From the boat the singer looked less like a creature than a piece of shore that had forgotten to hold still.
Its surface carried translucent ridges. Small fish sheltered in the grooves between them, fleeing outward when the broken pulse began. Beneath the breathing arch, blue light glimmered through a curtain of long filtering whiskers.
Deren stopped rowing well short of it.
“Here?” Ysabet asked.
“Here is close.”
Ashaun sat in the bow with her right hand around the gunwale. Each pulse tightened her fingers. Ysabet watched the swelling. It lifted during the inward breath and folded against a mineral plate when the singer pushed water out. Something dark lay beneath it, with a curved silver edge.
They waited through three cycles.
On the fourth, Ashaun struck the gunwale with the heel of her hand.
