Her hands were shaking. Her heart was hammering. Everything was too bright.

  Oh... her first emotion. And a good one, apparently.

  Cassandra realized she was still staring at the water.

  "Are you..." She swallowed hard. "Are you also going to die?"

  Damon examined his shoulder. "Probably not right away. Hurts like Hades, though." He began working at the net with shaking fingers. "Let's get you loose before I pass out and we both end up as fish food."

  The knots were tight, made worse by seawater and her struggles. Damon cursed under his breath as he worked, blood from his wound making everything slippery.

  "There." The net finally loosened. Cassandra pulled her arms free, wincing as they woke up for the first time.

  Damon slumped against the boat's side, breathing hard. His rugged face had gone gray around the edges. "Need to get moving. Other boats'll be coming back soon. Don't want to explain why my partner's bait."

  Cassandra looked around the small vessel. Nets, oars, a water skin, some dried fish. Nothing that looked remotely medical. "Your wound looks..."

  "Fine. I've had worse." He tried to reach the oars and swayed dangerously. "Maybe not recently, but worse." The movement pulled his tunic tight against his shoulders, revealing an unhelpfully distracting build.

  "Let me." She suddenly moved toward the rowing bench, then paused. "...I've never actually rowed a boat before."

  Damon's laugh came out bloody. "Course you haven't. Well, time to learn. It's either that or we drift until I bleed out and you starve."

  The oars were heavier than they looked, awkward in her soft hands. Her first stroke sent them spinning in a lazy circle. She started splashing the oars. This was weirdly fun.

  "Slow down." Damon muttered. "Pull toward yourself. Both oars together. Good. Now again."

  Her back ached within minutes. Blisters formed on her palms. But gradually, clumsily, she managed to point them toward shore.

  "Where exactly are we going?" she asked between strokes.

  "Village. About a mile north." Damon had pressed his shirt against the wound, but blood still seeped through. "Penthesilea will patch me up. She's good at that sort of thing."

  "And me?"

  He studied her with eyes that were growing increasingly unfocused. "That's up to her. But she's fair. Fairer than most. And she doesn't suffer fools gladly, so keep the strange stories to a minimum."

  Cassandra tried pulling harder on the oars. She started seeing grey instead. Fifteen minutes. Her first emotion lasted fifteen minutes.

  The shore was getting closer, but Damon was getting paler.

  "What kind of stories would she believe?"

  "The kind that don't involve falling from the sky." He managed a wry smile.

  The village materialized from the coastal haze. Her Academy lectures hadn't included the smell--fish guts, burning garbage, and human waste. Her stomach rejected it all.

  "Charming," she gasped, wiping her mouth.

  "Wait till summer," Damon said. "Really gets fragrant then."

  The harbor was a beach with some wooden posts driven into the sand. Several boats were already pulled up on shore, their owners mending nets or sorting catches. As Cassandra struggled to bring their boat in, heads began to turn.

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  "Damon!" A woman's voice carried across the water. "You're early today!"

  "Had some trouble," he called back, though his voice was getting weaker. To Cassandra, he muttered, "Don't mention Alexios unless someone asks directly. Let me do the talking."

  The boat scraped against sand. Hands reached to help pull it ashore, then stopped at the blood.

  "Gods' bones, what happened to you?" This was from a burly man with scary arms and fish scales in his beard. Lunch, probably.

  "Knife accident," Damon said. "Happens all the time."

  "Where's your partner?" another voice asked. "Where's Alexios?"

  Cassandra felt her stomach drop, but Damon caught it with his words. "Fell overboard about an hour out. Couldn't find him." His voice carried just the right note of exhausted grief.

  The fishermen exchanged glances. Men were lost to the sea regularly; it was an accepted tragedy. But their attention had already shifted to the blood-soaked stranger sitting in the boat.

  "And who's this?" The burly man's eyes narrowed as he took in her pale skin, pointed ears, foreign features.

  "Found her floating," Damon said. "Figured Penthesilea should have a look."

  Before anyone could ask more, a new voice cut through the murmur.

