“I am sure it was,” Wintrow replied. And wondered why he was so sure.

The evening wind was welcome after the heat of the day. Even the ordinary ships seemed to speak softly to one another as they creaked gently beside the docks. The skies were clear, promising a fine day tomorrow. Althea stood silently in Vivacia's shadow and waited. She wondered if she were out of her mind, to fix her heart on an impossible goal and then depend on a man's angry words as a path to it. But what else did she have? Only Kyle's impulsive oath, and her nephew's sense of fair play. Only an idiot would believe those things might be enough. Her mother had tried to seek her out through Vivacia; perhaps that might mean she had an ally at home. Perhaps, but she would not count on it.

She set a hand silently to Vivacia's silvery hull. “Please, Sa,” she prayed, but had no words to follow those. She had seldom prayed. It was not in her nature to depend on anyone else to give her what she wanted. She wondered if the great Mother of All would even hear the words of one who usually ignored her. Then she felt the warm response from Vivacia through the palm of her hand, and wondered if she had truly prayed to Sa at all. Maybe, like most sailors she knew, she believed more in her ship than in any divine providence.

“He's coming,” Vivacia breathed softly to her.

Althea moved a step deeper into her ship's shadow and waited.

She hated sneaking about like this, she hated having brief, clandestine meetings with her ship. But it was her only hope of success. She was sure that if Kyle had any notion of her plans, he'd do anything in his power to thwart her. Yet here she was, about to divulge those plans to Wintrow, and all on the basis of a single look exchanged with him. For a brief moment, she had seen her father's sense of honor in the boy's eyes. Now she was going to stake everything on her belief in him.

“Remember, boy, I'm watching you,” Torg's voice boomed nastily in the stillness. When only silence greeted this announcement, he barked, “Answer me, boy!”

“You didn't ask me a question,” Wintrow pointed out quietly. On the docks below, Althea gave the boy marks for guts, if not wisdom.

“You even try to jump ship tonight, and I'll kick your ass until your backbone splits,” Torg threatened him. “You understand me?”

“I understand you,” Wintrow's slight voice replied wearily. He sounded very young and very tired. Althea heard the slight scuff of bare feet, and then the sound of someone settling wearily to the deck. “I am too tired to think, let alone talk,” the boy said.

“Are you too tired to listen?” the ship asked him gently.

Althea heard the indistinct sounds of a yawn. “Only if you don't mind if I fall asleep in the middle of whatever you want to tell me.”

“I'm not the one who wishes you to listen,” Vivacia said quietly. “Althea Vestrit waits on the docks below. She is the one with something to say to you.”

“My Aunt Althea?” the boy asked in surprise. Althea saw his head appear over the railing above her. She stepped silently from the shadows to look up at him. She could see nothing of his face; he was merely a darker silhouette against the evening sky. “Everyone says you just disappeared,” he observed to her quietly.

“Yes. I did,” she admitted to him. She took a deep breath and her first risk. “Wintrow. If I speak frankly with you of what I plan to do, can you keep those plans a secret?”

He asked her a priest's question in reply. “Are you planning on doing something . . . wrong?”

She almost laughed at his tone. “No. I'm not going to kill your father or anything so rash as that.” She hesitated, trying to measure what little she knew of the boy. Vivacia had assured her that he was trustworthy. She hoped the young ship was right. “I am going to try to out-maneuver him, though. But it won't work if he knows of my plans. So I'm going to ask you to keep my secret.”

“Why are you telling anyone at all what you plan? A secret is kept best by one,” he pointed out to her.

That, of course, was the crux of it. She took a breath. “Because you are crucial to my plans. Without your promise to aid me, there is no sense in my even acting at all.”

The boy was silent for a time. “What you saw, that day, when he hit me. It might make you think I hate him, or wish his downfall. I don't. I just want him to keep his promise.”

“That's exactly what I want, also,” Althea replied quickly. “I'm not going to ask you to do anything wrong, Wintrow. I promise you that. But before I can say any more, I have to ask you to promise to keep my secret.”