Chapter 4

Maud received me in the map room, where the floor was a mosaic of Bellwether and the walls were lined with tide charts. She had the tide-ledger open on the table, its brass key still in the lock. Lottie's debt token lay beside it.

"Your sister is well," Maud said. "She has been given shoes."

"Let me see her."

"After you agree."

"To what?"

"To ring the Bell at high tide tomorrow night. The Black Tide is coming. If the Grief is not bound, the lower district drowns first. Then the stilt markets. Then the palace. I have done the arithmetic."

"You've known the Grief was my mother. You let me think she drowned."

Maud's face did not change. "Would you have dived if you knew?"

I hated her for how reasonable she sounded. "You want to chain her to your bloodline."

"I want to chain her to Bellwether. My bloodline is Bellwether. I have ruled this city for twelve years. I have kept the tide out. I have fed the poor when the guilds would let them starve. I am not a villain, Wren. I am a woman with a city on her back."

"You're a woman with my sister in a cell."

"Yes." Maud closed the tide-ledger. "And I will put her on the binding altar if you force me. The ritual requires a sacrifice to hold the Grief's attention. A Warden's blood calls it. A child's fear keeps it still. That is not cruelty. That is the contract."

I wanted to throw the brass key at her head. Instead, I looked at the map. The flooded cathedral was marked in blue. The lower district was marked in red. The Black Tide was a black arrow from the east.

"If I ring the Bell," I said, "you release Lottie."

"After the binding."

"Before."

"During." Maud's eyes narrowed. "She will be at the cathedral. When the Grief bows, she walks free. You have my word."

"You don't have a word."

"I have a city."

I thought of Pell in a cell. Of my mother in the water. Of Lottie's rag doll floating face-up. I needed to be at the Bell. I needed to see the inscription myself. I needed to find a way to break the cage without becoming the next lock.

"Fine," I said. "I'll ring it."

Maud nodded. "You will be taken to the cathedral at low tide tomorrow to prepare. The tide-priests will teach you the words. Do not try to run. The lower district is already flooding. There is nowhere to go."

She let me see Lottie for five minutes.

They had put her in a room with a real bed and a window that looked out at the sea. She was wearing shoes that were too big. When she saw me, she ran into my arms and held on so tight I felt her heartbeat through my ribs.

"Wren, I don't like it here. The lady has a cold voice."

"I know, minnow."

"Are we going home?"

"Soon," I lied. "I need you to be brave. Can you be brave?"

She nodded against my shoulder. "You'll come back?"

"I'll come back."

I did not tell her what I planned. I did not tell her that I had a dive knife hidden in my boot, or that I meant to cut the binding ropes before Maud could use her. I did not tell her that the Bell was a cage, and that our mother was inside it.

I only held her until the guards pulled me away.