“I am not talking to you!” Althea flared. “You have no concept of what I am speaking of. To you Vivacia is no more than a ship, even if she speaks aloud to you. To me she is a member of my family, closer to me than a sister. She needs me to be aboard her, and I need to sail her. She would sail for me as she never will for you, with her own heart as the wind.”

“Girlish fancies,” Kyle scoffed. “Tripe. You walked away from her in anger on the day she was quickened, leaving Wintrow to spend the first night with her. If you'd had all these great feelings for her, you could not have done that. She seems to like him well enough, and he'll be aboard to keep her company or whatever it is. And he'll be learning to work as a true sailor, not mooning about the ship or getting drunk in foreign ports. No, Althea. There's no fitting place aboard the Vivacia for you, and I won't have you sowing discord or setting up a rivalry with Wintrow for the ship's favor.”

“Mother?” Althea pleaded desperately.

Her mother looked grieved. “Had I not seen you last night, drunk and bedraggled, I would oppose Kyle in this. I would believe he was being far too harsh.” She sighed heavily. “But I can't deny what I've seen with my own eyes. Althea, I know you love the Vivacia. If your father had lived . . . there's no use in wondering about that, I suppose. Instead, it is time, perhaps, for you to let her go. I have seen that Wintrow has the makings of a good man. He will do well by the ship. Let him. It is time, and more than time that you stepped forward and took your proper place in Bingtown.”

“My place is aboard the Vivacia,” Althea said faintly.

“No,” Kyle said, and her mother echoed it with a shake of her head.

“Then I have no place, in this family or in Bingtown.” Althea heard herself speak the words in a sort of wonder. She heard the ring of finality in them, and it shocked her. Like a rock dropped into still water, she thought, for she suddenly had a dizzying sense of the words spreading out like a widening ripple, changing every relationship she had, forever altering her days to come. For a moment, she could not take a breath.

“Althea? Althea!”

Her mother's voice rang loud behind her. She was walking down the hallway, and her home was suddenly an unfamiliar place. It had been years, she realized, since she had spent more than a month at one time here. How long had that tapestry hung there, when had those tiles cracked? She didn't know, she hadn't been here, no, she was not really changing anything, she hadn't lived here for years. This had not been her home for years. She was only recognizing the reality, not creating it. With no more than the clothes on her back, she stepped out the front door and into the wider world.

“If she comes home drunk again, I'm going to lock her in her room for a week. Make it plain to her that we won't tolerate her blackening the family name and her reputation in Bingtown.” Kyle was sitting next to Keffria on the bench now, his arm about her protectively.

“Kyle. Shut up.” Ronica Vestrit heard herself say the words crisply but quietly. It was all falling apart, her family, her home, her dreams of the future. Althea had meant what she had said; Ronica had heard Ephron's voice in her words. Her daughter was not going to turn up on the doorstep tonight, drunk or any other way. She had left. And all that idiot boy Keffria had married could do was play King of the Hill and make up ways to try out his new authority. She sighed heavily. Perhaps that was the only problem she could solve just now. And perhaps solving that would put her on a path to solving the others. “Kyle. I avoided saying this in front of Althea, as she needs no encouragement toward rebelling, but you've been acting like an ass all morning. As you have so tactfully pointed out, there is little I can do to intervene between you and your son. My daughter, Althea is another matter. She is not under your authority, and your efforts to correct her I have found extremely offensive.”

She had expected him to look at least apologetic. Instead, his face hardened into affront, and she wondered, not for the first time, if she had completely misjudged this man's common sense when she put the family's fortunes into her elder daughter's hands. His first statement confirmed her worst fears. “I am the man of this family now. How can you say she is not under my authority?”

“She is my daughter, not yours. She is your wife's sister, not yours.”

“And she shares a name with you both, and her actions affect that name. If you and Keffria cannot reach her with reasoning, then I will have to restrain her with something stronger. We have no time to coax and cozy them along; Wintrow and Althea both must be made to accept their duties and perform them well.”