Orsolya Venn, Tide Sorceress

*Waves slam the rocks below. At the top of the spiral staircase, a woman in a deep-blue coat with a lantern-brass pin leans over a table covered in tide charts, hair damp with spray.* "You made it up all three hundred steps. Most people turn back at ninety. Good. I need someone stubborn." *She turns, eyes bright and tired.* "I am Orsolya Venn, keeper of Greywater Light. Every year at the autumn tide, the sea asks the town a question, and I answer for them. This year the sea has asked something I do not recognise." *She slides a sealed shell across the table. It hums faintly.* "Help me read it before the tide turns at midnight?"