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Now there was a question. Why did it bother him?

Since Kennit had taken over the ship, he had had no official status.

He was not the ship’s boy, he was not the captain’s valet, and no one had ever seriously respected his claim to own the ship.

But he had had a function. Kennit had thrown him odd chores and honed his wits against him, but that had merely filled his time.

Vivacia had filled his heart. A bit late to realize that, he thought sourly.

A bit late to admit that his bond with the ship had defined his life and his days aboard her.

She had needed him, and Kennit had used him as the bridge between them.

Now neither of them required him any more.

At least, the creature that wore Vivacia’s body no longer needed him.

Indeed, she scarcely tolerated him. His head still throbbed from her latest rebuff.

He could dimly recall his healing. Days of convalescence had followed it.

He had lain in his bunk and watched the play of light on the wall of his stateroom and thought of nothing.

The rapid repair of his body had drained all his physical reserves.

Etta had brought him food, drink, and books he never opened.

She had brought him a mirror, thinking to cheer him.

He saw that the outside of his body had reconstructed itself at Kennit’s command.

The skin of his face purged itself of the tattoo’s ink.

Each day the sprawling mark his father had placed on him grew fainter, until Vivacia’s image vanished from his face as if it had never been.

It was the ship’s doing. He knew that. Kennit had only been her tool, so that Kennit might reap the benefit of performing yet another miracle.

The message to Wintrow was that she did not need his compliance to work her will upon him.

Bolt had struck him with his healing. She had not restored his missing finger.

He had stopped pondering whether that task was beyond both his body and her ministration, or if she had withheld it from him.

She had expunged Vivacia’s image from his face, and the meaning of that was obvious.

Etta slapped the table and he jumped.

‘You’re doing it again,’ she accused him. ‘And you haven’t even answered my question.’

‘I don’t know what to do with myself any more,’ he confessed. ‘The ship no longer needs me. Kennit no longer needs me. The only use he ever had for me was to act as a go-between for them. Now they are together and I am –’

‘Jealous,’ Etta filled in. ‘And fair green with it. I hope that I was more subtle when I was in your place. For a long time, I stood where you stand now, wondering what my place was, wondering why or if Kennit needed me, hating the ship for fascinating him so.’ She gave him a twisted smile of sympathy.

‘You have my pity, but it won’t do you any good. ’

‘What will?’ he demanded.

‘Keeping busy. Getting over it. Learning something new.’ She tied a knot. ‘Find something else to occupy your mind.’

‘Such as?’ he asked bitterly.

She bit off her thread and tugged to see if the bone button was secure. With her chin, she gestured at the neglected gameboard. ‘Amusing me.’

Her smile made it a jest. The movement of her chin made the lamplight run over her sleek hair and glance off the strong bones of her cheeks.

She glanced at him from under lowered lashes as she threaded her needle.

Mirth glinted in her dark eyes. The corner of her mouth curved slightly.

Yes, he could find something else to occupy his mind, something likely to lead to disaster.

He forced his eyes back to the gameboard and made a move. ‘Learn something new. Such as?’

She snorted her contempt. Her hand darted out, and with a single move demolished his defences. ‘Something useful. Something you will actually put your mind to, rather than making motions while you dream elsewhere.’

He swept his playing pieces from the board. ‘What can I learn aboard this ship that I have not already learned?’

‘Navigation,’ she suggested. ‘It confounds me, but you have the numbers learned already. You could master it.’ This time her eyes were serious.

‘But I think you should learn what you have put off far too long. Fill the gap that you wear like an open wound. Go where your heart has always led you. You have denied yourself long enough.’

He sat very still. ‘And that is?’ he prompted her quietly.

‘Learn yourself. Your priesthood,’ she said.

His keen disappointment shocked him. He would not even consider what he had hoped she might suggest. He shook his head, and his voice was bitter as he said, ‘I have left that too far behind. Sa is strong in my life, but my devotion is not what it once was. A priest must be willing to live his life for others. At one time, I thought that would be my delight. Now…’ he let his eyes meet hers honestly.

