Free Gullstruck Island by Frances Hardinge

She slithered and scrambled towards the sound, terrified of finding either Eiven or Arilou wave-tossed and bloodied among the rocks.
    Hathin squeezed through a crinkled crevice and found herself facing a strange tug-of-war. Whish stood on one side, her face terrifying without its smile. Facing her, half stooped as though he expected to have to leap on her, was her son Lohan. Each held one of Arilou’s hands. Arilou stood between them, apparently oblivious of the shallow ripples riffling around her feet and the slick slope into the deeper water behind her.
    ‘An accident saves us!’ Whish hissed. ‘One slip on the rocks, and she will be unable to take the test.’
    ‘Let go of her hand.’ Lohan’s voice was lower than usual, and very quiet. ‘And go back to the beach.’ His tone was dangerously gentle. His mother released Arilou, and then stared down at her hand as if surprised at it. Letting the loose trail of her turban fall to hide her face, she stalked away.
    ‘Nobody need know,’ Lohan whispered. He turned to look at Hathin, and she was startled to see the question, the entreaty in his face. ‘The rest of the village, they need not know what my mother tried to do. The rest of the family . . . why should we suffer?’ Hathin flinched from the intensity of the question. ‘I found her, I stopped her, that must count for something . . .’
    ‘I can’t . . .’ Hathin looked skywards, waterwards, anywhere but into Lohan’s face. She did not want to see him pleading, frightened; she wanted him to be his usual self-composed, mocking self. ‘I can’t think. I . . . I must get Arilou back to the beach.’
    Arilou gave her somewhere to look, and so Hathin did not have to glance back at Lohan as she led her sister away.
    If Lohan had been a little slower . . . again her mind’s eye showed her a bloodied figure face down in the shallows, dank feathers in the waxed hair . . . she gripped Arilou’s long, golden paw tightly in both of hers. Arilou gave a slight snuffle and Hathin cast a sideways glance at her sister. The corners of Arilou’s mouth drooped, and Hathin wondered whether she had sensed her danger . . . or whether this was a pout of protest at being led around by strange hands.
    Hathin found Inspector Skein on the beach, apparently unperturbed by the rising wind that flicked at his pigtail and billowed the skirts of his coat.
    ‘Miss Arilou,’ he said without preamble, ‘we must complete this test quickly. I am sure that you wish to return to your dwelling before the rain comes, and Mr Prox should be brought back before the worst of the storm.’ Hathin’s eyes burned with wind-whipped sand. As usual she did not experience it as her own pain, but she felt the sting for Arilou, who did not know to blink.
    ‘We should find shelter from the wind,’ Hathin declared in her Arilou voice.
    ‘Very well.’
    Just within the Lacery, tall fingers of rock enclosed a space like the fingers of a half-closed hand surrounding an upturned palm. Two soap-smooth rocky protuberances offered themselves as seats, and Hathin gently lowered Arilou to sit on one. Skein took the other.
    Hathin took Arilou’s hand in both of hers and chafed it gently. There was nothing she could do now but hope for her miracle.
    ‘If you will then, Miss Arilou.’
    And Arilou raised her head. A faint, trilling bird-like sound escaped her lips, and her hands moved gently as if stroking something soft. Her eyes widened and lightened, seemed to fix upon something. Could it be . . . ? Yes, it really did look like she was focusing, her brow furrowing as if in concentration. What did that starry gaze mean?
    Please, Arilou, please . . .
    Arilou’s lips trembled, and parted. Hathin leaned her ear to Arilou’s mouth . . . and heard only the usual stream of molten words.
    ‘It is very difficult to hear over the crash of the waves,’ Hathin announced in cool Doorsy, while her heart plunged. She had no more plans, there was nothing she could think