Mira was halfway down Kelpbone Steps when the first stone slipped.
She froze with one hand on the damp rail. Below her, the cliff path curved toward the lower cove, where the skiffs waited for sacks of seaweed and jars of salt. Above her, the harbor wind nosed at her yellow oilskin coat and then darted away again, as if it had heard something it liked.
A rough wave had crashed hard against the black stone in the night. Now the edge of the path at Kelpbone Steps looked tired and frayed. A small crack ran through the next landing. A pebble clicked loose, bounced once, and vanished into the gray water far below.
Mira leaned forward to look. The broken stretch was bigger than she had thought. The safe way down to the lower cove did not look safe at all anymore.
From the landing above, Sella’s voice called, “Mira? Is that your name or did the wind say it?”
Mira turned. Sella, the tiny shell seller with the round hood and paint-smudged fingers, was clutching her basket of shells and staring at the gap in the path. A moment later Bran came into view too, tall as a doorway, with patched boots and a coil of rope over one shoulder.
Bran peered down once and gave a quick, brave grin. “I can go over it,” he said.
But the crumbled edge shifted under the wet spray, and Mira heard the little stone click again.
If nobody found a safer way before the tide turned, the lower cove would be cut off. Mira looked from the break in the path to Sella, to Bran, and back to the falling stone. She could ask Bran to try first, or ask Sella if she knew another stair, or call for help from the upper harbor before anyone stepped too close.
What happens next?
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