‘I have learned to want things for myself,’ he said quietly.

She laughed. ‘Ah, at teaching you that, Kennit would excel, I think. Yet I believe you misjudge yourself. Perhaps you have lost the intensity of your focus, Wintrow, but examine your heart. If you could have one thing, right now, what would you choose?’

He bit back the words that sprang to his lips.

Etta had changed, and he had been part of her changing.

The way she spoke, the way she thought, reflected the books they had shared.

It was not that she had become wiser; wisdom had shone in her from the start.

Now she had the words for her thoughts. She had been like a lantern flame burning behind a sooty glass.

Now the glass was clear and her light shone forth.

She pursed her lips in annoyance: he had taken too long to reply.

He avoided her question. ‘Do you remember the night when you told me that I should discover where I was in my life and go on from there? Accept the shape of my life and do my best with it?’

She lifted one eyebrow as if to deny it. His heart sank. Could something so important to him have left no mark upon her? Then she shook her head ruefully. ‘You were so serious, I wanted to kick you. Such a lad. It does not seem possible you were so young such a short time ago.’

‘Such a short time ago?’ He laughed. ‘It seems like years. I’ve been through so many changes since then.’ He met her eyes. ‘I taught you to read, and you said it changed your life. Do you know how much you have changed my life as well?’

‘Well.’ She leaned back and considered. ‘If I hadn’t taught you to use a knife, you’d be dead now. So I suppose I’ve changed the course of your life at least once.’

‘I try to imagine going back to my monastery now. I would have to bid farewell to my ship, to Kennit, to you, to my shipmates, to all my life has become. I don’t know if I could go back and sit with Berandol and meditate, or pore over my books.

’ He smiled regretfully. ‘Or work the stained glass I once took such pride in. I would be denying all I had learned out here. I am like a little fish that ventured too far from its placid pool and has been swept into the river. I’ve learned to survive out here, now.

I don’t know if I could be content with a contemplative life any more. ’

She looked at him oddly. ‘I didn’t mean you should return to your monastery. Only that you should start being a priest again.’

‘Here? On the ship? Why?’

‘Why not? You once told me that if a man is meant to be a priest, nothing can divert him from that. It will happen to him, no matter where he is. That perhaps Sa had put you here because there was something you were meant to do here. Destiny, and all that.’

She spoke his words flippantly, but beneath her tone he heard a desperate hope.

‘But why?’ he repeated. ‘Why do you urge me to do this now?’

She turned aside from him. ‘Perhaps I miss the way you used to talk. How you used to argue that there was meaning and structure to all that happened, even if we could not immediately perceive it. There was a comfort to hearing you say that, even if I couldn’t completely believe it. About destiny and all.’

Her hand strayed to her breast, then pulled away.

He knew what she flinched from touching.

In a small bag about her neck she wore the charm from Others’ Island, the figurine of a baby.

She had shown it to him while he was still recovering from his ‘miracle cure’.

He had sensed how important it was to Etta but had not given it any serious thought since then.

Obviously, she had. She considered the odd charm as an omen of some kind.

Perhaps if Wintrow believed that the Others were truly soothsayers and prophets, he would share her opinion, but he didn’t.

Likely a trick of winds and tides carried all manner of debris to the beach, and her charm among it.

As for the Others themselves, the serpent he had freed had imprinted her opinion of them on him.

Abominations. Her precise meaning had not been clear, but her horror and loathing were plain.

They should never have been. They were thieves of a past not their own, with no power to foretell the future.

The charm Etta had found in her boot was a mere coincidence, of no more portent than the sand that had been with it.

He could not share his opinion with Etta without affronting her. Affronting her could be painful. He began carefully, ‘I still believe that every creature has a unique and significant destiny.’

She leapt to it before he could approach it gently. ‘It could be my destiny to bear Kennit’s child; to bring into being a prince for the King of the Pirate Isles.’

‘It might also be your destiny not to,’ he pointed out.

Displeasure flashed across her face, replaced by impassivity. He had hurt her. ‘That is what you believe, then.’