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He looked around the platform they stood on, then lifted his eyes to the similar structures in two adjacent trees.

‘This booty will fill Paragon’s hold. Igrot brought him here heavy with treasure, and so he will be when we leave.

I try to imagine how this will change things for us, and I cannot.

I get caught up in the wonder of the individual pieces. ’

Althea nodded. ‘I cannot relate it to myself. I think mostly of how it will affect others. My family. I can help Mother restore our home. Keffria need not worry so about the family finances.’

Brashen grinned. ‘My plans are mostly for Paragon. New windows. New rigging. The services of a good sailmaker. Then, something for us. Let’s make a trip south to the Spice Isles, a slow journey, exploring, with no schedules and no need to turn a profit.

I want to revisit the ports we haven’t seen since your father was master on Vivacia.

’ He watched her face carefully as he added, ‘Maybe we could rendezvous with Wintrow and Vivacia. See how they’re getting along. ’

He watched her consider it. For Althea, a visit to the southernmost trade isles would be a return to the ports of her childhood travels.

Maybe there she could lose some of the constant regret that overshadowed her.

And perhaps seeing Wintrow and Vivacia could lay some ghosts to rest. If she saw her ship was content and in good hands, would it lift the burden from her heart?

He refused to fear such an encounter. Much as it hurt him to admit, if he could not lift her melancholy soon, it might be better to let her go.

It was not that she did not smile and laugh.

She did. But always, her smiles and laughter faded too soon into a silence that excluded him.

‘I’d like that,’ she conceded, recalling him to himself. ‘If Paragon could be persuaded. We could look for Tintaglia’s serpents at the same time.’

‘Good,’ he said with false heartiness. ‘That’s what we’ll do then.

’ He drew a deep breath and lifted his eyes.

The brief spring day was closing. Through the interlacing tree tops, he could glimpse storm clouds.

Winter might make a brief return tonight.

‘Best get us all back to the ship for the night,’ he decided.

‘It gets dark fast, and I see no sense in risking man or treasure to move it tonight.’

Althea nodded. ‘I’ll want to see how they’ve stowed it anyway.’ She turned to the others. ‘Last load, men. Tomorrow is soon enough to finish this.’

She came out on deck into the darkness, bearing a lantern.

Paragon did not turn to see who it was. He recognized Amber’s light barefoot tread.

She often came to him by night. They had had many night conversations.

They had also shared many times without talk, content to let the sounds of the night birds and the river running remain undisturbed.

Usually, her hands on his railing radiated peace to him.

Tonight she hung the lantern on a hook, and set something down on his deck before she leaned on the railing.

‘It’s a lovely night, isn’t it?’

‘It is. But it won’t be for long, for you. That lantern will attract every insect that flies. They are thickest immediately before a storm. Linger long and you’ll be bitten all over.’

‘I just need it for a short time.’ She drew a breath, and he sensed an unusual excitement running through her. She sounded almost nervous. ‘Paragon, earlier you offered to share your treasure with us. I’ve found something among it, something I desperately long to possess.’

He looked back at her. She was in her nightrobe, a long loose garment that reached to her bare feet.

Her uneven hair fell loose to her shoulders.

Her serpent scalds still showed, dead white against her golden skin.

Time, perhaps, would erase those scars, or so he liked to think.

In the lantern light, her eyes sparkled.

He found himself returning her smile. ‘So what is this treasure you must possess? Gold? Silver? Ancient Elderling jewellery?’

‘This.’ She stooped to a rough burlap sack at her feet, opened the mouth of it and reached within.

From it, she pulled a carved wooden circlet.

She handled it almost reverently as she turned it in her hands.

Then, daringly, she crowned herself with it and then lifted her gaze to his.

‘Reach into your dragon memories, if you can. For me. Do you recall this?’

He looked at her silently and she returned his gaze.

She waited. The crown was decorated with the heads of birds.

No. Chickens. He quirked one eyebrow at her.

Regretfully, she took off the crown and held it out to him.

He took it carefully in his hands. Wood.

Carved wood. He shook his head over it. Gold and silver, jewels and art.

He had offered her the pick of the riches of the Cursed Shores. What did the carpenter choose? Wood.

She tried again to wake a response in him. ‘It was gilded once. See. You can still see bits of gilt caught in the details of the rooster heads. And there are places for tail feathers to be set into it, but the feathers have rotted away long ago.’

