“I don’t care what you do!” Bitterblue yelled. “I feel great! I’m stronger than you!”

“She feels great!” Giddon yelled. “She’s stronger than you!”

“It’s not true, of course,” she said in a normal voice.

“What isn’t?”

Bitterblue looked at the moon, motionless above her, while the ground moved under her feet. “That I’m stronger than the sea.”

“Okay,” he said. “But you’re stronger than the way the sea makes you feel.”

—

Awake in her strange prison with moonlight on her face, Bitterblue couldn’t remember for a moment if the conversation with Giddon had been a memory or a dream. Wind pushed against the walls, sounding like the sea. She propped herself on her elbow, feeling pain in her hands and feet, the dryness of her nose, mouth, lips, the ache of hunger that was beginning to frighten her, badly. Had her captors forgotten about her? Did they mean her to starve?

A shadow moved on the other side of the room and Bitterblue gasped. Then realized, as gold eyes flashed, that of course it was just the fox again; then had another fright as more eyes flashed around it. Multiple foxes? Is this a dream too?

Suddenly the foxes swarmed across the room toward her, moving like a wave, then disappearing under the bed. She heard something vaguely metallic. Tiny fox feet, touching metal? Bitterblue didn’t understand what was going on, but she was awake now, and she knew she wasn’t on the ship.

A key turned in the lock and the door swung open. Bitterblue was so surprised that she cried out.

A woman stepped in—a girl?—young-looking, tall, short-haired, brown-skinned, balancing a tray. A lamp on the tray threw yellow light at Bitterblue, blinding her, but still, Bitterblue recognized her. This was the young woman who’d pulled her out of the sea.

When the woman placed her tray on the floor, Bitterblue smelled stew. “Who are you?” said Bitterblue, straining to remember her Keepish, mopping her tearing eyes. “And what do you imagine you’re going to get out of this?”

The woman lifted a small pot from the tray and came to sit at the end of the bed, fishing under the blankets for Bitterblue’s feet. Then, opening the pot, she began to apply a salve to Bitterblue’s aching skin that was so glorious that Bitterblue had to fight the instinct to let out an ecstatic cry.

“I would like to import this excellent salve to Monsea,” she said, “once we’ve concluded my kidnapping. What do you say?”

The woman ignored her.

“Who are you?” Bitterblue said again. “Why are you doing this?”