“You ask a great deal,” she said, “but I can’t pretend I don’t understand why you ask it. Leck must be stopped, and not just for the sake of Princess Bitterblue. His Grace is limitless, and a king with his proclivities is a danger to all seven kingdoms. If my crew avoids any contact with gossip and rumors, that’s forty-three men and one woman whose minds are clear to the task at hand.

“And,” she continued, “I’ve promised to help you in any way I can.”

It was Katsa’s turn now to disbelieve. “You’ll really do this thing?”

“Lady Princess,” the captain said. “It’s not in my power to refuse anything you ask. But this thing I’ll do willingly, for as long as I can without endangering my men and my ship. And on the condition that I’ll be reimbursed for my lost trade.”

“That goes without saying.”

“Nothing in business goes without saying, Lady Princess.”

And so they made an agreement. The captain would hold at sea in a place near to Lienid, a specific place just west of an uninhabited island she could describe and another vessel could find, until such time as the other vessel came for her, or circumstances aboard her ship rendered it impossible for her isolation to continue.

“I’ve no idea what I’ll tell my crew,” the captain said.

“When the time comes for explanations,” Katsa said, “tell them the truth.”

THE CAPTAIN asked Katsa and Bitterblue one day, as they sat in the galley over a meal, how they’d gotten to Suncliff without being seen.

“We crossed the Monsean peaks into Sunder,” Katsa said, “and traveled through the forests. When we reached the outskirts of Suncliff, we traveled only by night.”

“How did you cross the mountain pass, Lady Princess? Wasn’t it guarded?”

“We didn’t cross at the mountain pass. We took Grella’s Pass.”

The captain peered at Katsa over the cup she’d raised to her face. She set the cup down. “I don’t believe you.”

“It’s true.”

“You crossed Grella’s Pass and kept your fingers and toes, let alone your lives? I might believe it of you, Lady Princess, but I can’t believe it of the child.”

“Katsa carried me,” Bitterblue said.

“And we had good weather,” Katsa added.

The captain’s laugh rang out. “It’s no use lying to me about the weather, Lady Princess. It’s snowed in Grella’s Pass every day since summer, and there are few places in the seven kingdoms colder.”

“Nonetheless, it could have been worse the day we crossed.”

The captain was still laughing. “If I ever need a protector, Lady Princess, I hope to find you nearby.”

A day or two later, after Katsa had come up from one of the frigid ocean baths she liked to take—the baths that Bitterblue considered further proof she was mad—she sat on Bitterblue’s bunk and peeled away her soaking clothing. Their quarters were barely big enough for the two bunks they slept in and badly lit by a lantern that swung from the ceiling. Bitterblue brought Katsa a cloth to dry her wet skin and frozen hair. She reached out to touch Katsa’s shoulder. Katsa looked down and saw, in the wavering light, the lines of white skin that had caught the girl’s attention. The scars, where the claws of the mountain lion had torn her flesh. Lines on her breast, too.