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They had slashed his wrists to gain blood for their soothtell; yet already the scars had faded, were nearly invisible. “But it doesn’t make any difference. What happens here doesn’t change what’s going on there. All it does is change the way we feel about it.”
    After that, his shame was too great to hold her gaze. “That’s why I didn’t tell you about it. At first—right at the beginning—I thought you had enough to worry about. You would learn the truth soon enough. But after a while I changed. Then I didn’t want you to know. I didn’t think I had the right to ask you to love a dead man.”
    As he spoke, her shock boiled into anger. The moment he stopped, she demanded, “Do you mean to say that you’ve been planning to die all along?” Her voice was abruptly livid against the quiet background of the ship and the sea. “That you haven’t even been
trying
to find a way to survive?”
    “No!” In despair, he sought to defend himself. “Why do you think I wanted a new Staff of Law—needed it so badly? It was my only hope. To fight for the Land without risking wild magic. And to send you back. You’re a doctor, aren’t you? I wanted you to save me.” But the anguish of her stare did not waver; and he could not meet it, could not pretend that what he had done was justified. “I’ve been trying,” he pleaded. But no appeal was enough. “I didn’t tell you because I wanted to love you for a while. That’s all.”
    He heard her moving; and the fear that she would walk out of the cabin, turn her back on him forever, wrenched at him. But she was not leaving. She retreated to the chair, seated herself there as if something in her had broken. Her hands covered her face as she hunched forward, and her shoulders jerked. Yet she made no sound. At her mother’s deathbed, she had learned to keep her weeping to herself. When she spoke, her voice shook.
    “Why do I end up killing everybody I care about?”
    Her grief hurt him like the raw acid of his guilt. This, too, was on his head. He wanted to descend from the hammock, go to her, take her in his arms; but he had forfeited that privilege. There was nothing he could do except fight back his own rue and protest, “it’s not your fault. You tried. I should’ve told you. You would’ve saved me if you could.”
    The vehemence of her reaction took him by surprise. “
Stop
that!” she spat. “I’ve got eyes! A mind of my own! I’m not some innocent kid you can
protect
.” The sun flashed on her face. “You’ve been lying down here ever since we came back aboard as if you were to blame for everything. But you’re not. Foul set this up. He manipulated you into it. What’re you trying to do now? Prove him
right?
”
    “I can’t help it!” he retorted, stung by the salt she rubbed into his futility. “Of course he’s right. Who do you think he is? He’s
me
. He’s just an externalization of the part of me that despises. The part that—”
    “
No
.” Her contradiction cut him off, though she did not shout. She had become too clenched and furious for shouting, too extreme to be denied. “He’s not you. He’s not the one who’s going to die.” She might have said, I’m the one who kills. The words were plain in every line of her visage. But her passion carried her past that recognition as if she could not bear it in any other way. “Everybody makes mistakes. But all you’ve done is try to fight for what you love. You have an answer. I don’t.” The heat of her assertion contained no self-pity. “I haven’t had one since this thing started. I don’t’ know the Land the way you do. I haven’t got any power. All I’ve been able to do is follow you around.” Her hands rose into fists. “If you’re going to die, do something to make it count!”
    Then like a quick touch of ice he realized that she had not come here to question him simply because the First desired a destination.
She wants to know where we’re going
. Her father