Looking disgruntled, Shazi picked at her bread. “Well, I want to go on a dangerous adventure. It’s boring here. And the food is awful. The sailors keep saying the fish are all dead and gross now, so every meal is just potatoes and seaweed and twelve different types of milk.”

Shazi wasn’t wrong. On their table alone were four different pitchers, full of what Tadg had described as sweet milk, sour milk, thick milk, and thick sour milk. Barclay missed the pear cider from Sycomore’s famous Ironwood Inn.

“Actually, there are sixteen types of milk,” Tadg corrected, eagerly reaching for his second cup.

“Yeah, and they all make my stomach hurt,” Viola muttered.

Even Mitzi, who normally thrilled in tipping over their glasses, steered clear of the sour milk ever since she’d sniffed it for the first time. She tried to play at the end of the table with Motya, who was far less interested in wrestling than she was in grooming her luscious white fur.

“Um, Tadg?” Yasha asked. “Will that cream still be good to drink?”

He pointed to Tadg’s toad Beast, who squatted in a dish of sweet cream as though it was a pond.

“I wouldn’t,” Tadg said flatly.

“I thought that you weren’t going to keep him,” Viola said. “Weren’t you—”

“Runa won’t let me get rid of him in case he’s a major discovery or something. Like he’s a trophy.” He pointed his spoon at the toad Beast. “You are the worst trophy.”

The Beast croaked in response.

“Then you should name him!” Cecily said eagerly. “I like Toadles.”

“There’s no way I’m naming him Toadles,” Tadg said. “I should name him Yuckywart. Or Dungfart.”

“Oh, you’re no fun,” Hasu whined. “You don’t deserve Toadles.”

At that, Toadles leapt out of the cream across the table, making the bowl topple over and spill. A puddle of it soaked through the envelope resting beside Viola.

Barclay hurriedly fished it out of the cream. “Here, before it gets all—”

Viola snatched it from his hands and glanced at Cyril’s apprentices to make sure they hadn’t seen. Even though Viola spoke to the other girls now, she wasn’t ready to call them friends again. No matter how much Barclay tried to change her mind.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said quietly. “I’m not reading it anyway.”

When she went to shove the envelope into her bag, Barclay caught a flash of the official purple seal on the back.

“But it’s from your dad,” Barclay said. “He sent you another letter?”

Viola stiffened. “He sent me five, actually.”

“You’re not going to at least read what he has to say?”

“Why bother? I already know what he’ll say. He’ll say that I made a great mistake letting Runa be my teacher. And that he’s very disappointed in me.”