He had gone to bed early in a fit of gloom. Alise was still keeping him at arm’s length, and Tarman’s incomprehensible behaviour was infuriating and frightening. All the keepers seemed confident that tomorrow the expedition would continue as planned. They all believed that he, the captain, would somehow remedy the situation. His crew did not seem so sanguine. Hennesey and Swarge shared his concerns about the boat’s decidedly odd behaviour. They had not discussed it with him, but the looks and whispers his crew had exchanged let him know that they were as troubled as he was. This was not like the Tarman they all knew and loved. Was it a result of adding more wizardwood to his hull? And if it was, where might it lead?

Unlike all the other liveships, Tarman had no simulacrum body with which to speak to his captain and crew. He had only his eyes right at the waterline, and large and expressive as they might be, they could not communicate every thought in his mind. Tarman always had been and continued to be private in many of his thoughts. When Leftrin put his hands on Tarman’s railing, he could sense something of what the ship wanted. He’d known from whence came the idea to use the chance-found wizardwood to give the Tarman a body that was a bit more independent of human will. It was odd, now that he thought of it, that Tarman had never requested a figurehead, or arms and hands. No. All he had wanted was independence of movement.

There were a hundred ways he could interpret that decision by his ship. Perhaps a thousand. He mulled all of them over in his mind that night. Long after the voices from the beach had quieted, and long after the reflected light from their bonfire had faded from the roof of his cabin, he thought about them.

At some point, he slept.

They walked together through the streets of Kelsingra, arm in arm. Alise had a basket in her free hand and she swung it as they walked. She had the day planned out for them and was speaking, detailing it all. But he wasn’t listening. He didn’t need to hear her plans. He was enjoying the sound of her voice, and the sunlight warm on his shoulders. He wore his hat on the back of his head and sauntered along, her hand hooked so nicely in the crook of his arm. The streets were full of folk going about their business. They strolled past fine buildings made of silver-veined black stone. At the major intersections, fountains leapt and danced, playing a music that always changed but was ever harmonious. The music and smells of the market rode the air. Perhaps that was where she was taking him. It didn’t matter to him if they were going to buy silk and spices and meat cooked on a skewer, or if the basket held a cloth and a picnic for them to share on the riverside. They were here together. The sound of her voice in his ears was sweet, her hand was warm on his arm, and all was well. All was well in Kelsingra.

He awoke to darkness and stillness. The warmth and the sense of certainty he’d had while he was dreaming was gone. His heart yearned after those things. He’d so seldom had them in his waking life. ‘Kelsingra,’ he whispered into the quiet of his room and for an instant he shared a dragon’s certainty that once they reached that fabled city, all would be well. Was it possible that when they arrived there, that would be so? In his dream the city had been peopled and alive. He and Alise had belonged there, belonged together in that place where no one could ever separate them. That, he knew for certain, was only the stuff of dreams.

A sound softer than the scratch of Grigsby at his door came to him. ‘Cat?’ he asked, puzzled.

‘No,’ she spoke into the darkness. The white of her nightgown caught what little light came in his stateroom window as she eased open the door. He caught his breath. She shut the door more quietly than his beating heart. She ghosted silently to his bed and he lay still, wondering if his dream of completeness had returned, fearing that if he moved he might awaken himself. She did not sit down at the edge of his bed. Instead, she lifted the corner of his blankets and slid in beside him. His arm fell easily around her. She put the arches of her chilled bare feet on his ankles and perched there. Her breasts against his chest, her soft stomach against his belly, she faced him on the pillow.

‘That’s nice,’ he murmured. ‘Is this a dream?’

‘Maybe,’ she said. Her breath was on his face. It was a wonderful sensation, so gentle and yet so arousing. ‘I was walking with you in Kelsingra. And I suddenly knew that when we arrive there, everything will be fine. And if everything is going to be fine, then everything is actually already fine. At least, that makes sense to me.’

A strange stillness filled him, welling up from inside him. He ventured towards it. Yes. It made sense to him, too. ‘We were walking in Kelsingra. You had a basket on your arm. Were we going shopping or for a picnic?’

A little shiver of tension went through her. She spoke near his mouth. ‘The basket was heavy. There was fresh bread, and a bottle of wine, and a little crock of soft cheese in it.’ She took a small breath. ‘I liked how you were wearing your hat.’

‘Tipped back, so I could feel the sun on my face.’

‘Yes.’ She shivered again and he pulled her closer, thinking at the same moment that they could scarcely be closer. ‘How can we dream the same dreams?’

‘How can we not?’ he said without thinking. Then he took a breath and added, ‘My ship likes you. You know Tarman is a liveship. Don’t you?’

‘Of course, but—’

He interrupted her. ‘No figurehead. I know. But a liveship all the same.’ He sighed, and felt his breath warm the space between their faces. ‘A liveship learns his own family. I know you must know about that. Tarman can’t speak, but he has other ways of communicating.’

For a time, she did not reply. She moved her body slightly against his, a communication of her own. Then she asked a question. ‘That first time I dreamed of flying over Kelsingra. Looking down on it. Was that a dragon-dream from Tarman?’

‘Only he could say for certain. But I suspect it was.’ ‘He remembers Kelsingra. He showed me things I couldn’t have imagined, but they fitted perfectly with what I knew of Kelsingra. And now I can’t see the city any other way than how he showed it to me.’ She hesitated, then asked, ‘Why is he talking to me?’

‘He’s communicating with both of us. His talking to you is a message for me, as well.’

‘What’s the message?’ she whispered against his mouth.

He kissed her and her mouth was pliant under his. For a time, they both forgot the question he could not answer.

She did not return to her own bed that night. Very early in the morning, he woke her, thinking it might be an oversight on her part. ‘Alise. It’s dawn. Soon the crew will be stirring.’

He didn’t need to say any more than that. She had been sleeping with her back against his belly, her head tucked under his chin, his arms around her holding her there, safe and warm. She did not lift her head from the pillow. ‘I don’t care who knows. Do you?’

He thought about it for a time. The only one who might look askance at the arrangement would be Skelly. If it became long term or permanent, it might lead to her losing her position as his heir. Now there was a strange thing to think about. A child of his own? He wondered if Skelly would be unhappy or angry about it. Perhaps. Regardless of that, he wasn’t going to give Alise up. The sooner she knew about it, the better.

‘No problems from me. Sedric?’

‘Am I asking whom he sleeps with these days?’

So she knew about him and Carson. Hmm. The two men had been discreet, but perhaps not discreet enough. There was more than a drop of bitterness in her question. Something else was there, something he didn’t want to know about right now or perhaps ever. So he made no answer. He kissed her hair, clambered over her, and took his clothing from its hook. As he dressed he said, ‘I’ll stir up the galley fire and put on coffee. What would you like for breakfast?’