She had already identified two promising deposits on the descent, and she pointed at the east shelf before Mavrek could direct her. "That vein -- the one running under the green weed line. If the shell grit separates cleanly, it is a better spectral match for the north panel than anything in the workshop stores."
Mavrek looked where she indicated. One beat. Two. "Aye," he said. "Possibly. It will depend on what sits beneath the surface bloom."
"Which I intend to find out before we lose the tide." She adjusted the strap on the sample bag. "Fetch, do the sting-creatures respect urgency or must I negotiate with each one individually?"
Fetch swung his basket down onto a high shelf. "East lip for the blue deposits. West pools for red-brown if you enjoy disappointment. Yellow-stone where the sting-creatures hide, which means Mavrek gets first pass there unless you fancy a swollen hand for your trouble."
They moved eastward in a loose line over the exposed stone. The trip gave her what she had told herself it would: useful deposits, clear light for classification, access to source material unavailable in the workshop. It gave her other things as well.
Maximum visibility, for one. She could feel the settlement behind them on the atoll walkways, not as individual eyes but as the fact of being in view from nearly everywhere. No walls to place her back against. No door to mark and measure.
Mavrek set down a small oil flask on a dry rise of reef and reached for the ties at the neck of his work shirt.
Iva looked at the nearest tide pool with violent professionalism.
Too late. She had already seen.
He stripped to the waist as matter-of-factly as another man might roll up sleeves. Green-dark skin bared to the sun, broad shoulders, the old pigment marks along his forearms running upward into faded traces across one side of his chest where years of work had stained him permanent. The scale of him looked different in full light than it did in the workshop. Less enclosed. More obviously powerful.
He uncorked the flask and poured maruk oil into one palm.
The scent came on the wind at once. Salt, warm resin, crushed green things, sun on wet stone. He spread the oil over one forearm, then the other, over chest and shoulders with the practical economy of routine. The sun caught on it. Amber gloss over green skin. Pigment-stained hands moving with no more sensuality than if he were oiling a tool handle. The lack of privacy in the act made her think, unhelpfully, of ceremony rather than pest control.
That lack of performance was the problem.
"Repels the needle jellies," Fetch said helpfully from somewhere to her right. "Also the little biting things with more opinions than sense."
Mavrek dragged his shirt back on, tying it loosely open at the throat because the sun was already hot on the flats.
The mineral deposits were worth the discomfort. A blue-gray bloom at the rim of one deeper pool broke clean under her knife and promised a better match for the northern flood line than anything she'd yet ground from workshop stores. A seam of pale shell white beneath it showed unusual density, finer-grained than market stock.
She knelt with both hands on the reef and chipped samples into her bags while the sun climbed and Mavrek's scent drifted in and out of range on the salt breeze.
Halfway through the morning Fetch produced a heel of rush bread from somewhere on his person and split it three ways without asking, dropping a piece on the stone beside each of them as he passed. Iva ate hers with mineral dust still on her fingers. Mavrek ate his standing, one foot braced on a higher shelf, looking out toward the open channel with the absorbed expression of a man checking weather.
They chewed in companionable silence for one minute, which was the most ordinary thing that had happened to her in Brineshell and landed, absurdly, harder than most of the extraordinary ones.
At midmorning they reached a long tide pool cut into the stone like a glass wound. Fetch veered off toward the shallower west lip after a stand of trapped weed.
"Take the deep pocket here," he called back. "Best blue deposits are under the rim. Worst footing too."
So she and Mavrek went down together to the deeper edge where the mineral lip darkened under the water line. He set his basket beside hers and crouched opposite her across the narrow pool, one forearm braced on his knee. Oil still caught a low shine on the skin between wrist and cuff when the sun shifted.
Iva fixed her attention on the deposit.
She slid her fingers under the water to feel for the crust line and misjudged the pocket depth at once. The reef dropped away farther than it looked; her hand went in to the wrist, struck slick stone, and skidded. Not a fall. Not even close. Just an ugly little loss of precision, enough to knock her balance forward and send a splash up the front of her skirt.
She righted herself immediately and kept hold of the knife. No exclamation. No invitation for concern.
Mavrek watched. He did not reach across the pool to steady her. His gaze simply took in the wet cuff, the corrected angle of her hand, the new caution in her knees.
"The rim shelves under on the east side," he said.
"I gathered that."
"Aye."
Then, while she was still inwardly cursing the whole scene, he asked, "Who taught you to read minerals by decay rather than fresh cut?"