“Slowly.” He shook his head. He had taken on the task of designing a new landing for the city. “Really, all I can do is plan and make a list of what I need to buy. The river sweeps past the front of the city; the drop-off is immediate, the water is deep, and the current is swift. There’s no place to put Tarman aground and nothing I trust to tie up to. Even with every sweep manned, we were carried right past the city and downriver. I don’t know if it has always been that way, but I think not. I suspect the depth of the water varies seasonally and that when summer comes the water will recede a bit. If so, summer will be our time to build.

“I’ve tested the old pilings that are left. The wooden ones are only shells, but the stone ones seem sturdy. We can go upriver on the other side, cut timber there, and then raft it downriver to the city. Landing the logs here will be the challenge. But it would be a waste of time to attempt it right now. We don’t have tools and fasteners to build the sort of dock we’d need before a large ship could safely tie up here. And the only place to get those is—”

“Trehaug,” she finished for him.

“Trehaug. Possibly Cassarick. A long journey either way. I stocked the ship for an expedition, not to found a settlement. And the keepers lost so much of their basic equipment and extra clothes and blankets in that flash flood that, well, there just isn’t enough to go around. It’s going to be a hard winter here until I return with fresh supplies.”

“I don’t want to be separated from you, Leftrin. But I’m going to stay here and keep working. I want to learn as much about the city as I can before the Traders descend on it and tear it apart.”

Leftrin sighed and pulled her in close. “My dear, I have told you a hundred times. We’ll protect this place. No one else knows the way here, and I don’t plan to pass my charts around. If they try to follow us back here, well, they’ll discover that Tarman can move by night as well as by day. Even if they manage to follow us this far, they’ll have the same problem docking a ship here that we do. I’ll hold them off as long as I can, Alise.”

“I know.”

“So. Can we talk about the real reason you don’t want to go back to Trehaug?”