"Who is that?" Cassian demanded.

  "My name is Marta Towers, of Hessex, and I am what you in Nerona would call a shieldbearer." The woman hefted her shield in one hand. "My clan serves the King directly. Sir Adalai has paid my debts and I wish to go with him as he crosses the Drownway."

  Cassian turned his wrathful glare to Adalai. "Is that a fact?"

  He did his best not to wilt under the other man's icy stare. "You said you were still looking for bravos to go with you and Marta has her own reasons to make the trip so I figured it was a natural match."

  "Clearly you haven't spent much time among Nerona's bravos." Cassian spared a glance at Marta. His annoyance relented just a bit, as if he did find some sympathy for her in his heart. "It may be different where you are from. It certainly is among the Hextons, where the families do everything from traveling to fighting as a unit."

  Adalai shot Marta a glance out of the corner of his eyes. That must have been what Bellini meant when he said she was part of a traveling clan. "Are you saying you don't want more people?"

  "I don't want bad luck. The chances that my brother is still alive are bad enough as it is, mixing women and bravos won't make them any better and may even make the odds we get to him worse." Cassian folded his arms in thought for a moment. Then he shook his head and said, "I'm sorry, Adalai, it was not a bad thought to sign for a bondservant to fill out the expedition but I cannot justify it. Even if the stakes were not so high there is the question of the lady's life. What kind of monsters would we be if we deprived a family of their daughter while struggling to retrieve a few carts of goods for a handful of lira?"

  "Respectfully, sir, that would not be why misfortune befalls me should I travel with you." Marta glanced around the tavern common room, mostly empty in the early morning, and lowered her voice. "I told you my clan was - is in service to the King of Hessex."

  "All the more reason you should not risk your life needlessly, signorina."

  "I am trying to explain it is not needless, sir." Marta took a deep breath and let it out slowly, clearly struggling with annoyance. Adalai couldn't really blame her for it. "Nearly one year ago a cousin of the King, the Baron Braxton, traveled here on his own on a task of some secrecy. His last letter said he planned to try to cross the bay from Fionni to Renicie. No one has heard from him since."

  "The bay?" Cassian raised an eyebrow. "I've never heard someone call the Gulf of Lum a bay before."

  Adalai rolled his eyes. "The point is that she is interested in doing the same thing you are, finding someone who went missing while crossing the Drownway. That's why I brought her along. I was hoping you might have a little sympathy for her situation given the similarities of your circumstances. The two of you are in much the same spot."

  Cassian rested his elbow on the table between them, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumbs. "Wanting similar things is a far cry from the same circumstances, signore, but I take your point."

  In the twenty hours or so since he'd met Marta Adalai had found the woman to be quite stoic. She'd explained the task her clan was given quite dispassionately and accepted Adalai's decisions about lodging without question. Frankly it bothered him. Other than insisting she needed to follow him across the Drownway she'd been mostly passive since they'd met. Now there were cracks forming in that persona.

  "Please, sir, it is very important. Water is no danger to Braxton but there were forces in Nerona itself that were threatening him else he would not have chosen such a desperate route to escape. My clan was charged to find him and bring him home. When I met Sir Adalai and heard his intentions I knew the meeting was kismet."

  Cassian's head came up out if his hands. "Kismet?"

  "Inevitable. Predestined. Something which comes about because it is the only suitable result of the circumstances." Marta picked up her shield and showed Cassian the design there. "The Towers clan once lived on a mountain where we studied the stars until the lord of the clan predicted the mountain would shake and the towers fall. So we abandoned them and became vassals of the King. The next year the King ordered the Towers clan to fight in the Battle of Eboncourts, when Hessex turned back the army of the Dragonrider, and our lord slew his General of Arrows. That was kismet. This is no different and, were I to ignore it, I would be as foolish as those who stayed in the towers while the earth shook."

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  Cassian spared a disbelieving look for Adalai. So Adalai drove the knife in. "Don't the people of Nerona believe the Kings at the Corners of Eternity send omens warning of the day of their deaths? How is kismet any different?"

  "Omens are warnings, not inevitabilities. Don't you believe in the Kings at the Corners?"

  Adalai shrugged. "They're real enough, I'd say, but omens and kismet? I'll believe they're real when I see them pay off with my own eyes. Even if they are real, I'd say such things fall outside the purview of the Four Kings. Some other creature handles such matters."

  "Well, you are the one who studied with the Heralds I suppose." Cassian got to his feet before Adalai could protest. "I suppose if it's inevitable there's nothing I can do about it. Are you provisioned? It's typically five days to cross the Drownway on foot, I'm bringing provisions for ten."

