The big wave didn't carry Wind in.

It carried him out.

He paddled — but a rip current slid him sideways, then handed him to another — and that one poured into the Pineapple Waterway: a long amber road in the sea.

"Wind!" Sophie's voice came thin, far, far across the water. "Keep your head up! Watch and think!"

He wrapped both arms around his paipo. It was all he had.

The shore grew small fast. And then there was only blue.