I was on the verge of collapse when my godmother descended upon me, crushing me in an embrace. “Everything is ready,” she said breathlessly. “I’ve done everything I can.”

“Everything’s ready?” The edges of my voice were raw, my fingers tight around the shoe in my hand. Its beading scratched at my fingers. “My bags are ready. Perrault has that stupid folder. But what about me?” Godmother Althea’s gaze darted to the file in the protocol officer’s grip, but Captain Lang was already approaching, the set of his lips apologetic, as they had been the night before. We had no time.

It wasn’t Lang’s fault, but my hands fisted themselves, frustrated—at him. At Alessandra. At the slowly rising sun, for not ceasing to move so I could stay where I belonged.

Whatever my godmother said, I wasn’t ready.

Althea turned back to me, habited frame tense and vigilant, eyes blazing. “Yes. Yes, you are,” she said quickly. “You have a keen mind and a kind heart. You have everything you need.”

She believed I would make it through this trip.

I will get through it, I swore silently. And I will get back to them.

The captain cleared his throat in our direction, raising his voice over the crowd that had gathered on the pier. Out on the dock, the Council formed a line behind Alessandra and my father, all but Gidcumb looking like they’d enjoyed too much Appalachia bourbon the night before. “Sister—Seneschal-elect—we have to get going.”

I put my free hand on Captain Lang’s arm. “Please.” The word was a breath and a plea. “Just—please. One minute.”

The captain watched me for a long beat. His expression was composed, but there was reluctance in his pause, in the push of his fist into the opposite palm. “Of course.”

“Godmother.” I turned back to her, desperate. “The prayer for travelers—before I go.” I’d heard nuns and priests speak it a hundred times over ships leaving port and the rare family that moved away. I never imagined she’d say it for me.

As she whispered the short plea to God into my shoulder and hair, her words hemmed my fraying edges, bracing me where I threatened to come apart. I stood quiet in her arms, thumbing the shoe in my hand.

And then it was time.

Trumpets rang out from the dock. A bottle of wine hung from my stepmother’s elegant fingers like a man on a gallows. One end of a rope was tied around its neck; the other, around the prow.

“Potomac,” Alessandra called over the crowd. “Our seneschal-elect goes in search of a husband across the sea. Brave Selah,” she said, dark eyes staring me down, “do your duty to Potomac, and don’t come back alone.”