I stopped counting my steps across the ice after three hundred. I couldn’t distract myself from the thought of that gap closing between me and the ship. Between me and you. Issheth, always steps ahead of me, tireless, trying in vain to close her own gap. Frenzied. I kept my eyes on her back. At my belt I had the long knife I used for cutting ballast.

I'd hoped never to be in proximity to a sacrifice or its effects, ever again, but the necklace's mere presence changed things. It burst the bubble in which we lived from week to week, ignoring the past and not thinking about the future. It had to be dealt with.