The Second Moon

There were two moons over the harbor, one in the sky and one on the tide, and they did not match. The envoy waited on the drowned step as if the mismatch were a clock.

“Tomorrow the court will ask you to name me a threat,” he said. “If you do, the tide leaves the palace and takes the lower city instead. If you do not, they will say you have chosen me.”

“And if I have?” Sol asked. She had not meant to. The second moon flickered, pleased.

“Then we sign the way the pact prefers.” He lifted his hand, not to take hers, to show it empty. “No paper. No witness. You say nothing in the hall. I say nothing in the water. What we keep is the part neither of them can tax.”

She did not take his hand. She stood so their shadows met on the wet marble, and the tide, for the first time, went back down a finger’s width. In the palace above, someone began to write a report. The ink would not hold.