The Ninth Pool

About this book

Sigrun Aske cuts ice for a living. In Hallvik, on the frozen northern Skerries, people bathe alone, sleep in wool and keep their hands to themselves, and Sigrun keeps hers in gloves. Her bare palms can read the history of any water, but living bodies flood her with more heat than she can stand. Then the springs of Vessary start to cool. Vessary is a steaming bath city where councils sit half-naked in hot pools and a touch is only a greeting, and its Council hires her to find out why. They lodge her with Maro Velline, steward of the oldest bath in the city, a man whose hands read muscle the way hers read water. Her fee will rebuild her storm-wrecked harbor at home. All she has to do is write the report the Council wants. But every time Maro touches her, she learns something true.