Daidalos stood at the water's edge, staring at the strait as if it had personally insulted him.
The morning was grey and cold, the sea flecked with whitecaps, the current running fast through the narrows. A dozen men were already in the water—settlement fishermen, the ones who had volunteered when Maea put out the call. They were diving beneath the surface, feeling their way along the rocks, marking the spots where the anchor bolts would be driven into the stone. They came up gasping, their breath misting in the cold air, then dove again.
"The current is stronger than I expected," Daidalos said, not looking at Lysander. "It will tear at the net every day. We'll need to replace the ropes every few weeks. The anchor bolts will have to be checked constantly. If one of them fails, the whole net shifts, and a ship could slip through."
"Can you make it work."
