He had been staring at the table, at the almost-empty bowl, the cheap earthenware mug, the unused spoon. Now he lifted his eyes to look at her. In the dimness, her face could have been a paper mask with holes cut for the eyes. She was full of stillness, he thought. But, no. All the stillness was on the surface. Beneath that quiet, she seethed.

‘I’m not going back.’

He stared at her, unable to make the connection between what he had said and what she had replied.

‘I’m never going back to Bingtown,’ she clarified. ‘I’m never going back to where anyone knows me, knows how I was deceived, how I was shamed. That was something Hest did to me, using me that way. But I won’t let him make that be who I am. I won’t be cut and sewn into something that suits him.’

‘Alise—’

‘He broke his vows to me. He voided our contract. I’m no longer bound to him, Sedric, and I’ve no reason to return to him. I’m staying here. On the Tarman with Leftrin. I know he’ll have me. I don’t care if he wants to marry me or not. I’m staying with him.’

‘You can’t. You shouldn’t.’ Now was not the time to be telling her this. He did not want to mix the two things together in her mind. But he couldn’t let her get up from the table and walk away without knowing. He couldn’t let her do something irrevocable, something that would allow yet another man to deceive her.

‘Alise. You shouldn’t trust him.’ His words stopped her. Her hand was on the door.

‘I know that’s what you think, Sedric’ She didn’t even turn to look back at him. ‘I know you think he is uneducated and socially beneath me, crude and unmannered. And you know something? He is those things. But he loves me, and I love him, and I’ve discovered that that matters more than all the things you think are important.’ She opened the door.

‘Alise, he is deceiving you.’

For a moment she stood in the doorway. Then she closed the door again, softly. He could not see her face but he could imagine how the insecurity would flicker through her eyes. A man had made a fool of her before. A man she had trusted as a friend had deceived her for years. Could she trust her own judgment? Was it happening again?

‘I don’t enjoy telling you this.’

‘Yes you do,’ she said harshly. ‘But say it anyway. How could he be deceiving me? How? Does he have a wife I don’t know about? Immense debts somewhere? Is he a murderer, a liar, a thief? What?’

He ground his teeth, wondering how he could tell her without revealing his part in Jess’s death. He wanted to keep that private. It was bad enough that both the dragon and Carson knew. He was surprised to realize that it was his dragon he was shielding as much as himself. He didn’t want the other keepers to know that she had killed and eaten a human. Just tell her about Leftrin. He wouldn’t say how he knew. ‘You must know that the Duke of Chalced is ill. He has made it plain that there will be rich rewards for anyone who brings him the dragon parts that he thinks will cure him. For that matter, any part of a dragon that ends up in any market will command a high price.’

‘Of course I know that. How could I study dragons and be unaware of all the traditions about the medicinal values of dragon scale or blood or liver or tooth? I don’t doubt that some of that tradition is true. So?’

Out with it. ‘Leftrin is in league with people who intend to make the duke happy. He plans to gather or may already be collecting specimens from the dragons to sell in Chalced.’

‘He wouldn’t.’ A hitch in her words as she thought. She was asking herself if it was possible. ‘He has no time, no opportunity!’ she objected. ‘Running the ship takes up every bit of his time.’

‘He has been out around the dragons. Helping get the rasp snakes off them, helping tar their injuries. He could do it, Alise. A scale or two here, some blood there. Waiting for the chance to plunder more from a dying or dead dragon. That would be the big pay-off for this expedition. If a dragon dies or is injured, and he could collect parts from it, he could abandon the keepers and dragons and leave immediately for Chalced and rake in a rich reward.’

‘This is insanity! I won’t, I can’t believe it.’

‘It’s true.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I’m not at liberty to say.’

‘Oh.’ She put a world of disgust into that one word, innuendos and rumours. Well, Sedric, I’ll put an end to it. I’ll simply ask him.’

‘You shouldn’t do that, Alise. I truly believe you don’t know him, don’t know what he is capable of doing. Jess, Jess the hunter, he told me things. There. Now you know. Jess told me that he was in partnership with Leftrin to get the dragon parts. He told me there was a plan to meet a Chalcedean ship at the mouth of the Rain Wild River as soon as they had what they needed. But they had a falling out over it, and it came to fists.’

‘Why would Jess even talk to you, let alone confide such things in you?’ He heard the small doubts piling up in her mind. Detail might convince her.

‘Believe it or not, he thought I might help him get close to the dragons. Because of how I go among them with you. He knew you had given me that red scale to draw. He actually stole it from my cabin while I was sick. He said it alone was worth a small fortune. He thought that if we could get a scale from a dragon, perhaps we could get more things. Enough to make us all rich.’

She stared at him through the gloom. He could hear her breathing. ‘Leftrin would not be a party to such a low scheme.’

‘He was. I fear he is. And I fear that if you bring it up to him, he may become violent. Or find a way to get rid of both of us. Alise, I’m telling you the truth. And you have to ask yourself, if you don’t know this about him, what else do you not know?’

‘I think I do know him. I think I know him better than you might suspect.’

She flung those words at him and he knew. The depth of the lurch he felt surprised him. She’d slept with the man. Slept with that smelly, ignorant riverman. Alise, the sweet little girl he had known since her childhood, the respected Bingtown lady, had gone to the bed of that man. For a moment, he was wordless with dismay. Then he knew he had to do it. Deploy his final weapon against her blind infatuation.

‘Alise, you think you know him. You thought you knew me, and Hest. But we deceived you for years and you never suspected us. I’m sorry for that, truly sorry. And that’s why I’m trying to keep you from falling prey to that type of trickery again. Leftrin isn’t worthy of you, Alise. You need to stay away from him.’

In the dim light of the galley, he could see the motion of her shoulders as they rose and fell. She was fighting back sobs. She caught her breath. Her voice went shrill with the tightness of her throat. ‘Did I say I didn’t hate you, Sedric? I think I was mistaken.’

‘Hate me, then,’ he replied. ‘I probably deserve it. I’ll accept it as the price I pay, as what I owe you for how I deceived you for years. But don’t waste yourself on that lout, Alise. You deserve better.’

She made no reply to that, only shut the door firmly behind her as she left.

He sat a long time, alone in the dark. It was a reflex to lift the mug and finish off the last mouthful of cold, bitter coffee. He stood to leave and then looked back at the dishes on the table. He should tidy up after himself, stop being the spoiled Bingtown do-nothing he was accused of being. Tomorrow, maybe. Not tonight. His scene with Alise had exhausted him. The bleakness of his spirits weighed him down with a weariness that had nothing to do with sleepiness or tiredness. He just wished he could make everything stop, just for a while. He sighed and scratched his cheek. Tomorrow, there would be more wash-water on board. He’d be able to heat some and shave. He’d never worn a beard before, never realized how itchy it could be. He scratched again, more vigorously.