Three days after the shark attack, it rains.

As he lies flat on his raft, Andrew thinks at first that the wetness on his cheeks is from his tears. But there isn't enough moisture left inside him to even wet his tongue. The only other explanation his groggy mind can come up then is that the gods, perhaps finally taking pity on him, are shedding tears on his behalf.

It's then that he hears the growl of thunder, and his eyes open just in time to see rain.

He's stupid.

Andrew scrambles up, craning his head as high as it will go. His body vibrates as a million needles pierces into his flesh, puncturing him with invigorating iciness. Andrew gasps as his sunbaked skin crackles, a mixture of pain and euphoria. He doesn’t shy away from it. Instead, he lifts his arms up high as if to catch the bounteous droplets as they fall. After drinking his fill, he remembers his containers. He clambers over to the raft’s center. He places both his boots upright. Then, grabbing the hood he has severed from his coat, he lifts it up over his head with both hands like an upside-down cap.

Now he even looks stupid. But he doesn't have anything else.

To Andrew's growing dread, the rain begins to weaken. Through the fabric of the hood, he can feel the drumbeats slowing down, stopping altogether a few minutes later. Fiercely disappointed, he brings the hood back down to check how much rain he has caught.

It's barely even wet.

Andrew gives the fabric a few licks before tossing it down. He goes to check on his shoes, only to discover something even worse.

Genuine leather absorbs water, Andrew knows that. He also knows that the shoes he wears are synthetic leather, which doesn’t. So it makes sense that, as long as he removes the cotton soles, his footwear can be repurposed into water-holders instead of water-absorbers.

As Andrew lifts one of the shoes up to his mouth, a single droplet falls onto his waiting tongue. He gives the shoe a shake. Nothing. He almost screams.

Andrew throws the shoes down in disgust, then immediately races after them as they bounce towards the sea. Sitting down, he turns the shoes around in his hands and examines them carefully. Although he is sure he's right about the synthetic part, it seems he hasn't taken into consideration the shoe’s stitching.

Cheap shoes don’t have very tight seams, it turns out. And water, as it turns out, has a tricky habit of escaping.

Andrew places the shoes back down. He cannot believe his lack of foresight. How can he not have taken seams into consideration? How can he have allowed the gods’ gift to go to waste like this?

And as a result, he will suffer for it.

Instead of feeling sorry for himself, Andrew gets angry. He glares at his discarded shoes, at the ocean, at the sky that is once again brightening like it never rained. Heat once again encompasses the world, and when Andrew draws his hands across his face, he can already feel grains of salt clinging to his skin.

Sea salt.

Poison.

Andrew gazes out at the vast oceans that surround him. An endless supply, all lost to him because of such simple particles of...

Andrew lifts his hands up to the sky and watches as sunlight causes the tiny crystals to glisten. And as he stares at them, an idea starts to form inside his head.

What if he can remove the salt from the water? After all, the main reason why ocean water is deadly to him is that the human kidney cannot get rid of the salt within it. But supposed he can somehow extract that salt before it enters his body? Will that not work?

Andrew looks around his raft. He needs components. But in his haste to escape the island, he’d packed nothing and left with only what he had on his back.

It'll have to be enough.

Andrew goes over to the pile of his clothing he'd taken off previously. Picking through it, he takes stock of what he has. A cotton shirt, moleskin trousers, and a pair of socks and shoes are the materials he has to use. Of course, he has his underwear, but he doesn’t want to be fully nude. The reason is simple, though foolish. While he wants to think it's because he isn’t some kind of savage, the truth is that Andrew still finds himself wondering if Victoria Summers is watching him from somewhere. Maybe from the water, maybe from behind a cloud in the sky. He knows it's a stupid fear, but he fears nonetheless.

By the time Andrew gets to work, the sun has reemerged and beats down with its full, relentless energy. Andrew twists his shirt into a length of rope, soaks it wet and ties it around his head. It helps to cool him down. Then, placing his trousers down next to his shoes and socks, Andrew thinks through his next steps carefully. The theory is straightforward enough. He just has to transmute the fake leather shoes into a proper bowl. He knows by heart the circle and characters he must use, and he will offer the cotton in the moleskin trousers as fuel for the reaction.

The practice is another story, though. It always is.

Andrew crouches down and gets ready. Reaching over the edge of the raft, he dips a finger in the water and draws a circle on the wood. Inside the circle, he writes the character he knows that means change, and places the trousers, socks, and shoes beside the character. But then he changes his mind and takes out the socks.

I may need them to keep warm.

Andrew has to move quickly. The water is already evaporating. Any change in the circle’s structure or the words inside it can be disastrous. He places both hands down onto the wood and, after a quick prayer to the gods above, begins the process of playing god.

The sky rumbles with the sound of rippling waves. The circle begins to glow. Streaks of lightning erupt from the characters inside it, engulfing the materials in blooming roses of fire. Andrew’s hands grow hot, scalding. He keeps them pressed against the raft, feeling splinters dig into his fingers. Light encompasses sight so he closes his eyes. In his mind, vision is clear. Andrew sees the shoes in front of him lose shape, becoming amorphic. He wills into being the change he wishes to see.

It's working. Andrew feels it working. He opens his eyes a sliver, watching as the lightning disintegrates his trousers into fine dust. Next to it, something takes shape in the light. From within the fiery reaction, a round leather bowl is spit out onto the raft's deck. Andrew is overjoyed. He shifts focus onto the other one that's still lost within the amorphous chunk. But he notices with alarm that the trousers have all been consumed. And then a gust of wind blows past, carrying the rest of their ashes to the sea.

Realization hits a split second too late. Pain pierces into Andrew’s fingers as lightning crawls up his wrists. He yanks them away from the circle. Sparks fly as the transmutation is broken, blinding him as a vicious wind slashes across the ocean's surface. Andrew staggers back, clutching his burning hand to his chest as he tries to keep himself from tripping off the shaking raft.

He crashes onto the raft's solid surface, rolling so his back is to the sparks.

Eventually, the wind dies down and it's quiet again.

Andrew is lucky. That's the first thought that runs into his head the moment his senses return. A few seconds later, his sight comes back too. And though he is still in pain, Andrew is able to see that both shoes are gone. In their place are round, leather bowls. One is double the size of the other, likely due to the unstable reaction at the end, but they both look seamless and Andrew isn’t dead or missing a limb, which is more of a success than he honestly expected.

Andrew turns to the sky and closes his eyes, murmuring,

“All this, for a drop of water.”

Going to the water Andrew checks his hands. The left one is missing a chunk of skin, exposing the oozing flesh underneath. One nail on his right ring finger is gone too. Andrew plunges his hands into the ocean, almost losing himself from the sharp agony. But he knows he is lucky. Beyond lucky. The lightning could have taken more. It could have ruined him as it did to Doctor Davis and everyone who has ever used the devil's tools.

Andrew lifts his hands from the sea. Blood mixes with the saltwater, dripping onto the wood like the tears of the goddess, promising Andrew with each drop that soon, the lightning will ruin him.

It will.