Querc nodded. “Unless you landed where a river reached the sea—but that is where the Autochthons have made their watchposts.”

“They have to guard the river mouths,” Prim concluded, “lest Sprung settle there, and once again get a foothold on the Land and begin to populate it.”

Seeing someone in the corner of her eye she turned and met the eye of Mard, who, having been dismissed by Fern, had come round to listen. He blushed, averted his gaze, and slunk away like a man who had murdered his own father. She could not for the life of her work out why, until she later saw Lyne flirting with Querc. Then she understood it was because she had uttered the word “populate,” which implied having babies.

Apparently, the upshot of the meeting that Fern had just convened and concluded was that Mard and Lyne were off duty for a bit. Accordingly, they began to swordfight. Mard was swinging the sword that Prim had acquired by killing Delegate Elshield on the quay at Secondel. Rusting away in a storage locker belowdecks were a number of other weapons, mostly shorter cutlasses, much less glorious than Elshield’s but wieldy enough to be used against it in practice. Part of Prim wanted to resent the way that the young men—and particularly Mard—were assuming a kind of ownership over the sword. If circumstances had been different, she might have laid claim to it more forcefully. But be it never so magnificent, it could never be anything more than a token for Prim. Knowing she had another way to kill, she could never be as fascinated by it as Mard and Lyne were, and was happy to let them get good at using it. Querc, who was obviously quite taken with Lyne, went to watch them play.

Fern came forward for a look at the map. She spent as much time staring at this thing as Prim. This had been a little disconcerting at first given that Fern was supposed to know where she was going. She shouldered her way into the position most advantageous for peering at the part that depicted the Asking. She did not quite shove Prim out of the way but just kept sidling closer and closer, so that it seemed easiest for Prim to move. As Fern gazed at the map, Prim gazed at Fern, taking in the ridges and whorls of her scars. The skipper was quite unbothered to be looked at in this way.

Prim wondered if that was part of the point of having such adornments. People were going to look at you anyway. Might as well give their eyes something to do.