Born in a crevasse beneath the rich, volcanic black sand of a small island just off of Sicily's southeastern coast, Eric Millman was raised by a communal web of thirteen octopi, each imparting upon him a spirit of limber, passive hunger. They spoke to him of chance encounters with pirates and balladeers, of narrow misses with the region's ancient fishermen, of the impassioned partisan who took refuge in those anonymous waters during wartime. All told, they pumped him full of a sort of brazen phosphorescent brine to render him impervious to the elements, ever-perceptive of shifting weather patt...