Prim glanced over to the shore of the Bit off which Firkin lay at anchor. Mard and Lyne and the three crewmates of Robst were there, gathering fresh water from a stream and poking around in the mud for edible crustaceans. They were out of earshot. Robst was at the other end of the boat. He was half-deaf. Prim had not shared with them some of the stranger and more surprising particulars about the day she had spent in Secondel; the news that Brindle was dead seemed like quite enough for them to take in. But Corvus obviously knew, and had known all along. “Why can’t it work in reverse?” she asked, just thinking out loud. “Why can’t I bring Brindle back, by wishing he had not passed on? Because I do so wish it.”

“Destroying is just easier than creating,” said Corvus, “and that’s that. They say it took Spring an eon to summon the power to bring a bug to life.”

“I feel that if you had not hid from me certain facts, things might have come out differently in Secondel.”

“Some would say the facts were plain enough and you were blind to them,” said Corvus. “That Brindle was a king, and you a princess, ought to have been somewhat obvious.”

“You never think of yourself that way.”

“Spoken like a true princess.”

“And of course I knew that the matter of my parentage was a bit muddled. But still!”

“Come on,” said Corvus, twitching a wing irritably, “was there ever a girl who was a girl for as long as you were? I’ll bet that gnarled apple tree outside your window was a sapling when you moved in.”

“I planted it,” Prim said. “But living, as I did, a sheltered life, I thought all of that was normal.”

“You were sheltered for a reason.”

“And would you care to share that reason with me?”

“It’s a bit obvious now, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but how did I come to be on Calla, behind the Eternal Veil, being raised as an ordinary girl?”