The first thing Seraphina felt was the salt. It wasn't just a scent; it was a physical weight, crusting in her eyelashes and burning the raw skin of her throat. The second thing was the silence. The roar of the Blue Grotto's collapse had been replaced by the rhythmic, indifferent pulse of the Mediterranean tide.
Seraphina opened her eyes. The world was a blur of sun-bleached white and jagged grey. She was lying on a strip of "The Shore of the Dead"—a stretch of coastline north of the ruins where the currents deposited the debris of shipwrecks and, occasionally, the bodies of those who crossed the Commission.
She coughed, a violent, lung-wracking sound that brought up a mixture of seawater and bile. Every muscle in her body screamed in protest as she pushed herself up onto her elbows.
"G