‘I remember it,’ he said hesitantly. ‘But that is all. Someone wore it.’

‘Who?’ she pressed him earnestly. He held it out to her and she took it back again. She shook her hair from her eyes, and then set the rooster crown on her head again. ‘Someone like me?’ she asked hopefully.

‘Oh,’ he paused, striving to recall her. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, shaking his head at last. ‘She wasn’t an Elderling. That’s all I can recollect of her.’ The woman who wore it had been pale as milk. Not like Amber at all.

‘That’s all right,’ she assured him quickly, but he sensed her disappointment. ‘If you don’t mind, I’d like to have this.’

‘Of course. Did the others object?’

‘I didn’t ask them,’ she replied sheepishly. ‘I didn’t give them the chance.’ She took the crown off again. Her eyes and fingers wandered lovingly over the carving.

‘It’s yours,’ Paragon confirmed. ‘Take it with you when you go.’

‘Ah. You guessed that I am leaving, then.’

‘I did. You will not even stay with me until high summer? That is when I will return here, to be near when the dragons hatch.’

Her fingers tracked the details of the carved bird heads.

‘I am tempted. Perhaps I will. But eventually, I think I must go north again. I have friends there. I haven’t seen them in a long time.

’ She lowered her voice. ‘A suspicion itches at me. I think I should go interfere in their lives some more.’ She laughed with false lightness.

‘I hope I will fare better with them than I have down here.’ Her face grew troubled.

She climbed suddenly to the railing, saying softly, ‘Take me up.’

He reached over his shoulder to offer her his right hand.

She climbed onto it and he turned back to contemplate the tangled jungle.

It was easier to look away from the light and into the darkness.

More restful. Carefully he shifted, until his arms were crossed on his chest. Trusting as a child, she sat on his crossed arms and leaned back against him companionably.

All around them, night insects shrilled. Her bare legs dangled down.

She was always the one who dared to ask the questions others left unuttered. Tonight she had another one. ‘How did they all die?’

He knew exactly what she meant. Pointless to pretend he didn’t.

And pointless to keep it a secret any more.

It almost felt good to share it with someone.

‘Wizardwood. Kennit kept a chunk from my face. One of his chores was to help with the cooking. He boiled it with the soup. Almost all of Igrot’s crew died from it. ’ He felt her cringe.

He tried to make her understand. ‘He was only finishing what Igrot had started. Men had begun to die on the ship. Igrot keel-hauled two sailors for insubordination. They both drowned. Two others went over the side during a stormy night watch. There was a stupid accident in the rigging. Three died. We decided Igrot was behind it. He probably meant to do away with anyone who knew where the treasure was hidden. Including Kennit.’ He forced himself to unclench his hands.

‘We had to do it, you see. To save Kennit’s life. ’

Amber swallowed. She asked the question anyway. ‘And those that didn’t die from the soup?’

Paragon took a breath. ‘Kennit put them over the side anyway. Most were too poisoned to put up much of a fight. Three, I think, managed to put out a boat and escape. I doubt they survived.’

‘And Igrot?’

The jungle seemed a black and peaceful place. Things moved in it, outside the circle of the lantern light. Snakes and night birds, small tree-dwelling creatures, both furred and scaled. Many things lived and moved in the tangled dark.

‘Kennit beat him to death. Belowdecks. You’ve seen the marks down there. The handprints of a crawling man.’ He took a breath. ‘It was fair, Amber. Only fair.’

She sighed. ‘Vengeance for both of you. For the times when he had beaten Kennit to death.’

He nodded above her. ‘Twice he did that. Once the boy died on my deck. But I couldn’t let him go.

I could not. He was all I had. Another time, curled up belowdecks in his hidey-hole, he died slowly.

He was bleeding inside, growing so cold, so cold.

He cried for his mother.’ Paragon sighed.

‘I kept him with me. I pushed life into him, and forced his body to mend itself as best as I could. Then I put him back in his body. Even then, I wondered if there was enough of him left to be a whole being. But I did it. It was selfish. I did not do it for Kennit. I did it for myself. So I would not be left alone again.’

‘He truly was as much you as he was himself.’

Paragon almost chuckled. ‘There was no such line between Kennit and me.’