Chapter 13: Kneel

Nobody on the slip breathed.

Soren knelt on the planks with his hands open on his thighs and nothing at all on his face.

That was worse than any face he could have made.

"Stand up," I said.

"He cannot," Neris said. "Not until I allow it."

She turned the pearl between two fingers.

"Let him go."

"Come and make me, Ms. Marlow."

The tall one stepped between us.

He didn't blink, and he didn't hurry, and I understood that he had done this to a great many people.

"Walk to the edge of the slip," Neris said, not loudly.

Soren rose.

He rose, stiff and smooth, and I watched a tear run down his cheek and fall onto the planks.

It didn't make a sound.

It was a pearl.

"Soren!"

He walked past the chowder and the lanterns and a child holding a roll, and he did not turn his head.

The edge of the slip was twenty feet away.

Below it the tide was running black and cold, and I knew what a man with a tail would do in that water if a woman told him to go down and stay.

I ran.

The tall one caught my braid and yanked me back so hard my teeth clicked.

"Gus!" I screamed.

"Hold your head still, girl," Gus said behind me.

Then a bucket of chum from the bait shop hit the tall one in the face with a wet, heavy slap, and he let go of my hair.

I heard a fiddle bow snap, and a woman yell, and a ladle hit bone.

When I looked around, half of Harrow Point was on its feet.

The men from the boats had formed a line across the planks with their gaffs and their boat hooks.

Two guardsmen in dry suits stood against that line and didn't move, and the fishermen didn't either.

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