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Malta listened, but it was almost against her will.

Her grandmother was too clever for her. She knew there were lies hidden there, she knew the old woman was twisting the truth about her handsome, dashing, bold father.

But she wasn’t smart enough to unravel the deception.

So she forced a smile to her lips. ‘Then you won’t mind if I tell him what I know, to dispel his ignorance that offends you so.

You won’t mind if I tell him there never were any charts of the Rain Wild River.

That the quickened ship is her own guide.

Surely I should dispel that ignorance for him. ’

She watched her grandmother’s face closely, to see how she would take Malta knowing this secret.

But the old woman’s face did not betray her.

She shook her head. ‘You make a threat, child, and you don’t even know that you threaten yourself.

There are both costs and dangers to dealing with the Rain Wild Traders.

Our kin they are, and I speak no ill against them.

The bargains we have struck with them I will keep.

But Ephron and I long ago decided that we would make no new bargains, no new commitments with them.

Because we wanted our children and our grandchildren, yes, even you, to make their own decisions.

So we lived a harder life than we needed to, and our debts were not paid off as swiftly as they might have been.

We did not mind the sacrifice.’ Her grandmother’s voice began to quaver wildly.

‘We sacrificed for you, you spitting little cat. And now I look at you and wonder why. Chalcedean saltwater runs in your veins, not Bingtown blood.’

The old woman turned and rushed from the room.

There was no dignity and strength in her retreat.

Malta knew that meant she had won. She had faced her down, once and for all, and now they all would have to treat Malta differently.

She had won, she had proved her will was as strong as her grandmother’s.

And she didn’t care, not really, about that last thing her grandmother had said.

It was all a lie anyway, about sacrifices made for her. It was all a lie.

A lie. And that was another thing. She hadn’t meant to lie to her about the box.

She wouldn’t have done it, if the old woman had not been so sure she had both stolen it and lied about it.

If Ronica Vestrit had looked at her and wondered a little if she were innocent, Malta would have told her the truth.

But what was the good of telling people the truth when they already believed you were wicked and the truth would just prove it to them?

She might just as well lie twice and be the liar and thief that her grandmother not only believed she was, but hoped she was.

Yes, that was true, her grandmother wanted her to be bad and wicked, because then she’d feel justified in the horrid way she treated Malta’s father.

It was all her grandmother’s own fault. If you treated people badly, then it all just came back on you.

‘Malta?’ The voice was very soft, very gentle. A hand came to rest tenderly on her shoulder. ‘Are you all right, my dear?’

Malta whirled, seizing up her porridge bowl and dashing it at the floor at Rache’s feet. ‘I hate porridge! Don’t serve it to me again! I don’t care what else you have to cook for me, don’t serve me porridge. And don’t touch me! You don’t have the right. Now clean that up and leave me alone!’

She pushed the shocked slave out of the way and stormed out of the room. Slaves. They were so stupid. About everything.

‘Paragon. There’s something I have to talk to you about.’

Amber had spent the afternoon with him. She’d brought a lantern with her, and explored inside him.

She’d walked slowly through his hold, the captain’s chamber, the chart room, every compartment inside his hull.

In the course of it, she’d asked many questions, some of which he could answer, others he would not or could not.

She’d found the things that Brashen had left and boldly arranged them to suit herself.

‘Some night I’ll come out here and sleep with you, shall I?

’ she had proposed. ‘We’ll stay up late and tell each other stories until dawn.

’ She’d been intensely interested in every odd bit of junk she found.

A bag with dice in it, still tucked up in a crack where some sailor had hidden it so he could game on watch and not be caught.

A scratched out message on one bulkhead.

‘Three days, Sa help us all,’ it read, and she had wanted to know who had carved it and why.

She had been most curious about the bloodstains.

She had gone from one to another, counting up to seventeen irregular blotches on his deck and in various holds.

She had missed six others, but he didn’t tell her that, nor would he recall for her the day that blood had been shed or the names of those who had fallen.

