Her words echoed Mingsley's too closely. Paragon laughed aloud, a harsh booming that woke the cliff birds and sent them aloft, crying in the darkness. “As if you didn't know!” he scoffed. “Why does Mingsley send you here? Does he think you will win me over? That I will sail willingly for you? I know his plans. He thinks if he has me, he can sail fearlessly up the Rain Wild River, can steal trade there that belongs rightfully only to the Bingtown Traders and the Rain Wild Traders.” Paragon lowered his voice thoughtfully. “He thinks because I am mad, I will betray my family. He thinks that because they hate me and curse me and abandon me that I will turn on them.” He tore the bead necklace from his throat and flung it down to the sand. “But I am true! I was always true and always faithful, no matter what anyone else said or believed. I was true and I am still true.” He lifted his voice in hoarse proclamation. “Hear me, Ludlucks! I am true to you! I sail only for my family! Only for you.” He felt his whole hull reverberate with his shout.

Chest heaving, he panted in the winter night. He listened, but heard nothing from Amber. There was only the snapping of the driftwood fire, the querulous notes of the cliff birds as they resettled awkwardly in the dark, and the endless lapping of the waves. No sound at all from her. Maybe she had run off while he was shouting. Maybe she had crept off into the night, ashamed and cowardly. He swallowed and rubbed at his brow. It didn't matter. She didn't matter. Nothing mattered. Nothing. He rubbed at his neck where the necklace cord had snapped. He listened to the waves creep closer as the tide rose. He heard the driftwood collapse into the fire, smelled the gust of smoke as it did so. He star-tied when she spoke.

“Mingsley didn't send me.” He heard her abruptly stand. She walked to the fire and he heard the shifting of wood in it. Her voice was quiet and controlled when she spoke. “You are right, the first time I came here, he brought me. He proposed to cut you into bits, purely for the sake of your wizardwood. But from the first time I saw you, my heart cried out against that. Paragon, I do wish I could win you over. You are a wonder and a mystery to me. My curiosity has always been greater than my wisdom. But largest of all is my own loneliness. Because I am a long way from home and family, not just in distance but in years.”

Her words were quick and hard as falling stones. She was moving about as she spoke. He heard the brush of her skirts. His quick ears caught the small sound of two pieces of wood clicking together. His beads, he suddenly thought in desolation. She was gathering them up. She would take her gift away.

“Amber?” he said pleadingly. His voice went high on her name and broke, as it sometimes did when he was afraid. “Are you taking my beads away?”

A long silence. Then, in a voice almost gruff, she said, “I didn't think you wanted them.”

“I do. Very much.” When she didn't say anything, he gathered his courage. “You hate me now, don't you?” he asked her. His voice was very calm, save that it was too high.

“Paragon, I ...” her voice dwindled away. “I don't hate you,” she said suddenly, and her voice was gentle. “But I don't understand you either,” she said sadly. “Sometimes you speak and I hear the wisdom of generations in your words. Other times, without warning, you are a spoiled ten-year-old.”

Twelve years old. Nearly a man, damn you, and if you don't learn to act like a man on this voyage, you'll never be a man, you worthless, whining titty-pup. He lifted his hands to his face, covered the place where his eyes had been, the place the betraying tears would have come from. He moved one hand, to put it firmly over his mouth so the sob would not escape. Don't let her look at me just now, he prayed. Don't let her see me.

She was still talking to herself. “I don't know how to treat you, sometimes. Ah. There's the crab. I have them all now. Shame on you, throwing these like a baby throws toys. Now be patient while I fix the string.”

He took his hand away from his mouth and took a steadying breath. He voiced his worst fear. “Did I break . . . are they broken?”

“No, I'm a better workman than that.” She had moved back to her blanket by the fire. He could hear the small sounds of her working, the tiny taps of the beads against each other. “When I made these, I kept in mind that they'd be exposed to wind and rain. I put a lot of oil and wax on them. And they landed on sand. But they won't withstand being thrown against rocks, so I wouldn't do that again, if I were you.”

“I won't,” he promised. Cautiously, he asked, “Are you angry at me?”