The hook came down before Jiang managed his third breath.
It swung from the balcony on a wet rope, its point wrapped in pale hide. Whoever held it had tried to make a weapon look polite.
The tide ray saw the shape, not the wrapping.
Its back dropped beneath Jiang. Water swallowed his belly, rushed under his damaged feathers, and found every patch where the molt had left skin bare. His claws scraped across the animal's scar and missed the old bronze loop.
"Tir, pull it up!" the silver-braided woman shouted.
The rope went taut. The hook kept falling.
"I need the carrier," a man answered from the higher balcony. Two fingers on his hauling hand bent sideways around the rope. "Elen has one mask left."
The ray struck the chamber with its fin.
Green water climbed the balconies. People threw themselves against the walls. Jiang slid down the ray's wounded side and saw the hook turn toward the breathing slit he had just freed.
The silver-braided woman drew her broad knife.
