The surge was coming. Jasper knew before the harbour alarms changed. He stood in the internal shelter with Harper on one side and Ava on the other while rain battered somewhere beyond several layers of stone. The communication panel hissed with static. Professor Elowen had one hand pressed to her earpiece.

"Crowe," she said, "Jasper says something large is moving toward the outer gate. Status?"

Static answered first. Then Professor Crowe's voice broke through. "Control room clear. Two maintenance staff still crossing the upper dock bridge. Thirty seconds." Jasper's chest tightened. The Water Titan was close enough that the pressure of its attention filled everything else. Not a voice. Not a thought he could translate neatly. Movement had gathered beyond the gate, enormous and unavoidable, while the damaged channel remained partly blocked. Thirty seconds was too long. Jasper did not decide to reach. That frightened him afterward, because the difference between deciding and doing turned out to be much smaller than he had hoped. The shelter disappeared from his awareness.

For one impossible instant he felt the harbour from somewhere that was not human. Water pressed inward from the open coast. Timber jammed against stone. A work barge pulled against its lines. The narrow gate wanted to open and could not. Above all of it were two tiny points of warmth moving across the bridge. People. Jasper's own fear seemed ridiculously small beside the force pressing through the channel. He held one thought as clearly as he could. Wait. The contact struck through him like cold water. His knees weakened. Elowen caught his shoulder.

"Jasper?"

He barely heard her. The Titan's response was not anger, and it was not agreement. It was urgency. Pressure. The blocked gate. Water forced where there was no room for it to go. Now. Jasper gripped Elowen's sleeve.

"People," he managed.

Ava understood first. "He's telling it people are still there." Harper stared toward the wall as though she could somehow see through it. The expected surge did not arrive. Ava looked at the clock. Five seconds passed. Then ten.

Jasper could feel the strain in the contact. The Water Titan was not politely waiting because a seven-year-old had asked. It was holding against its own movement for reasons Jasper did not understand, and every second made the pressure harder to bear. The communication panel crackled.

"First worker clear," Crowe said. "Second moving now."

Jasper's hands began to shake. Elowen crouched in front of him. "You can stop."

"I don't know how."

"Then do less. Do not push."

Deepwater flashed through his mind. To hear is not to rule. Jasper shut his eyes. He stopped trying to hold the Titan back. He stopped trying to make anything happen at all. Instead he pictured the bridge. One person still crossing. Then the protected door. Empty bridge. No people beside the gate. Crowe shouted through the panel. "Clear!" Jasper let the picture change. Nobody there. The Water Titan noticed. That was the only word Jasper had for it. Something vast turned its attention across the image he was holding, and understanding passed between them without becoming language. The people are gone. The pressure released. The surge hit.

Even inside the windowless shelter, everyone heard it. A deep impact travelled through Tidefall's foundations, followed by the groan of water forcing through stone. Several children screamed. Harper grabbed Jasper's arm. Ava's map slid from her knees. For several seconds the communication panel went dead.

Jasper felt debris turn in the current. The blocked timber shifted. The gate moved. Water burst through the harbour entrance and spread into the space built to receive it. The pressure inside Jasper's chest widened. Not happiness. Not gratitude. Flow. Then the Titan's attention withdrew from the tight point around Tidefall. Crowe's voice returned through the static, breathless but clear.

"Gate open. Timber cleared. Harbour taking overflow. No injuries."

Noise erupted around the shelter. Somebody cheered. Other students joined in because relief needed somewhere to go. Teachers told everyone to stay seated. Jasper did not cheer. His legs were shaking too much. Harper crouched beside him. "Did you stop it?"

"No."

"But it waited."

"I asked."

Ava picked up her fallen map.

"And then?"

Jasper looked at his hands. "Then it chose." Elowen's face had gone pale, but her voice stayed steady. "That is the part you remember." Jasper nodded. The Water Titan had wanted the channel open. Jasper had wanted two people out of the way. For a few seconds, they had understood enough of each other for both things to happen. That was not control. It was much stranger than control. Outside, the storm kept raging.