  "Right. Everyone back to your nets before you start thinking."

  The crowd parted, and Cassandra got her first look at Penthesilea.

  She was older than expected, maybe fifty, with gray-streaked hair bound back in a practical knot. Her hands were stained green from whatever she'd been grinding, and she moved through the crowd with the confidence of someone who'd been patching up idiots for decades.

  The fishermen grumbled but dispersed. Penthesilea waited until they were out of earshot, then gestured toward a weathered tent.

  Inside, the air was thick with drying herbs and the sharp smell of whatever poison she'd been brewing. Bundles of plants hung from most surfaces, and clay pots lined makeshift shelves. She pointed at a stool.

  "Sit. Shirt off." She began gathering supplies from various containers. "Let me guess. Knife slipped, Alexios fell, pure accident. How long did it take you to rehearse that?"

  Damon eased down with a grimace. "Not long enough, apparently."

  "No." She began cutting away blood-soaked fabric. "He went for your heart and missed. Amateur." She examined the wound with detachment. "If you're going to stab someone, make it count."

  Cassandra shifted on her stool. "You're not going to report this?"

  "Report what? That the village drunk finally picked the wrong fight?" Penthesilea poured a substance that reeked of rotting flowers onto a cloth. "Alexios has been asking for this for years."

  She pressed the cloth to Damon's wound. He went rigid. "Though I should mention, his gambling debts didn't die with him."

  "What do you mean?" Cassandra asked.

  "Blackwater privateers. Alexios owed them more coin than this village sees in a year." Penthesilea threaded a bronze needle. "They collect at market day. And when they can't collect from the debtor..." She shrugged. "They get creative about finding compensation."

  Damon went paler. "They'll come for his associates."

  "Oh yes. And with her looks?" Penthesilea glanced at Cassandra's pointed ears. "Running won't help. They'll track you down eventually."

  Cassandra watched the needle work through torn flesh, but her attention kept snagging on Damon's exposed torso as Penthesilea worked. The play of muscle beneath sun-darkened skin, silver hair mixed with black across his chest, the way his breath caught with each stitch. Details her divine eyes recorded with unwanted precision. She shifted on her stool, suddenly aware of her own pulse in inconvenient places. Focus, you idiot.

  "So what do we do?" she asked, forcing her gaze away.

  "You make yourself valuable. Valuable enough that the villagers won't let anyone take you." Penthesilea tied off a stitch. "Market day's coming up. Prove you're worth protecting."

  "How?"

  "By solving a problem that's been bleeding this village dry." Penthesilea's eyes glinted. "Kyros the grain merchant has been shorting people for years. I haven't gotten to him yet."

  She reached for a clay tablet covered in scratches. "His records from last week. Tell me what you see."

  Cassandra scanned the figures. Every transaction rounded to exact amounts. What a scammer. "He's working backward from the totals he wants. Definitely cheating."

  Penthesilea grinned. "Smart girl. Now comes the hard part. Proving it publicly."

  "His brother's on the council," Damon said, testing his shoulder. The movement made his tunic gape. Cassandra noticed the bandage stark white against his skin, the way muscle shifted beneath. "Always smooths things over."

  "Which is why we catch him in the act. Market day. He'll be selling." Penthesilea moved to a corner and unwrapped dried kelp. Bronze discs gleamed underneath. "Proper weights. His fake ones stay in a wooden box during market."

  "You want to switch them out?"

  "Nobody watches the weights. They watch the grain."

  "Until someone notices..."

  "Which is why you need a distraction." Penthesilea fixed Cassandra with a look. "Something only someone with your education could provide."

  Cassandra stared at the bronze weights. Her gaze drifted to Damon's bandaged shoulder, the line of his jaw. Fresh blisters erupted as she clenched her fists.

  "What happens if this doesn't work?"

  "Then you hope Blackwater is feeling merciful when they come collecting," Penthesilea said. "Though I wouldn't count on it."

  She considered her options. There weren't many.

  "Show me," Cassandra said finally.

  Penthesilea grinned evilly. "Of course."