Page 21 of Fated to the Fang

"Seven passengers. Two crew. One child held the memory longest and started crying before Greer finished taking names."

Celeste's mouth tightens. "Public attack, then."

"Public enough to make a point. Quiet enough to bury under weather."

"And Avery heard it."

"She heard the scream. Saw the boat. Saw the tourists afterward."

"And Owen?"

"Photographed the approach."

"Owen is developing an unfortunate habit of becoming useful."

"That habit is why he's alive."

She glances at me. "For now."

I lay the Saltline strip beside the photographs: tide codes, charter times, Cradle Skerry as a handoff point, Avery's survey window in another hand.

"They had her schedule."

"They knew she'd be on the skerry?"

"They knew someone would. The route was cleaned before she arrived, but not well enough."

"Then the tourist boat may not have been random."

"No. It was a correction. She found the island route, so they made the next incident somewhere public to pull her back to shore."

Celeste reads the frames again. "They wanted witnesses."

"They wanted damaged witnesses."

"And Avery?"

"She was meant to hear about it. To follow the pattern. To feel responsible for not being on the boat, then guilty to feel the need to keep digging."

"That is precise."

"It is personal."

Footsteps sound below the chamber stairs. Celeste gathers the photographs but leaves one visible: the blurred figure on the bow.

"Helena has called the chamber," she says. "Not because Avery saw you heal this time. Because Avery keeps standing beside evidence before we can bury it."

The undercroft holds the cold with lamps low. Helena stands at the head of the table, not seated.

"You let a human walk from a rogue incident with photographs, witness impressions, and her memory intact."

"The alternative was losing her knowledge that she's building on."

"I've read your route. It's good work. It's also why she cannot keep being permitted to collect incidents faster than we can contain them. She has the cove, the tunnels, the skerry, Saltline, and now a tourist boat full of damaged witnesses. Put that in a human mouth in any town and we end."

"You want her stopped."

"I want her contained. Cleanly. Move her funding, move her access, move her if you must. If she forces the question, the law permits memory intervention when secrecy is at risk. Do not make me spend that law because you are reluctant to disappoint her."