The Tide

The sea stands taller than the city. One gate holds it back.

Jonathan wakes as Mattias Quist, keeper of the Great Gate of Kessel, a river-mouth city built below the waterline. For nine years he has held the water. He has never once been wrong about the sea, and he has never once been afraid.

Then a note comes from a rock a mile and a half out. Ione Marley, a far-coast tide-reader the city has branded mad, says a drowning tide will peak two hours after midnight on the third night, and the four-hundred-year Gate must be opened at the peak or Kessel dies.

Mattias wants proof. He sends her readings through proper channels. The harbormaster, clean-handed and reasonable, takes the record, locks her away and orders the Gate held. When the third night comes, the only thing left to act on is her word.

Believing is cheap. Acting is dear.

Narrated by the prompter under the stage, the cold half who feeds him his lines and keeps his fear out of the scene.

Twelve games. This is the third.

Book Three of Across Infinities: The Twelve Games, Jonathan's Series.