Davvi waved this away almost with impatience, as if the Monseans’ needs were beside the point. He was so happy. It amazed him that his daughter should have flown home in an airship. He seemed to attribute it to the importance of the Monsean guests, then was concerned at Nev’s suggestion that Hava and Giddon sleep in the barn. He was the opposite of his daughter, his feelings always apparent, his doubts expressed with jumping eyebrows and cries of alarm.

When Nev stood and offered to show them to the barn, Giddon let her and Hava step out of the house ahead of him.

“Excuse me, sir,” he said quietly to Davvi.

“Yes?”

Giddon was feeling as if he’d slid out of his own body and was watching a large, bearded actor talk mechanically to a kind man. He understood where the strangeness was coming from. He had a question, and he was terrified of the answer. It would be better if he didn’t ask it.

It burst out.

“If silbercows see a person drowning,” he said. “Do they let them drown?”

Davvi’s face moved with sympathy. “Silbercows are known for trying to save the lives of drowning humans. I don’t believe they would ever just watch a human drown.”

“Then—if they do save a human, where do they take them?”

“Wherever they can,” said Davvi. “Land, a ship, an airship. There are many happy stories. Sad ones too, I’m afraid, for sometimes the water’s too cold. Why do you ask?”

“I’m just curious,” said Giddon.

—

The barn was not what he’d expected. No beds of straw, no chilly drafts through ill-fitting shutters. Instead, he stepped into a long, cavernous, tall-ceilinged space with smells and flickering lanterns that reminded him of the horse stables of his childhood in the Middluns. Under the incurious gaze of one of the tallest cows Giddon had ever seen, Nev directed him to a corner of the barn where four small rooms had been built, clearly for the comfort of travelers.

Giddon’s room was barely big enough for its furniture, and dark. He suspected he wouldn’t see any glass in Torla’s Neck until he reached the Cavenda house. But the room was clean, and warm from the heat of the brazier Nev lit for him. The bed was comfortable, his blankets soft.

Lying down, Giddon watched the light his brazier threw against the even boards of the ceiling, listened to the rustle of the chickens whose coop was on the other side of the barn. He felt that his heart was being pulled apart.

What if the silbercows had been showing him the story of Bitterblue’s rescue?

But how could that be, when she’d never turned up anywhere alive?

Bitterblue? he ventured, afraid of the thing he wanted more than anything. What do I do? How do I find out? And how will I survive, if it’s not true?