“The most excellent plan I can think of,” said Lyne, “is not to get talked into Quests by mysterious giant talking ravens.” He shared this with Fern, Mard, and Prim after Corvus had flown away to reconnoiter and Pick and Querc had taken turns going down the rope into the huge mysterious crack. Swab had been quiet of late. Fern was sitting by her side, holding her hand, perhaps trying to ascertain whether she was alive or dead. Prim looked at them, trying not to be obvious, and saw that Fern had begun to unwind the bandage. It was no longer doing service. Swab had stopped bleeding, for the place where the arrow had gone in was now dissolving into chaos and no longer supplied with blood. Fern had, however, been following the conversation, and now spoke.

“As I understand matters,” she said, “I have lost more than any of you. My keelsloop is gone. Of my three crew, Rett is dead. Two are wounded, and one of those absconded with my longboat. If you don’t mind, I’ll be the judge of whether going on this Quest was worth it. And I’m all in still.”

“How can you be?” Prim asked, in a tone of gentle curiosity. Of course she knew from her reading of old Quest stories that there was fighting and blood. But to observe the consequences of a single arrow fired into a single body had forever changed the way she would think about such adventures. Fern had seen worse in the last day, and various clues about her, her ship, and her crew had suggested that this was far from her first scrap.