sweep him to the shelf when She could have drowned him? Why did her knife-eels not burn him to death with their cold fire?"

Laurence again, his sleepless eyes worn, his voice bitter: "Pearl or no, Her chair was empty. This is how we bring Her home to us."

"Selida." Kahldar's voice evaporated her brother's ghost like a wind through bonfire smoke. He curved his body as if to protect the boy's with his own. "Selida, talk to me."

Her name, unadorned, drew her gaze to his. He was here. She was not. Her aching heart made its decision between one beat and another.

"I need a finger of clay," she said, dropping to her knees. "Any will do." Her nails grated and chipped as she scrabbled in the divots of the gnarled rock beneath them.

Act before you think better of it.

"Like this?" His toes found a pocket of wet earth, as much sand as dirt.

She dug into it with her fingertips. There. Barely more than a handful of damp soil; just enough to squeeze into a rough cylinder between her palms.

Selida focused her attention on the swirling portion of the rock wall. It sat barely within reach of their little rocky outcropping. Behind the slime, behind the barnacles, her fingers touched stone scales. She rose on her tiptoes and pressed her hand against it.

When she could feel the enormity of the earth through her skin, she closed her eyes. The prayer boiled up her throat: Aluna wake your servants of stone. Let them come to me as the ocean comes upon the shore. And then the unnecessary but even more heartfelt addendum: Please let this be Your will. She felt her prayer drop into the intimate absence the pearl had shown her. Panic seized her breath. What if by seeing, by doubting, she'd shattered her connection—

Selida smashed the clay in her other palm flat, and the rock under her hand exploded into a massive tangle of soft, cool bodies. They surged over her fingertips, seeking purchase. The ones who couldn't escape onto her cascaded back against the walls. The sound of their scales and the hiss of their breath overwhelmed her senses. They streamed over her throat, her ears, her eyes. Selida fell to her knees under the weight of them. Hundreds of serpents. Thousands? A river of snakes flooded down her arm and over her body. Selida forced herself to be still, to will them fluid until they were resting safely against the walls and her reaching hand touched only emptiness.

***

The air abruptly filled with the stench of imprisonment and infection. Torchlight from the new tunnel turned the backs of her closed eyelids crimson. Panicked cries echoed through the stone. Ser Aegison was not among them, Selida knew he would arrive soon. Tidemother, thank you.

Selida ungrit her teeth and opened her eyes.

On their side of the cave, a starburst of stone snakes wreathed a round hole in the wall. They tumbled onto the ceiling and walls like a baroque relief. No mistaking what happened here.

From the ragged hysteria she could hear amidst the guardsmen, they had likely witnessed a mirrored explosion. Serves them right.

She turned her head towards Kahldar. "There. The castle dungeon. The passage is short enough for you to pass him through, with some help."

Kahldar was already on his feet, Lydris over one shoulder. His expression wobbled between nausea and awe. But he drew a deep breath, composed himself, and called out to the guards beyond: "It is I, Kahldar, with my Lord Lydris. He is cold and wet. Fetch him a blanket."

Then he turned back to Selida and sank slowly to one knee. "Thank you, Lady Cleric. And thank Aluna on my behalf, for she walks in your footsteps."

Her lips parted, but she could not decide to rebuke him for blasphemy, or worse, accuracy. "You may relay that to Ser Aegison, when he arrives to bellow about this turn of events."

He ignored her. "She does," he repeated.