Prologue

We don’t steal from the river.

The banks are hushed in this hour of reverence. Dark clouds roll in, fat and straining at their seams; they drift toward the quay, a great black whale in a sea of silver and green pines. Yet no wind dares stir the mist resting above the water. No bird trills or flutters.

From the old bridge, I flick a faded silver coin over the half-wall. I watch it join thousands of others at the bottom, all shimmering in the dawn. A pleased chill winds along the river’s edges. It threads through my hair, before dissolving into the rest of the mist. The scent of the Great Rains clings to the air. I breathe it in, smiling.

A group of children play by the water’s edge. The soot-covered matron keeps watch, hunched near her coals, brow creased, tending the cinders. I watch, too. She slaps dough onto smoldering embers, flipping the half-cooked rounds with deft, time-worn hands. Flame licks up at her apron and she swings it away. For a moment she sees me and offers a polite smile, as she often does.

The children shriek and chase and laugh, building entire kingdoms from nothing but sticks. And then, one boy who knows better, stumbles toward the edge of the water. He kneels where the river laps at his toes, drawn to the glittering depths. I stiffen, and the matron jolts up to her feet. We both watch him, waiting.

He dips his arm into the shallows. I stifle a shout because the matron is already storming toward him, calling his name stern and low. I lift my eyes to the clouds, and she does the same. They have not yet crossed the sun. There is time, still.
The boy ignores the matron’s scolding and reaches for a handful of coppers. They slip through his fingers. He tries again. And again. Finally, with a huff, he drops into the rocks, pulling his arm out empty-handed.

The water stills. The other children’s laughter fades now, replaced by the soft murmur of the breeze.

Good boy, I think, leave it be.

Then, a ripple. A single copper rises to the surface. My heart stops and the matron freezes, eyes fixed on the boy.

He takes it happily, a satisfied smirk spreading across his face. The matron and I both let out shaky sighs and she lunges toward him, skirt billowing. She bows her head to the water, pressing a kiss to her fist. With a sharp tug, she hauls him up by the ear, chastising him all the while. The other children are called home, giggling and teasing him.

A swollen cloud finally smothers the sun, and the matron hurries the children inside a leaning cottage. Its door slams shut behind them. As the light withers, the glitter vanishes, taken by the blackness. In its place, hundreds of white, bloated husks rise, lurking under the glassy divide. The living above, the dead below. This is our bargain.

One grins, lips peeling back over rotting teeth, my coin pinched tight in its fingertips. I see myself in its eyes and do not look away.

We don’t steal from the river. And the river provides.