But he’d have to set him up for it. And that would mean trying to convince him that he’d had a change of heart. He wondered if he could make him believe that he’d lost interest in Alise as well. If Jess didn’t see her as a weapon he could use against Leftrin, he might stop haunting her. After that, it would be a matter of waiting for the right opportunity.

Tarman nudged him. “What?” he demanded of his ship and stood. A quick scan around betrayed no perceptible danger. Despite his excuse to Alise, this part of the river was a fairly easy stretch. It was edged with reed beds that ventured out into the channel, so that the barge moved through them. The fishing would be good, and he suspected that the dragons would feed fairly well along today’s path.

Then he saw a shivering in the trees behind the reed banks. Every tree shook, and a few dropped yellowed leaves and small twigs. An instant later, the reed bank rippled like a wave, a wave that moved out into the river, trembling water and grasses. The motion slapped the barge’s hull and then moved past it, almost vanishing in the deeper water.

“Quake!” Swarge raised the cry from the stern.

“Quake!” Big Eider bellowed the warning to the keepers in their small boats.

“So it is!” Leftrin shouted back. “Move Tarman away from the banks as much as you can, but don’t lose our grip on the bottom. “Ware, now!”

“Ware!” his polemen cried him back.

As Tarman edged away from the bank, Leftrin watched another rippling move the trees. On the shore, small debris of leaves, twigs, and old birds’ nests showered down. An instant later, rank after rank of reeds bowed to the river, followed by a wavelet that rocked the boat. Leftrin scowled but kept his eyes on the trees. Quakes were frequent in the Rain Wilds, and for the most part, little tremors were ignored by everyone. Larger ones endangered not only the underground workers in the buried Elderling cities, but could also bring down old or rotten trees. Even if a tree didn’t hit the barge directly, he’d heard of falling trees that swamped boats. In his grandfather’s time, supposedly a tree had fallen that was so large it had actually stopped all traffic on the river and had taken workers nearly six months to clear away. Leftrin was a bit skeptical about the full truth of that tale, but every legend had a grain of truth. Doubtless a very big tree had come down somewhere to spark that one.

“What’s going on?” Alise sounded apprehensive. She’d heard the shouts and come out on the deck.