“Did you see?” Agnes came running up to them, her eyes bright, her cheeks flushed. “It’s Pelago! We made it!”

“You will love the city of Arbaz, I am thinking,” Vada said, sauntering up behind Agnes. “It has the largest market in all of Pelago. Even the one in Ithilia cannot compare. Though don’t tell the Ithilians I said that.”

Vada was the only sailor who treated Sera like a normal person, the only one who actually called her Sera and not Saifa. Sera had a suspicion that Agnes had much to do with that—the two girls were very close and had grown closer over the voyage.

“I can’t wait to see it,” Agnes gushed. “And Leo, Eneas said his sister works in the market; perhaps we’ll be able to meet her.”

“Sure,” Leo said, tugging at his shirt, “we can meet whoever you want, as long as I can get some new clothes.”

Vada grinned. “You are not enjoying Jacoba’s leftover things?”

Agnes choked on her laugh. Leo had been wearing one of the tallest sailor’s hand-me-downs, since his fancy clothes from the theater were entirely inappropriate for life on a ship.

“Surprisingly, no,” Leo said dryly. “At least, not after two weeks in them.”

“You know, I think you will be looking very fine in Pelagan clothes,” Vada said. “You have the figure for them.”

“Fashion is the least of our concern,” Agnes said, tucking a loose strand of hair up into her bun. “And it’s Ithilia we need to get to, not Arbaz.”

Ithilia was the capital city of Pelago, on a different island called Cairan. Pelago was nothing but islands, and even though Sera had been looking at maps of it for two weeks, she still felt disoriented by them all. When she had gazed down at this planet from the City Above the Sky, Pelago had seemed so small, a collection of misshapen brown-and-green dots. But now she was realizing just how big this world was.

“Actually, it’s Braxos we need to get to,” Leo reminded her.

“But our grandmother is in Ithilia,” Agnes said. “She’s expecting me. And I know she can help us.”

“If there is anyone in Pelago who can be helping you besides the Triumvirate itself,” Vada said, “it is Ambrosine Byrne.”

Sera hoped Ambrosine was a kinder person than Agnes and Leo’s father. She did not have an ounce of pity for the man who had imprisoned her, but however cruel and callous, he was still the twins’ only living parent. They knew almost nothing of their mother, Alethea Byrne, or her family, except that the Byrnes were very powerful and influential in Pelago. Agnes clung to the idea of Ambrosine the way Sera clung to her star pendant at night, the one her best friend, Leela, had given her.