“Did you see how he lit up when he saw you watching him just now? Look at him, he’s killing himself to impress you. You’re a father figure for him.”

Quentin hadn’t seen. How was Poppy here for one day and she’d seen all that?

“To be honest I always thought he hated me.”

“He’s gutted he didn’t get to go to Earth with you.”

“You must be joking. And miss out on all the adventures here?”

Now Poppy directed her guileless blue gaze at him instead of the sword fight.

“What makes you think what happened to you on Earth wasn’t an adventure?”

Quentin started to answer, and stopped with his mouth open. Because it turned out he had nothing to say.

It was five more days before they sighted land.

They were having breakfast al fresco on deck: Quentin, Eliot, Josh, and Poppy. It was a practice Eliot had instituted: the crew set up a table on the poop deck, with a blinding white tablecloth clipped on to keep it from blowing away. He kept this up in a surprising range of meteorological conditions. Once Quentin saw him up there alone in a squall, munching on marmalade toast that was obviously soaked through with salt spray. It was a matter of principle with him.

But today it was nice out. The weather was almost tropical again. Sunlight flashed off the silverware, and the sky was a perfect blue dome. Though the food itself was getting pretty grim, the kind of unspoilable stuff that came out of deep storage late in an ocean voyage: hard biscuits and meat so salty it was more salt than meat. The only thing that was still good was the jam. Quentin used a lot of it.

“So is this how it works?” he said. “The questing? We just keep sailing east till we hit something?”

“Unless you have a better idea,” Eliot said.

“No. Just remind me why we think it’s going to work?”

“Because that’s how quests always work,” Eliot said. “I don’t pretend to understand the mechanics of it, but the lesson seems to be that you just can’t force the issue with a whole lot of detective work. It’s a waste of energy. The ones who go around knocking on doors and looking for clues never find the thing, the Grail or whatever it is. It’s more a matter of having the right attitude.”

“What attitude is that?”

Elliot shrugged.

“I haven’t got a clue. I guess we’re supposed to have faith.”

“I never really took you for the faith-having kind,” Quentin said.

“I didn’t either. But it’s worked out so far. We’ve got five of the seven keys. You can’t argue with results.”

“You can’t,” Quentin said, “but that’s actually not the same thing as having faith.”

“Why do you always try to ruin everything?”