Will stood frozen for a moment outside of the tavern, body hastening to acclimate to the sudden drop in temperature. It was summer, but late evening, and the pub had been crowded and sweaty — even the swamp's warm humidity was a jarring change. The instinctive urge to flee that had surged into her the instant the burly rana grabbed her chose this moment to wane, leaving her shaky and slightly nauseated. It was impossible to believe she'd met Dalia only that morning.

Dalia. She'd probably only known the hibri for — what, fifteen minutes? Twenty? Still, she had left an irreversible mark on Will's life. It was funny how it happened like that, funny in the worst way possible. Lusan, too, had left only a few days after he'd first met her, and yet... and yet the tide bringer had so completely changed everything.

Will took a deep breath, attempting to calm her racing mind. A small flood of ranae in various stages of drunkenness stumbled out of the pub; the jolt of panic they induced was enough to convince her legs to back her into the corner of the tavern's exterior. Her hope was that the shadows would hide her well enough to evade their eyes, and it seemed to work — they didn't appear to be searching for Will, instead trying to get away from something. Something. From the trigger-happy human Will had single-handedly (well, Lusan had a part in it, maybe, and Cybele had sorta helped, but still) inflicted on the village.

For tides' sakes, what was wrong with Will? Why did she keep messing up like this?

"Willa!" Cynth's sharp, razor-edged voice snapped. The last of the ranae scattered into the shadows as the tall, unmistakable human marched out of the tavern, Cybele walking nervously beside her. The darkness muted Cynth's bright hair so that Will could scarcely tell it was blue, and she wondered absently when Cynth had started dyeing it. It was hard to imagine the intimidating Leeyung without her signature, attention-drawing hair.

Cynth's next words shocked her back into reality. "Where the fuck did you go?"

"She — I think she ran," Cybele replied almost timidly. Despite herself, a not-especially-small part of Will tried to decipher the girl's tone. Was she glad for this development? Or maybe just a little distraught? Probably she was indifferent. If the situation were reversed, Will would certainly have been indifferent.

Certainly.

Cynth gave a low, humorless chuckle. "So we finally lost her. Took us long enough."

And then a cold, familiar feeling was creeping through Will. A feeling she'd thought she had left behind forever when she joined Lusan. Took us long enough. This wasn't — it didn't matter. Will didn't give a tide what Cynth Leeyung thought of her, because there was no way in all six moons that Cynth cared whatsoever about the reverse. And, of course, she didn't care what Cybele thought of her. Not in the slightest. So none of this mattered.

And it hadn't mattered when the kids at school laughed about her, either, because they were stupid, selfish little tide bringers. And it didn't matter that Will's mother let out a long sigh every time Will left the hut when she didn't think Will could hear her, because Will had never cared about her mother, and because she had left her to die alone in their tiny hut and no number of sighs could possibly be worse than that.

None of it. None of it mattered.

Cybele gave a small, nervous laugh. "Yeah."

Yeah.

Okay. So maybe Will did slightly care about what Cybele thought of her. But only slightly. And it was something she was working to change. Really, that didn't mean anything at all either.

Will pressed her fingernails into her palms until they stung enough to overpower the burning behind her eyes.

Girls like her — hibri girls, stubborn girls, girls who were mean sometimes for no real reason — they weren't supposed to be the girls who cried. They were supposed to be the girls who laughed when other girls cried, because crying was for the girls who would never do anything real to change the reason behind their tears.

But Will had done something real. Will had done enough real things to kill a hibri, and now she was in over her head and if she started crying it was proof of it. If she turned into the girl who cried then she would never figure this out. She would never un-mess this up.

She had to un-mess this up.

Tremoring ever so slightly, Will stepped out of the shadows and towards her companions, illuminated by the light of the moons. "Uh, hi."

Before Will could even blink, Cynth had spun towards her, gun cocked in her hand. As soon as she saw who it was, her guarded expression relaxed into a scowl. "Oh. You."

"Yeah." A long, soundless pause. "Me."

She was going to fix this.

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They slept that night at an inn a little distance aways from the rana settlement. They'd planned to walk until morning, but Will could tell Cybele was tired — she herself certainly was — and even though neither of them said anything Cynth seemed to sense their exhaustion. Surprisingly, she let them stop, mumbling something about the two being no use if they were going to keep straggling like that. Will came close to crowing that Cynth was a secret softie after all, but her self-preservatory instincts won out in the end and she stayed silent.

