"The winehouse sent it up this morning."

Ah. That kind of accounting. The owner was fast with his figures. Then again, he'd probably started tallying costs the minute the first winejar was flung.

I waited longer, anticipating a discussion of Herakleio's continued failings and her expectations of my plans to correct them as soon as humanly possible.

Instead she said, "I shall be extending your term of service."

There are times I can be as cool and calm as Del. Or the metri. This was not one of them.

Alarm bells went off. Noisily.

I hate alarm bells. And so I told her explicitly that I was under no "term of service," nor had any intention of being held accountable for the damage done to the wine-house by her relative, nor would pay a single whatever-the-lowest-coin-of-the-island-was when I had been on her business in the first place bringing her errant heir home. At her request.

"I shall be extending your term of service," she repeated, "to cover the cost of the damages for which you are responsible-"

"How in hoolies am I responsible?"

"-and to further educate Herakleio in the proper ways of manhood." She fixed me with a cold stare. "That was neither proper manhood nor acceptable behavior."

"Well, then I guess I'm not the man for the job," I shot back. "We might as well just call it off right now. And you can find someone else."

She arched expressive brows. "And how then shall you discharge your debt to me?"

"In the South," I began with careful precision, "such things are often settled in the circle. If you would care to hire a sword-dancer to contest this debt, I will be more than happy to meet him in the circle."

"Her," she said.

"What?"

"Her," she repeated.

"Who her-?" And then I understood.

I don't know how much of what I said the metri understood-likely none of it, since it was a polyglot of languages and none of it polite-but the tone was clear enough.

Finally I ran out of breath. "No," I said simply.

"She has already agreed."

"Del agreed to this?"

"She explained that sword-dancers dance for coin and debt dischargement as well as for honor."

"Doesn't matter," I said crisply, refusing to acknowledge her accuracy. "I'm not going into the circle against Del."

Not ever again. Never.

"She has agreed."

"I don't care."

"You yourself suggested I hire a sword-dancer to contest the debt. So I have done. And now your part is to meet her." She smiled faintly. "Happily, I believe you said."

"I won't do it."

"Then you have no choice but to agree to my extension of the term of your service."

"I have every choice," I retorted. "I refute your reasoning, to begin with-I did not personally, as far as I know, break a single table, or even a lamp; fingers, maybe, and a jaw or two, but the winehouse owner can't exactly charge me for that, now, can he?"

"Discharge the debt in coin, or accept additional service with me." She gestured regret and helplessness. "What I ask is not unfair. It does not approach usury."

"Maybe slavery."

She disapproved. "Hardly that."

I shook my head. "I could walk out of here today, right this minute, and get the hoolies off this gods-cursed island." Which was beginning to sound like the only possible course of action.

"And have you learned to swim?"

I frowned. "What has swimming to do with it?"

"How do you propose to get off this gods-cursed island if you cannot swim?"

"Little matter of boats," I answered. "You know-things that float."

"But none of them will float for you."

"Unless you have somehow contrived to sink all of them, I suspect I'll find one that'll float for me."

"You have no coin."

"I'll work for my passage."

"For whom? No captain will hire you on."

"No?"

The metri smoothed a nonexistent crease from her tunic skirts. "Have you not yet come to realize that the very reason people desire power is so they may use it?"

"And?"

"And," she continued, "I have sent to have your description carried to the owners of every ship, every boat, every raft on the island. You are an easy man to describe; one need only tell about the scars on your face."

There were things a man might do to disguise himself, but peeling the skin of my face off was not one of them. "And?"

The metri smiled. "I have power."

It took effort to remain calm, with the ice of apprehension spilling down my spine again. "The Stessoi are one of eleven of the so-called gods-descended families," I said. "Of those ten others, I have no doubt one among them will be pleased to put me on a ship. Because when you have power, you also have enemies."

Her smile was gone. "They will not aid you."

"No?"

"I own every grapevine on the island," she said simply.

"So?"

"Would you have them denied wine-or the income from its trade-because of so little a thing?"

We locked glances for a long moment, weighing the quality of mutual determination. Neither of us so much as blinked.

"So," she said eventually, "you have found me out."

"And you me."

"And I you." She relaxed in her chair, loosening only slightly the rigidity of her spine. "I should be grateful that you are as willing as I to stand your ground simply for the sheer ability to do so, no matter the consequences, because such men are occasionally valuable, but…"

It wasn't like her to not finish a sentence. "But?"

"But it makes our situation more difficult."

"In what way?"

The metri's cool glance appraised me. "In the matter of honor, a man may choose to be manipulated. Through custom, if nothing else; or perhaps he has no temperament for finding the way to win if it entails hardship in his house."

"A woman is indeed capable of causing hardship in a house," I said dryly.

"But a man who makes a rock of himself, a mountain of himself to stand against the wishes of the wind for the sake of honor or intransigence can only be moved when the gods decree it. As they decreed Skandi should break itself apart so many years ago."

"I rather like the idea of being a mountain."

"You promise to make a substantial one," she agreed with irony. "But you forget one important thing."

"And what's that?"

"I am gods-descended," she said with startling mat-ter-of-factness, "and I can break apart even the largest of mountains into so much powder and ash."

"You," I said finally, "are one tough old woman."

"So old?"

I displayed teeth. "Older than the rocks."

It did not displease her. She was beyond the flatteries of youth and the needs of middle age. "So old," she agreed serenely. "It is well you recognize it."

"Herakleio doesn't stand much of a chance."

"Herakleio stands no chance," she corrected. "No more than you."

"Ah, but I'm the mountain."

"Mountains fall."

I smiled back. "And become rocks."

"But I am the island," she said, "and the island shall always prevail, even in catastrophe."

"Is Herakleio a catastrophe?"

"He has it in him to become one," she said, amused, "but I think he will not. He claims the stubborn fickleness of a child trying to make a path where no one has gone before, but lacks the werewithal to insist. He will turn back."

"Then you don't need me at all."

"I need you," she told me, "for things you cannot imagine."

I went very still. "And is that supposed to make me feel better?"

"What it isn't," she said, "is to make you afraid." She smiled faintly. "Do you think I intend to draw you into deadly and dangerous plots?"

"I think," I said, "you would. If you felt it would benefit you. Now, as for me-"

"I need you," she repeated, "for things that will strengthen this household."

"What I need," I said, "is to get off this island."

"What?" It was false amazement, dry as dust. "And not take your place as heir to Akritara?"