Chapter 5: The Storm Comes In

He kept my rule all night.

I know because I lay awake in the net loft and listened to him do it.

He did not come up the stairs.

He did not knock.

He stood on the quay below the window, where I had told him he could stand.

The rain came down on him all night.

I had gone back to the loft after the hall and told Stavros everything.

He had listened with his cap in his hands and said, "Five days is not enough to run a child inland."

"Then what is?"

"A good lawyer, a witness, and a miracle."

He had gone down to the fish hall to ask who knew the court's clerk.

Zoe had fallen asleep in the cot with the wooden dolphin under her chin.

Near midnight the weather shifted.

It was a heavier rain than the day before, with wind behind it.

I knew at once that it was not Kyros's temper.

He had said so on the quay.

This was something he couldn't stop.

I opened the shutter a hand's width.

He was standing under the lamp post at the end of the net store with his coat open and his head bare.

He had not moved in an hour.

I closed the shutter.

I opened it again at one in the morning, and at three.

At five, when the grey came up over the water, I put on Stavros's old fishing coat and went down.

He turned when he heard the door.

His face was blue with cold.

"I went to the clerk," he said.

His teeth were chattering so hard I could hardly follow him.

"At dusk. He wouldn't withdraw the order. It carries the Elder Table's seal now."

"And?"

"Only a full session can undo it."

"Who put the seal on?"

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