In the morning, they started out again. Cynth was the one with the map to Tercy's grave, so she led, — really, there was no world in which Cynth wasn't the one leading — the other two half-walking half-running behind her. Several times Cybele turned to Will and looked as though she was going to initiate a conversation, before appearing to chicken out and go back to trying to catch up with Cynth in silence. Will found this slightly gratifying the first two times it happened; it was nice not to be the only one who sucked at social interactions. It was after the third almost-conversation that she went from silently relating to silently pitying Cybele, and decided to try her own hand at a conversation.

Which started roughly with, "Hi."

And then, "Um."

And then she found herself incapable of speech. Really convenient timing, too.

Cybele gave a small, sort-of-grateful sort-of-queasy smile. "Hi...?"

Will decided it was high time to curl up and die in a hole. Unfortunately, Cynth was directly in front of her and would probably murder her before the hole could if she stopped walking. Instead she started talking more, which was a horrific decision on her part. "So um. How... are you? How is life? And stuff. Ahahaha."

Cybele kept smiling, looking considerably more pained now, and said nothing. Which was highly rude, but Will was willing to forgive her because she was really moons-damned pretty. This probably wasn't Will's best judgment ever.

Almost despite herself, Will opened her mouth to deepen the probably-semi-infinite hole she'd already dug herself into. Luckily for her, it was at that precise moment that Cynth drew to a sudden, abrupt stop. Her voice was edged as she muttered, "We're here, you imbeciles. It would be wise of you to shut the fuck up."

Will shut the fuck up. She did not actually need much prompting.

Cynth was apparently being sarcastic (Will had no idea why, but whatever), because a moment later she resumed walking and they didn't actually reach their location for another few hours. Which were filled with a silence even more awkward than before the failed conversation attempt. Will was really living her best life.

Several hours of tedious, silent walking followed by at least fifteen minutes of Cynth glancing down at the map, muttering indistinctly, directing them in one direction, changing her mind, snapping at them, and repeating later, they finally appeared to have actually arrived. Not that Will actually saw any graves, but Cynth seemed moderately satisfied and so they'd probably found their place. Even though it was absolutely nothing like Will had expected.

The trio was standing beneath a marble archway that led into what appeared to be... a beach. A beach. Will had never been to one before, but it flooded her with memories nonetheless. Her mother had grown up in the sea, and when Will was younger — before she'd stopped listening to her mother — the rana had told her stories about it. Playing with her sister deep under the water, sometimes nearing dangerously close to the shore. Will's mother had never said what happened when Will's father had come, exactly, but Will knew enough from the other hibri's stories and the little she'd gotten from her mother to guess that he'd come on some expedition or something, her mother liked him, they had a little thing (ew), he left to go back to wherever he came from, she'd realized she was pregnant, and the ranae had thrown her out. Tide bringers, though her mother had brought it on herself.

Not what she needed to be thinking about right now. Or ever, to be honest.

Attempting to clear her head, Will glanced around, vaguely surprised by how much the scenery had changed throughout their walk. What had once been thick forestry and foggy swamps had transformed into this smallish, mostly-open beach by the coast. Altiu was Selino's smallest continent, but she was still somewhat impressed by how far they'd traveled.

Past the archway, the paved road (they had only recently intersected with it; before that they'd been trekking through dirt) faded into soft, pearly white sand that stretched relatively far to either side. There was a collection of jagged rocks a little ways away from the shoreline, the area behind it dotted with trees and undergrowth. Will's attention was immediately gripped by the crashing, foamy white waves directly before them — six tides, the tides — but Cynth seemed to be looking in another direction. "Come on," she muttered, before heading decisively toward the rocks.

Startled, it took Will a moment to realize Cynth was addressing her. (Cybele had apparently taken to trailing behind the taller girl like some sort of notably attractive shadow, which actually kind of irked Will off because of Cynth's obvious terribleness and like — Cybele didn't actually mean anything to Will, except she sort of lowkey did, and her "devoting herself" or whatever to Cynth was creepy and weird and made Will kind of question her life choices, but whatever she was gonna put a hold on this thought process.) Unfortunately, she had this realization a moment or two late, and by the time she'd scampered up to the other two Cynth was glaring at her like she intended to murder her. Which was, admittedly, pretty much Cynth's resting face — not that that made it any less scary.