And in the captain’s quarters she had found the locked compartment that should have held his log books, but did not.

The lock was long shattered, even the plank door splintered and torn away.

The logs that should have been his memory were gone, all stolen away.

Amber had picked at that like a gull at a body.

Was that why he would not answer her questions?

Did he have to have his logs to remember?

Yes? Well, then, how did he remember her visits, or Mingsley’s? He had no log of those things.

He had shrugged. ‘A dozen years from now, when you have lost interest in me and no longer come to visit, I shall probably have forgotten you as well. You do not stop to think that you are asking me of events that most likely occurred long before you were born. Why don’t you tell me about your childhood. How well do you remember your infancy?’

‘Not very well.’ She changed the subject abruptly. ‘Do you know what I did yesterday? I went to Davad Restart and made an offer to buy you.’

Her words jolted him into silence. Then he coldly replied, ‘Davad Restart cannot sell me. He does not own me. Nor can a liveship be bought and sold at all, save from kin to kin, and then only in dire circumstance.’

It was Amber’s turn to be silent. ‘Somehow, I thought you would know of these things. Well. If you do not, then you should, for they concern you. Paragon, among the New Traders, there have been rumours for months that you are for sale. Davad is acting as the intermediary. At first, your family was stipulating that you must not be used as a ship any longer because they… they didn’t want to be held responsible for any deaths…

’ Her voice trailed off. ‘Paragon. How frankly can I speak to you? Sometimes you are so thoughtful and wise. At other times…’

‘So you offered to buy me? Why? What will you make from my body? Beads? Furniture?’ His edge of control was very thin, his words sharp with sarcasm. How dare she!

‘No,’ she said with a heavy sigh. Almost to herself she muttered, ‘I feared this.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I would keep you as you are and where you are. Those were the terms of my offer.’

‘Chained here? Beached for ever? For seagulls to shit on, and crabs to scuttle beneath? Beached here until all of me that is not wizardwood rots away and I fall apart into screaming pieces?’

‘Paragon!’ She cried out the word, in a voice between pain and anger.

‘Stop this. Stop it now! You must know I would never let that befall you. You have to listen to me, you have to let me talk until you’ve heard it all.

Because I think I will need your help. If you go off now into wild accusations and suspicions, I cannot help you.

And more than anything, I want to help you.

’ Her voice went lower and softer on those words.

She drew another deep breath. ‘So. Can you listen to me? Will you give me at least a chance to explain myself?’

‘Explain,’ he said coldly. Lie and make excuses. Deceive and betray. He’d listen. He’d listen and gather what weapons he could to defend himself against all of them.

‘Oh, Paragon,’ she said hoarsely. She put a palm flat to his hull.

He tried to ignore this touch, to ignore the deep feeling that thrummed through her.

‘The Ludluck family, your family, has come on hard times. Very hard times. It is the same for many of the Old Trader families. There are many factors: slave-labour, the wars in the north… but that doesn’t matter to us.

What matters is that your family needs money now, the New Traders know that, and they seek to buy you.

Do not think ill of the Ludlucks. They resisted many offers.

But when finally the money offered was very high, then they specified that they could not sell to anyone who wished to actually use you as a ship.

’ He could almost feel her shake her head.

‘To the New Traders, that simply meant that your family wanted more money, much more money, before they would sell you as a working ship.’ She took a deep breath and tried to go on more calmly.

‘Now, about then, I began to hear rumours that the only ship that can go up the Rain Wild Rivers and come back intact is a liveship. Something about your wizardwood being impervious to the caustic white floods that sometimes come down the river. Which makes sense in light of how long you have rested here and not rotted, and it makes me understand why families would go into debt for generations to possess a ship like you. It is the only way to participate in the trade on the Rain River. So now, as that rumour has crept about, the offers have risen. The New Traders who bid on you promise they will blame no one if you roll, and bid against each other.’ She paused.

‘Paragon, do you hear me?’ she asked quietly.