Felicity left the cubs eating porridge with Finch in Tidehaven's guest quarters. She told them she'd be back for supper if the road was clear, and promised to send word if it wasn't. Frost considered that for a minute, then asked whether he could finish hers before it went cold. It was the first time he'd let her leave without watching the door. She got half a block from the gate before she had to wipe her eyes on Victor's sleeve.
"I know there's a clean cloth in my pack," she told him. "The point of having an enormous husband is that occasionally the sleeve is right there."
"That's interesting. I thought the point was that I came with breakfast." He bent and kissed the top of her head. Then his hand came up in a fist, and everyone on the road stopped. In front of them, a street market stood empty under torn strips of shade cloth. Stray dogs had been barking behind them since they crossed the wall. Nothing in the market moved, even with the smell of bones and old fish coming off the stalls.
"Formation C," Victor said, and the team spread out. Rose murmured something rude about men who thought the alphabet counted as instructions. Felicity understood her feelings. Voss was walking backward down the next lane with a spear in his hand, Tommy had gone to her right and everybody seemed pleased with where the fox was standing. It might have been nice to tell the fox.
"Where do you want me when something comes up out of that drain?" she asked. Voss took in the loose iron cover she'd been watching and shifted over a pace.
"Right there until I hold up two fingers, then back to the fish stall. I can see both lanes from here, and you can reach any of us. We built this one around you after the fight at the bank." That felt considerably better than being told to stay in the middle because she was small. She pulled her hands out of her pockets and counted the open doors for herself.
The drain cover jumped. Behind it, bodies poured out of the market stalls in two lines. Victor froze the first row in place and broke it with fire before the second could climb over. On the east side the street dipped away. More dead came up that slope than Voss could keep pinned, and Tommy stood over the storm drain, looking down at his hands as if he wished somebody else had been issued them.
"Remember the rat who grabbed my bag at the bank?" Felicity asked. "You knocked him halfway up the wall, Tommy. The water's already under your feet, and you've got a whole street to aim at this time."
"I hadn't meant to put him quite so high," he admitted, catching his breath. She put her hand on his arm and gave him the little extra steadiness he'd asked of her without words. The cover lifted, water rolled over its lip, and he swept the feet out from under the first six dead. The next lot got caught in the pile. Before they got their balance, he'd washed the whole mess to the bottom of the slope.
He had just enough time to enjoy it before the pavement split between him and Victor. A thing built out of bodies dragged itself into the light, three mouths opening in a back made of twisted arms. The flood had stripped the loose dirt off its hiding place. Felicity could see the metal post under its weight bending toward them. Voss held up two fingers. She caught Tommy by the belt and took him behind the fish stall with her as the post came down across the drain.
There was enough water around the thing to float a car. What Tommy needed to know was which part of that weight he had to lift. "Get the water under its belly," Felicity told him. "Victor can reach it from above if you can get it off the ground."
Tommy lifted both hands. The thing rose inside a turning column, all those arms grasping at water they couldn't hold. Felicity kept her light on him while Victor spread frost into the column at its base. Tommy drew the chilled water higher and kept it tight around the creature until the last joint froze. Only then did he pull the rest of the water away. Suspended in its coat of ice, the beast hung there for the length of one breath before Victor drove a burning blade through its chest.
Voss pulled her under the stall counter as bits of frozen corpse rattled off the boards. His arm was around her and his nose was in her hair. "In case you were curious," he said, "this is the bit of formation C I made up just now."
"Very promising, apart from the fish." She had a cold sardine stuck to her knee. He flicked it off without missing a beat. Out in the street, Tommy stood looking at the ice he'd helped make. He was still looking at it when she told him he'd done beautifully. Ash had to give him a hand getting over the curb on the way home.
The gates opened before dark. Felicity felt her level edging past forty-eight. When Pia asked, she said, "You should've been watching Tommy." Pia paid them with rooms looking into the basin, a bath, clean bedding and enough beds for the whole team. Luna was thrilled about the fish swimming past her window. Voss was rather more interested in how many people on the public walkway could see the beds. At his request Victor hung a spare blanket across the glass when the children changed for supper.
Calder found their door before the dishes were dry. He congratulated Victor, then turned to Felicity. "I watched what happened to that thing under the market. I grew up around mines. Break enough stone and you learn where to put a finger to feel what's carrying the load. That whole fight turned when you put your hand on Tommy."
Felicity put her dishcloth down. "He held it. I'd like him to hear you say that if you've come about the fight."
"Fair enough. If you ever want work with Breakwater, I'd find you a place." His smile shifted toward Victor when she told him she was happy where she was. "I don't particularly mind competition."
"That's a funny word for my wife already having answered you," Victor said. He closed the door while Calder still had the smile on his face. Felicity could feel the chipped marble in her pocket where Luna had warmed it between her hands at supper. This place had given her family dinner and a roof. Since yesterday she'd also seen how quickly the water in these walls answered Pia's guards.
"Voss, do you think this is the only way into our rooms?" she asked. He took her hand and brought it to a smooth joint in the doorframe, still warm from the water running through it. There was no bolt on their side.