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Emma inhaled in relief and satisfaction, straightening her back. The ship lurched. Off balance, she teetered and clutched at the rail. Her wet boots skidded on the slippery deck. No. Oh, no.
A cold wave rose and crashed over her, smashed over her, sluiced over her, ripping the rail from her grasp and sweeping her feet from under her.
Voices shouted. Hands grabbed. Too late.
She heard a rushing in her head, a roaring in her ears. The wave dragged her from the ship, and she toppled down, down into the cold, hard sea.
The shock knocked the air from her lungs and jarred her to the bone. A raging chaos engulfed her. She was numb. Blind. Cold. Her mind froze. She could not breathe. Water pulled at her skirts, dragged at her boots, spun her this way, tugged her that. Her petticoats floated and clung, trapping her like a fish in a net.
The boat. She needed to reach the boat. She was rolling, tumbling, sinking in the surge.
She was drowning.
The realization stabbed her like a knife. Like the lack of air.
She struggled, kicking with her sodden boots, flailing with her feeble arms. Something smooth and heavy glided against her legs, a shadow moving under her in the clear, cold dark. Horror clawed her.
Shark.
It circled higher, brushed by her, pushed more insistently. Terrified, she struck out, as if she could push the monster away, and touched fur, slick and flowing against her hands. She tightened her grip reflexively, dug her fingers into soft, thick pelt. Muscle rolled, flexed, and surged. Her arms jerked. Her shoulders strained as it pulled her through the freezing dark, towing her with fluid power. Up and up, the heavy, sleek body moving under her own, lifting her, supporting her, carrying her toward…
Light.
Her head broke the surface of the water. Her hair plastered her face like seaweed. She gasped, choked, inhaled.
The cold, briny air seared her throat and burned her lungs.
She retched and would have gone under again.
But her rescuer was there, big as a horse or a mattress, bumping and rubbing against her, bearing her weight. She clung instinctively to its bulk, felt its breath hot in her face, felt its…whiskers?
She blinked salt from her eyes, struggling to focus. Roman nose, round, dark eyes, thickset, powerful body—
A seal.
Wonder bloomed in her chest. She had been saved by a giant seal. With a band of scars around its neck. Its breath flowed over her again, warm and salty sweet, drugging as wine. Her senses swam.
No, she thought. She must swim. The boat. She had to reach—
The world whirled away from her, flowed away from her in streams of green and gray. Her vision was shot with gold like the sea on a sunny day. The ocean rushed
in her ears, its melody rising in her blood, humming in her head, muffling the frantic beat of her heart.
Her lips moved soundlessly. No, she tried to say. Really…
Darkness.
Quiet.
Nothing.
TWO
Her bed was wide and soft. Emma drifted, floating with fatigue, buoyed by a dream. She didn’t want to wake up. She was warm and dry and—
Naked.
Her stretching foot paused. Gooseflesh tingled her arms. Emma had not slept naked since…She never slept naked. The school was too cold. Her musty mattress at the boardinghouse had been infested with vermin. Even on board ship, she had—
