"Oh, great," she said, for there was no avoiding what had to be done. "Kit, you have anything sharp on you?" He felt around in his pockets. "No such luck, Neets. . . ." "Then find me a shell or something."S'reee's eye glinted in the moonlight. "There are the dolphins," she said. "What do they—oh." The one dolphin still beached, the one who had brought them in, smiled at Nita, exhibiting many sharp teeth."Oh, brother," she said, and went down the sandbar to where the dolphin lay. "Look," she said, hunkering down in front of it, "I don't even know your name—""Hotshot." He gave her a look that was amused but also kindly. "Hotshot, right. Look—don't do it hard, okay?" And wincing, Nita put out her left hand and looked away. "Do what?""Do llllp!" Nita said, as the pain hit. When she looked again, she saw that Hotshot had nipped her very precisely on the outside of the palm—two little crescents of toothmarks facing each other. Blood welled up, and the place stung, but not too badly to bear.Hotshot's eyes glittered at her. "Needs salt." "Yeccch!" But Nita still wanted to laugh, even while her stomach churned. She got up and hurried back to Kit, who was holding her book for her.Together they went over to the terrible wound, and Nita put her bleeding hand to it, turned away as far as she could, and started reading the spell. It w as a long series of complicated phrases in the Speech; she spoke them quickly at first, then more slowly as she began to be distracted by the pain in her hand. And as often happens in a wizardry, she began to lose contact with ner physical surroundings.
