The second wave smashed into the city with all the spite of a toddler destroying a rival’s sandcastle. What little was left of the wharves was swept away. The houses overlooking the glorious sea were decimated and collapsed. The marketplace was toppled and flooded. Water rampaged through the avenues, climbing up to the higher level of the city, where the wealthier abodes now perceived their end.

  Ylia had thought quickly on her feet. Xheng’s belt, it turned out, was a length of hempen rope. Evidently, this was some nautical trick, whereby he never wished to be without it. She had tied the rope around her waist and then around each of the three. The knots were not particularly good, but they would have to do—time had run out.

  “It’s now or never, Urgal,” she said.

  The cat yowled.

  She started to climb up the side of a house, using the thick ivy and the ornate ornaments wrought into the stone as handholds. It seemed the occupants of the house had either fled the city, or fled to some underground basement to wait out the storm. Either way, no one opposed Ylia clambering up the side.

  Urgal climbed more swiftly than she, using his immense claws to dig into the stone where necessary. His eyes were manically wide. She had rarely seen the cat afraid, but clearly these elemental forces were enough to spook him.

  Why were there two waves? She could not get the question out of her head. One, she could understand as some freak accident of nature. But was it natural for the waves to gather themselves again for another assault? Surely, once the tsunami had spent its energy, it would simply recede? She knew little of these matters, so knew she should not be wasting mental energy considering it, but the phenomenon struck her as odd.

  The rope tugged at her waist. Usually, when one climbed, one wore a rope anchored to something higher up, not dragging on the ground.

  Her hope was that when the waters came, the others would not be swept away so long as she could hold tight. She knew it was equally as likely that she would be dragged off the wall, to drown with them, but it was the only chance she had of saving her friends, so she was willing to attempt it. She could never have lived with herself, leaving them their, unconscious, to be swept away.

  She was about eight feet high when the wave reached them. The waters roared beneath her feet, wetting her soles. She saw Jubal, Xheng, and Qala borne up in the waters. The rope around her waist constricted and tugged. She gasped with pain as it squeezed on organs. She felt the weight pulling her from the wall and one hand slipped loose, but she quickly reapplied her grip.

  “Gods!” she hissed. She placed her right foot on the head of a gargoyle, bracing herself. The rope was taut as the bodies were dragged along with the current, but thankfully its momentum had been greatly slowed by its destructive path. The full force of the tsunami would have swept her off the wall in a heartbeat, but this was manageable. Well, for a few seconds more at least.

  She gritted her teeth, tried to reach up to the next handhold, but the weight of her friends—even though they were floating—was too great to allow her to move up even an inch. Her thigh muscles burned and sweat slicked her back and palms. She was very physically strong for her size, but this was at her limit.

  Come on. Reach!

  She tried again to obtain the next handhold—a thick vine—but every time she tried to push upward the rope dragged her back in place. Her foot slipped on the gargoyle and she let out a scream.

  Urgal, she saw, had now gained the ceiling of the building, and was looking down at her with concern. He lay flat on the roof and extended a paw down in an oddly human gesture. But he was too far to reach.

  Her muscles spasmed. Her tendons felt like they had been stretched out of shape, too long for the contours of her body. Her toes screamed as they tried to find purchase on the wet stone through her boots. As the waters flowed under her, they splashed and spattered on the statuettes and fences and ornaments, soaking her legs in a cold that was starting to make her lose feeling.

  I can’t hold on much longer… I can’t…

  She squeezed her eyes tight shut. Prayed.

  Then she felt the weight suddenly released.

  Opening her eyes wide, expecting some miracle, she saw instead, with horror, the leader and his team of assassins had somehow gained her side of the street; there was a place where two of the taller buildings leaned closer together than at the base of the street. She had seen Telos’s displays of agility and knew a trained man could cross the gap. She cursed.

  The assassins held the rope, the line to her waist cut. They dragged Qala and the others towards them. They fished Qala out of the waters.

  “Please!” Ylia cried. “Just drag the others to safety.”

  The leader looked at her. His eyes were cold black stones.

  Never breaking eye-contact, he cut the rope a second time. Ylia screamed. Jubal and Xheng sank back into the waters.

  “You bastard!” Ylia screamed.

  Freed from the weight, she began to climb, fury taking over her limbs, re-energising them. Gritting her teeth, she leapt from handhold to handhold, determined to catch the assassins.

  But they were already gone. And Jubal and Xheng were being pulled away with the full force of the current.

  She was not looking where she was going. So intent was she on the others that she missed her next footing and slipped. This time, she did not rectify the mistake in time and plummeted down towards the vengeful waters. Urgal let out a yowling shriek. She had less than a second to take a breath before the saltwater punched her in the face like an angry drunk. She did not sink so much as somersault, the water immediately throwing her over and over, as if deliberately trying to disorientate her. She felt like dough in the hands of a vindicate baker.

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  The violence of the water caused her to gasp in shock. Water flooded her lungs.

  Gods! Lileth! Nereth! Anyone!

  Father!

