She could only shake her head at him. Because there should have been at least a flicker of vulnerability in his eyes when he said something so daft, shouldn’t there? But there wasn’t. Just steel and fire and the whole blasted forge, his words the hammer meant to bend her. “How do these small little islands even hold your head, big as it is?”

He grinned again. “You can test me, Benna. Try me. I’m not going anywhere—and neither are you, at least for the summer.”

She folded her arms over her chest, largely to keep them from flapping about like a bird’s again. “You want a test?” She shouldn’t. But she couldn’t think of a bigger one. “I need to get a message to Oliver. Tonight.”

He reeled back as if she’d punched him. “Now, that’s below the belt.”

“Oh, giving up so quickly? I see how determined you are.”

“Come on, Benna.” He swiped his cap off and smacked it against his leg. “I try to give him a note and he’ll be checking it for poison.”

“Not a note. Just a verbal message. And this.” She pulled the drawing of the coat of arms from her pocket when its presence suddenly flashed into her mind. “Ask him to see if he recognizes it.”

He frowned. “Pick something else.”

“No.” Perhaps seeing him squirm shouldn’t be quite so entertaining. But it was. She fluttered the drawing. “Give him this. And tell him another package came for Beth. Think you can remember that?”

He scowled and put his cap back on his head, then snatched the drawing from her hand and put it in his own pocket. “You owe me a picnic lunch for this.”

“I most certainly do not.”

“You’re right. That’s not big enough. A dinner. A fancy one, with you in a pretty dress.”

She snorted. “In your dreams, Casek Wearne.”

“Every night, my ’ansum.” He turned to his boat and then went so still that she turned to see what had caught his attention, instead of stomping away like she’d planned.

A boat, its sails a blue that would have matched the sky had it not been heavy with clouds. Small and looking all the smaller for being so far away. “Whose is it?”

“The Hills’.”

She raised a hand to shield her eyes from the gleam of sun off the water, but she hadn’t a prayer of making out from here who was on it. “I thought Mr. Hill’s leg didn’t let him sail anymore.”

“It doesn’t. Must be Perry.”

“Well. Nothing too odd about a boy going out for a bit after a squall, is there?”