  "We have a week of food each," Adalai replied. "I've fished in the Gulf on a regular basis to good effect and there will be plenty of time for it between low tides."

  "Very well, then. Low tide is in two and a half hours, we should head towards Verune Bay now. I'll join you there once I gather my gear." Cassian took his hat off the back of his chair, sketched a slight bow towards Marta and departed.

  Adalai sighed. That proved harder than expected. He'd expected a slight pushback like Bellini had given but Cassian approached the question from a very different angle that was just as strange. More proof that he still hasn't figured Neronan culture out yet.

  "I hope I haven't damaged your friendship with Sir Cassian," Marta said.

  "We just met yesterday. I'm not sure we're even acquainted yet. I've spent more time with you than him at this point."

  She glanced down for a moment then gathered her things and got to her feet. "I am grateful regardless. I will repay you for what you've done one day, Sir Adalai."

  "Don't worry about it. Just make sure you get to the bay on time."

  The bay was a sheltered stretch of coast just over a mile outside of Fionni's walls. A narrow path ran down through a limestone bluff to a sandy beach a few hundred feet wide that looked out into the Gulf to the north and the Adriatic to the south. By the time Adalai and Marta got there the water had receded to the point where the land stretching east was mostly visible.

  Lumps of black and brown stone poked out of the water. The dark shadow of the submerged path was clearly visible as well, though Adalai suspected the wave action would wash away most people who tried to cross before the tide reached is lowest point.

  Marta walked down to a point just above where the waves were cresting and studied the passage. "How long is this place above water? An hour? Two? Can you really make the crossing in five days?"

  Cassian looked up from the glass container full of a shimmering liquid he was holding in one hand. "Parts of the Drownway remain above water all the time. Those are where we will camp. There are several miles of the path we can cross outside of low tide. That said, there are two low tides every day and we will have to travel during both of them to cross in five days. I hope you're ready for late nights."

  "How is the weather looking?" Adalai asked, gesturing to the other man's instrument.

  "The air is steady and the time of year isn't right for sudden storms. Still, nothing is certain. Did you bring an oilcloth for the rain?"

  Adalai patted his pack. "I am well prepared."

  Cassian studied him critically. "Are you? Forgive me for prying but I am an Ironhand and I don't sense the presence of armor on you. This isn't a safe route by any means."

  Cassian himself had suited his actions to words. In the time since Adalai had last seen him he'd added a breastplate under his doublet, visible under the collar, and a pair of gauntlets. Marta also wore a chain shirt in addition to her shield. It made sense that Cassian would conclude he was the weakest link.

  "Not to worry, signore." Adalai unwound the neckerchief from around his collar to reveal the heavy, reddish leather jerkin under his own doublet. "Salamander leather. Not as strong as mail but much lighter and more comfortable in the heat. Well suited to the journey we are going on, don't you think?"

  Cassian nodded in assent then pulled a folded parchment and a polished piece of tin out of a pouch on his belt. The parchment he handed to Adalai. "That is an copy of my map to the known part of the Drownway. I thought there should be at least two or them on hand in case something were to happen to one. But try not to lose it. The man I borrowed it from will not be happy if it is lost."

  "I understand." Adalai gestured to the tin sheet. "Is that to keep water and damp from it?"

  Cassian grinned. "No, this is to help us see what is ahead of us."

  He balanced the tin sheet on his own palm and then it levitated into the air under the influence of Cassian's Gift. Adalai did not have the broad knowledge of Gifts that the average Neronan did, ye hadn't grown up around them after all. But even he knew about Ironhands. The power to move metal without the need to touch it was really impressive and in high demand in most parts of Neronan society. Adalai had never considered using it in this way, however.

  The mirrored sheet flew up and forward, shifting angles to show them the waves and gradually appearing islands of the Drownway from above. Adalai found himself grinning as well. "Impressive."

  Marta pointed up at one corner of the reflective sheet whet a vaguely humanoid shadow sat on the Gulf side of one of the rock outcroppings. "Is that a person? Was someone else waiting for you, Sir Cassian?"

  Before Cassian could answer there was a sudden crash of water from ahead, salt spray spouting up from the largest visible piece of stone. Two massive shapes reared up, water cascading down around them in sheets. Adalai drew steel faster than thought, shocked that their trip through the Drownway could have met with violence so quickly. Marta brought her shield forward, its painted surface disappearing under a layer of golden light. Cassian's tin sheet zipped down into his hand.

  The two objects turned towards them and Adalai realized he could make out eyes staring at them. They were the heads of some kind of sea serpents.

  "Zalt," Adalai murmured. "What is that?"

  To his surprise Cassian answered, with a deep, long suffering sigh, "That's kismet."