“Or didn’t do. It worries me that we’ve had no news of the Tarman at all. I sent a message asking if they would not send another ship to find what had become of them. The response was that ‘at present, there is no suitable vessel to send.’ ” Malta sighed heavily and subsided onto the bed. Reyn had raised the bed platform so that she was able to sit and stand from it more easily. She sat for a moment, catching her breath, while Jani watched her quietly. Malta smiled as she said, “Aren’t you going to remind me that I’m pregnant and ask me why on earth I’d choose to travel at such a time?”

Jani returned the smile, her finely scaled face rippling as she did so. “I know your answers almost as well as you know what my questions are likely to be. The closer it comes to your time, the more you wish to be near Reyn. That you feel that way brings me only satisfaction. Yet we both know you are taking a risk. We both know what it is to miscarry, and more than once. We both know that miscarriages either happen or don’t. We’ve seen the women who take to their beds the very first month and keep as still as a cocoon, hoping to save what grows inside them.” Jani sighed suddenly. “And we’ve seen them lose the child despite that. Or give birth to a child so weak or so changed by the Rain Wilds that it cannot be allowed to survive. You have choices as I did, to continue to lead a hearty life, to walk and work with no guarantees that your child will be robust. But I know from my own childbearing years that it is better to do that than to wait in stillness in a dim room and fill the long months with hoping and worrying.”

Jani stopped speaking, as if suddenly realizing that neither she nor Malta wanted to consider yet again the darker aspects of her pregnancy. She changed the topic abruptly. “So. You will go to Cassarick with Reyn. He told me that he wishes to speak with the Vargus family about how they are excavating our site. Reyn told me that he has heard rumors they move too fast and do not reinforce the tunnels as they should. He fears that they are placing quick profit above human lives. That was not our agreement when we entered into the partnership with them.”