  Over and over, lungs filling, choking, she span and sank, darkness enveloping her. She had no clue where she was, how deep, or which way up was. The tide carried her along in its fury and she felt as powerless as a babe. The elemental fury cared not whether she lived or died. She was mere flotsam.

  And then light.

  Light perforated the darkness, swordlike. The cold was banished in an instant and like a baby born via caesarian she was wrenched from the sea’s womb, spluttering and coughing up salt-bile.

  Her eyes widened in wonder.

  A golden light beamed down at her. The source: a ship of gleaming, phosphorous metal, warping and changing every second as her eyes tried to accurately discern its shape, but were defeated by some geometry unknown to her. And in the centre of the light, framed by it but also seemingly emitting it, was a man. She was being lifted up, gathered up by the light, and the nearer she drew to its source, the more of the man she saw.

  The shocked words left her lips before she could think.

  “Beltanus’s balls,” she choked. “It’s the pretty thief!”

  Telos grinned.

  He looked much the same, save that he was wearing a strange suit of armour that looked like it was fashioned from huge serpent scales, and with a curious metal box affixed to his spine.

  A second later, she was in his arms as he threw a warming blanket about her. She stood amidst the golden light—which was some kind of chamber.

  “We must find the others, Beltanus!” Telos called.

  Beltanus? Ylia thought. Surely I did not hear that correctly?

  And yet, where else could she be, but the ship of a god? Unless, of course, she was dead, which was the other thought that had occurred to her.

  “You’re not dead,” Telos said, reading her thoughts. His grin was wide enough to split his face in two. “Though a minute more and you would have been. It’s good to see you, Ylia. I missed your—”

  It is rare to witness a perfect punch. And even rarer to be the one to throw said punch. But Ylia’s punch was, for all intents and purposes, perfection. Telos’s head snapped back and he clutched his nose.

  “Ow!” he cried, rubbing his face furiously. Ylia was quite startled the nose had not broken, her punch had been so on point, though secretly she was quite glad she had not marred his features. She did enjoy looking at his face, for all his flaws.

  “That was for letting me believe you were dead, you bastard! I actually mourned you!”

  She regretted saying it the moment the words left her lips, for his grin grew wider and more boyish still.

  “I told you you were fond of me, Ylia.”

  “And you still owe me two-hundred Demons,” she said, choosing to ignore his moronic remarks.

  “I’m back from the dead and riding a sky-ship of the gods, and all you can think about is money, Ylia? I must say: I am disappointed!”

  Ylia rolled her eyes.

  “You are insufferable!”

  “But do I get any thanks for saving your life?”

  She supposed he did, though she was not ready to say it out loud. But where is Qala being taken to?

  Ylia turned back to the open portal, which allowed them a view of the waters below. She saw no sign of Jubal or Xheng, but a moment later, the beam shot forth again. Ylia felt nothing more than a tingling sensation now that she was within the ship, but she saw the waters illuminated and turned translucent. The forms of Jubal and Xheng were bathed in light and lifted out of the watery embrace, drifting towards them.

  “Hang on one minute,” Telos said.

  Jubal floated towards them first. Telos reached out and took up the theront in his arms. Ylia’s eyes widened as she saw Telos carrying the huge bull-man as though he were a child. Is that some kind of effect of the ship? It looked like Telos was simply that strong…

  Telos lay Jubal down gently on the floor, with so little effort Ylia’s eyebrow raised. Telos took Xheng next, and laid the captain beside Jubal.

  It was then a door slid open and a strange man—abnormally tall—entered. Like Telos, he wore a strange suit of armour fashioned from the scales of a huge serpent. His features were skeletal but oddly alluring, like a flower that one knew was poisonous, yet inspired awe with its ravishing colours.

  “Ylia, this is Danyil,” Telos said.

  Danyil nodded to her. “A pleasure to meet you, Ylia Hart.” The way he said those words gave her the impression that he knew a lot more about her than he was letting on, but she held her tongue, as more pressing matters beckoned.

  Danyil knelt by Jubal and Xheng. He began to utter a soft prayer in a language she did not understand, though snatches of it sounded vaguely familiar from when Qala had healed Jubal’s arm. Light blossomed from Danyil’s palm; iridescent serpents uncoiled, twinned, then sank into the chests of Jubal and Xheng.

  Simultaneously, both the theront and captain coughed and rolled to one side, vomiting water onto the deck of the ship.

  Xheng sat up, his face contorted from the taste of the seawater.

  “That’s the third time I’ve had more seawater in my lungs than air. But I still haven’t grown to like the taste.” He grinned, then did a comical double-take when he saw the slender Sumyrian crouched over him. “Is this… is this the Seventh Gate?”

  “I think that’s everyone,” Telos bellowed, to whatever unseen hand guided the ship. The ship began to rise.

  “No! You forgot Urgal!” Ylia cried.

  But a second later, a blur of turquoise whipped past her as the huge felidae pounced into the golden chamber, slamming into Telos. To her surprise, Telos was not bowled over, taking the full brunt of the cat’s weight. Telos laughed and endured the cat’s slobbering kisses, stroking his thick mane.

  “You are a wet and mangy boy. But oh how I have missed you!” Telos cried.

  Ylia rolled her eyes.

  The cat purred.