“Malta?” His voice was thick with tears. He still knelt before her.

“Oh, Reyn. Please get up.” It was too unsettling to see him this way.

“But-”

She astonished herself. “I forgive you. It was a mistake.” She had never known those words could be so easy to say. She didn't have to hold it back. She could let it go. She didn't have to save his guilt up to club him with later, when she wanted something from him. Maybe they would never do that to each other. Maybe it wouldn't be about who was wrong or right, or who controlled whom.

So what would it be about, between them?

He came to his feet shakily. He turned his back to her, lifted his veil and dragged his sleeve across his eyes like a child, before finding his handkerchief. He wiped his eyes. She heard him take a deep breath.

Quietly, she tested this new idea. “You would not stop me if I chose to return to Bingtown today?”

He shrugged, still not facing her. “I would not have to. The Kendry doesn't sail until tomorrow night.” His effort at levity failed him. He added miserably as he turned back to her, “You could go then, if you insisted. It's the only way back to Bingtown, or what's left of it.”

She sat up slowly. The question broke from her. “Have you had news of Bingtown? Of my home and grandmother?”

He shook his head as he sat down beside her. “I'm sorry. No. There are not many message birds, and all are used for news of the war.” Reluctantly, he added, “There are many stories of pillaging. The New Traders rose up. Some of their slaves fight beside them. Others have crossed over to side with the Bingtown Traders. It is neighbor against neighbor in Bingtown, the ugliest kind of fighting, for they know one another's weaknesses best. In such battles, there are always some who take no side, but loot and plunder whoever is weakest. Your mother hopes that your grandmother fled to her little farm as she had intended. She would be safer there. The Old Trader estates are-”

“Stop. I don't want to hear of it, I don't want to think of it.” She clapped her hands over her ears and huddled into a ball, her eyes tight shut. Home had to exist. Somewhere there had to be a place with solid walls and safe routine. Her breath came fast and hard. She recalled little of her flight from Bingtown. Everything had hurt so much, and when she had tried to see, images were doubled and tripled atop one another. The horse had been rough-paced, and Reyn had held her in front of him. They had ridden too fast, too hard. The thick smoke in the air, and the distant screams and shouts. Some of the roads had been blocked by fallen debris from burning buildings. All the docks in the harbor had been charred and smoking wreckage. Reyn had found a leaky boat. Selden had held her upright so she did not fall over into the dirty bilge while Reyn and her mother plied the worm-eaten oars to get them out to the Kendry. . . .

She found she was in his lap, still huddled in a ball. He sat on the bed, holding her and rocking her as he patted her back slowly. He had tucked her head under his chin. “Hush, hush, it's all done, it's all over,” he kept saying. His arms were strong around her. Home was gone. This was the only safe place left, but his words were too true to comfort her. It was all done, it was all over, it was all ruined. Too late to try harder, too late to even weep over it. Too late for everything. She curled tighter into him and put her arms around him. She held him tightly.

“I don't want to think anymore. I don't want to talk anymore.”

“Me, neither.” Her head was against his chest. His words thrummed deep inside him.

She sniffed, then sighed heavily. She almost wiped her eyes on her sleeve, then remembered herself. She groped for her handkerchief. Instead, he pressed his into her hands. It was damp from his tears. She wiped her own eyes on it. “Where is my mother?” she asked wearily.

“With my mother. And some of our Council. They are talking about what is to be done.”

“My mother?”

“Trader Vestrit of the Bingtown Traders has as much a right to speak as any other Trader. And she has some brilliant ideas. She suggested thick, greenwood buckets of Rain Wild River water might be employed as a weapon against the galleys. Load them in catapults to break apart on their decks. The damage might not be immediate, but over time their ships would start to weaken and come apart, not to mention scalding their rowers.”

“Unless they knew to piss on the decks,” she muttered.

Reyn gave an involuntary laugh. His arms tightened around her. “Malta Vestrit, the things you know astonish me. How did you learn that secret?”

“Selden told me. Children can spy out anything.”