"Sorry," Will squeaked as they approached the rocks, and then, because she clearly just could not shut up, she added a, "...Why are we here exactly?"

Cynth shot her a look of pure, unadulterated disdain. "Why do you think, Willa?"

Will didn't respond, because she honestly had no idea.

Once they'd gotten close enough to examine the rocks, Cynth finally relented. "It's because we're looking for a grave, you idiot. It has to be here."

"Couldn't it technically be in the water, though? Or something?" Oh my moons she needed to shut up. "I mean, Tercy was a rana. Ranae live underwater, mostly. Maybe they put it in a... I don't know. Some sort of, like, box? So it doesn't compose?"

To her surprise, Cybele was the next to speak, voice quiet. "No, it's — it's here. Look around. The archway? The white sand? Humans buried this rana, and behind these rocks is the only place with enough concealment they'd think to do it."

So, smartness was officially sexy.

Without waiting for more interjections, Cynth strode past the rocks. A moment of silence passed before a self-satisfied smile crawled up her face. "Found it," she crowed.

Will ran around the rocks so fast she stubbed her toe.

And... holy tides. Because up until now, this was pretty much some elaborate, murderous moonshit. Even that Zair guy, and whatever in moons' name happened in that tavern... it wasn't real. Exactly. The sources were the sources. No one found the sources. This didn't — even Cynth didn't have that power.

Except, there was a tombstone. And written on it in the rana language, which Will could actually sort of read, was the name Tercy Cess.

Six tides.

And then Cynth started laughing. And a part of Will thought maybe somewhere inside she'd been as incredulous as Will was, and really they weren't so different after all. And a part of Will thought this girl who couldn't be more than, like, seventeen, legitimately sounded like one of the villains in the little plays they used to put on in her village and how the tides had she even mastered that?

People clearly had layers, that was all Will could say.

And, oh my moons, now Cynth was pulling out her gun. Why did she need her gun? If she shot Will right then —

But Cynth didn't shoot Will right then. Instead, she did some fancy scan-y thing with the gun over Tercy's name, which made Will realize two things. One: she had zero significance to Cynth and wasn't even important enough to shoot, which was strangely comforting. Two: she knew the rana language and the other two didn't, and if she let that slip Cynth would probably maybe think shooting her was more of a good idea. So her problem right now was actually being too smart. Which was also strangely comforting.

While Will had that epiphany, Cynth began poking around the grave, brushing off sand and stuff. Cybele walked up behind Will, took in the scene, and gave absolutely no clue to what she was feeling about this situation. She was so mysterious. It was kind of hot.

And then Will realized one final thing, which was that she literally could not look at Cybele without reflecting somehow on her hotness and kind of needed to quit the denial stuff.

Okay, whatever. Apparently finding humans attractive was a part of her genetics.

Moving on.

In her peripheral vision, Cynth stiffened, and Will turned toward her to see the blue-haired girl pulling something — a piece of paper — a map — out of a little slit in the side of the tombstone.

Holy. Tides.

The hideous old rana... hadn't been lying.

And now, kind of at-least-indirectly because of Will, a human — two humans — had a map that would lead somehow to the sources.

Six tides. Six tides. SIX —

"Um... guys?"

Will turned back toward Cybele, mind still racing. What if she — ripped it? Or something? And, like, made it look like an accident? Would Cynth still kill her for that?

And then her vision focused, just as she heard Cybele add, "We have a problem."

Okay. Okay. What in the tides? Okay.

There was... a group. Heading toward them. Of various species. And various levels of apparent anger and/or confusion and/or panic when they noticed Will, Cybele, and Cynth. (The caela looked like she was about to faint, while the anguis next to her appeared positively gleeful.)

The anguis-human hibri (Will assumed; he had a bunch of scales) who appeared to be leading them was the first to speak. Slowly, he mumbled, "What the hell?"

Yeah. What the hell was right.

That was when Cynth started shooting.

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wE TOLD YOU SHIT WAS ABOUT TO HIT THE FAN HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

PREDICTIONS? FEARS? THOUGHTS?

We won't say much else, but thank you to food_is_my_jam for this delightful chapter! Keep our spam book handy and expect more bonus content coming over the next few weeks because we pity you with these cliffhangers. See you next week, Almonds.

With virtual hugs, purple Google features, and demonic writer laughter,

Gregarious Ferret Colleagues

(G.F.C.)