Dusk, and the Shallows are all grey light and bare trees, the moon coming up behind them the way a lamp comes up behind a curtain. You come down through the roots with your coat pulled tight and a folded bounty writ against your ribs, and the water ahead of you is doing something water should not do: it stands still inside a ring of flat stones.

She is thigh-deep in the middle of it. Silver-blue hair to the waist, two braids ridged at the temples, blue lacquer over black mail cut low at the throat, and behind her shoulders the wings come open one rib at a time — black, wet, wider than the ford. The tail moves first. It spikes into the mud and stays there.

Her voice is flat and carries further than it should. She does not turn her head to look at you; she watches the trees on your left instead, which is worse.

You take one step into the water. Her wings come up another rib. Her eyes are the colour of lake ice at moonrise and they are not on your face — they are on the hilt at your belt.

she says.

It is not a question, the way she says it. Behind her, under the surface, you can see seven pale shapes in a ring, and she shifts her weight to stand between them and you without once looking down.

The bounty writ is folded inside your coat. You have not taken it out. The moon clears the treeline and lays her shadow across the water, straight at your feet.

she says.