“You know the answer to that,” Leftrin replied. So far in their journey, that had only happened once. One night, evening had come with no resting place in sight. There had been only marshlands as far as the eye could see, nowhere for the dragons to get out of the water. Despite their grumbling, the dragons had had to stand overnight in the water, while the keepers had taken refuge on Tarman’s deck. The dragons hadn’t enjoyed the experience, but they had survived. But the water had been mild then, and the weather kind. “They’d have to endure it,” Leftrin said, and neither one spoke of how the acid might eat at injuries and tender tissue.

After a few moments of silence, Leftrin added, “That’s always been a danger to this journey, Alise. The most obvious danger, actually, and one we’ve always had to live with. The first ‘settlers’ in the Rain Wilds were actually abandoned here; no one in their right mind would come here of their own accord.”

“I know my history,” Alise interrupted a bit brusquely, but then added with a small smile, “and I definitely came here of my own accord.”

“Well, it’s so that Bingtown’s history is the Rain Wilds’s history. But I think we live it here a bit more than you folks do.” He leaned on the railing, feeling Tarman sturdy beneath him. He glanced up and down the current of his world. “Strangeness flows with the water in this river, and it affects us all, one way or another. Trehaug might not be the easiest place in the world to live, and Cassarick is no better. But without those cities, Bingtown wouldn’t have Elderling magic to sell. So, no Rain Wilds, no Bingtown is how I see it. But what I’m trying to say is that generation after generation, decade after decade, young explorers have set out vowing they’re going to find a better place to settle. Some don’t come back. And those who do report the same thing. Nothing but an immense wide valley, with lots of trees and lots of wet ground. And the deeper you go into the forest, the stranger it gets. All the expeditions that have gone up this river have come back saying that they either ran out of navigable waterway, or that the river just flattened out, wider and wider, until it seemed there were no real banks to it anywhere.”

“But they just didn’t go far enough, did they? I’ve seen enough references to Kelsingra to know that the city existed. And somewhere, it still does.”