The flooded cathedral rose around them, its broken windows spilling green light across a floor of drowned pews.
"My head is spinning like a top," Rumi muttered, leaning on a pew, "the Wing hasn't let go of my feet yet."
"Mine too," Nari whispered, hugging a pillar, "please tell me the floor is moving, Hajin-san."
"The floor is flooding, Whisper, so you're half right," he said, steadying her elbow.
Vella pressed her glowing palm to Didi's arm, sighing. "The ice is gone, Highness, the bruise will last a day, try not to hit anything with it."
"I intend to hit the next thing that talks," she said, flexing her fingers.
Somewhere in the green dark a lullaby began humming, the water around their ankles trembling with every slow note.
In the nave's middle the Tidemother's face floated, enormous and smiling, wearing a dead man's voice like a borrowed coat. Didi took one slow step toward the water without blinking, her good hand lifting toward a sleeve that was gone.
