At the ship’s supply, Leftrin ordered the preserved foods and basic necessities that would restock his ship’s larder. Oil, flour, sugar, coffee, salt, ship’s biscuit . . . Bellin’s list seemed endless. He also bought every sheet of paper and bottle of ink that the store possessed, as well as a stock of new quills. He smiled as he did so, imagining Alise’s pleasure at this trove. He asked that all the supplies be sent immediately down to the Tarman. He’d traded there for years, ever since the store had opened, and it did not take much to persuade the owner to accept his signature in lieu of coin. “Council pays me, I pay you within the hour,” Leftrin promised the nodding man, and that was that.

By the time he left the store, his legs ached. Walking the deck of his ship and even hiking the meadows around Kelsingra did not prepare a man for the many vertical climbs of a Rain Wild city. He took a lift down to the Council Hall level, paying the tender with his last coin as the man’s basket passed his own in transit. As he drew near to the Council door, he recalled that the last time he’d come here, Alise Finbok had been on his arm. It had been in the early days of their acquaintance, when his infatuation with her was dizzyingly new. He thought of her shiny little boots and her lacy skirts and smiled a bit sadly. Her finery had dazzled him as much as her ladylike ways. Well, her lace had gone to tatters and her boots were scuffed and worn now, but the gracious lady inside them prevailed as if wrought from iron. He suddenly missed her with a pang more powerful than hunger or fear. He shook his head at himself. Was he a mooning adolescent, to be so thoroughly engrossed with her? He smiled. Perhaps he was. The sensations she woke in him were wilder and sweeter than any other experience in his life. And once he was paid, he anticipated buying little luxuries and dainties to take back to her. The thought put a wider smile on his face.

When he pushed open the door to the Traders’ Hall, he was greeted with light and the murmur of voices and warmth. Braziers burned in scattered locations throughout the room, contributing heat and the sweet smell of burning jalawood. Light came from another source, the tethered globes that floated within the hall. Elderling artifacts unearthed from the buried ruins at the foot of Cassarick now illuminated the meeting place of the humans in a flagrant display of wealth. For a moment, he imagined the surge of greed that would be stirred if he spoke of an Elderling city that stood intact and virtually untouched. His eyes went to the tapestry of Kelsingra that hung on the wall behind the Council dais. Alise had once used that tapestry to prove to them that their destination had existed. And when he told the Council that its gleaming walls still sparkled in the sunlight? His smile tightened.