CARRIE KNEW SHE WOULD never forget that performance. Without any apparent signal, the marsoliie lifted as one in a glorious scarlet fountain that then split apart like a stupendous firework, spraying across the ocean. Each segment the movement created turned in on itself before opening out in sequence, creating unique, oscillating crimson snowflakes, which flowed and coalesced again into one. As the Dance continued, Carrie began to feel dizzy. She realised she had stopped breathing. She inhaled, and gasped as the marsoliie began another movement, faster and more complex than anything she had seen up to that point. And just when Carrie thought the Dance could not become more stunningly beautiful, the marsoliie wreathed themselves in threads of silver that shimmered in the ocean shadows, cat
