The captain held the bucket high, as if it was a prize captured in battle, and the gathered crew gave a cheerful roar of approval. Lake walked to the side of the ship. “Trickster!” he shouted to the seas. “Dolphin! Spirit of Water! Ruler of the Seas! Drink deep on the blood of Yanlin! Greet our newest sailors, who enter the Inner Sea for the first time. Grant them the right to sail upon your Element. Don’t trick away their lives, for they have already given you their blood. All this we ask, in the name of the Unknowable One!” And he tilted the bucket of water and blood upside down and poured its contents into the waves.

Storm stood stiffly, sandwiched between the boys. She stared into the water. Her thumb throbbed in time to her heartbeat as she watched the dark shape of a huge creature pass far below, swimming beneath the shadow of the Wayfarer.

“I wanted a word,” said her uncle, carefully extinguishing the lighting stick in the bucket of water beside the door. In the flare of lamplight, he studied her face. They were in the chart room – the captain’s sleeping quarters and the only private place aboard ship. “Without your shadow listening in. Although, come to think of it, Cloud hasn’t been underfoot lately. You two fallen out?”

“No.” Storm shrugged. “Not really.”

“Hmph. Wouldn’t be a tragedy if you had. He’s too focused on you. There’s no future there.”

Storm found she was offended. “It’s not that!”

“Oh?” Lake’s eyebrows rose in a questioning curve.

“It’s my magic Cloud likes, not me!”

“So that’s the way of it? I noticed he fancies playing hero.”

“He’s angry with me for not sinking the raft town.”

“And I’m pleased you didn’t kill yourself trying! You’re of no worth to Yanlin drowned and eaten by the fishes!”

A proprietorial glint in his eyes. Storm looked away.

“But I didn’t bring you here to talk about Cloud. I need to warn you.”

She glanced up, wondering.

“The Pact,” said Lake, as if that explained everything.

“What about it, Uncle?” Everyone knew about the Pact – the group of fifteen families who ran Bellum Island, where most trading was done.

“They’ll be after you.”

“After me? I don’t understand.”

“Witches…” he paused, his jaws working as if he was chewing on something foul tasting, “…don’t have to work for their birth island. The Pact will try and win you. Bribe, if you like. So you’ll leave us and go work for them. Make them even richer!”

“But I wouldn’t!”