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figuring I could ask him again once we made sail. The seed burned my tongue and I spat it out on deck. Kolur laughed at me.
    “Ass,” I said, wiping at my mouth. “Is this really all I’m going to get to see of Skalir? Some burning seeds and a shabby dock town?”
    “It’s probably for the best,” Kolur said. “Skalir’s a backwards little island. Isn’t that right, Frida?”
    She glanced up at him from her place at the bow, where she was finishing the last of the repair spells.
    “Not so backwards when you leave the shore and go into the mountains.” She blew a swirl of glittering powder out into the water, and the ocean churned around us. “For good luck,” she added, looking at me.
    I’d never seen that kind of good luck charm before, but before I could ask more about it Frida was walking back toward Kolur.
    “Too many fishermen around,” she said. “That’s why Skalir seems so backwards.”
    She grinned, so I took it for a joke and laughed, even though I was technically a fisherman. But Kolur didn’t find it so funny.
    “Fishermen are honest folk,” he snapped. “Unlike your lot.”
    “My lot?” Frida said. “You would know–”
    “Hanna.” Kolur stood up and shoved his package of wildflower seeds into his pocket. “Check with the shop to see if our supplies are ready.”
    I looked back and forth between Kolur and Frida, wondering what Frida was going to say that got Kolur all worked up. Kolur jerked his head at me. “Go on,” he said. “Frida’s done here, and I want to get to the water as soon as we can.”
    Frida crossed her arms over her chest. “You best do what he says,” she told me. “Kolur never liked being disobeyed.”
    I scowled at both of them but I knew she was right, even if I didn’t understand how. It still didn’t make sense that Kolur knew so powerful a witch, that we just happened to land on the island where she lived, three days’ sail from where we ought to be…
    I didn’t like it.
    The supply shop was a little store right at the point where the docks gave way to Beshel-by-the-Sea proper. The owner recognized me when I walked in, even though I’d never met him before. Kolur must have told him to be on the lookout for a Kjoran-Empire girl. Not a lot of us around.
    “You Hanna?” he asked, straightening up from where he’d been wrapping packages in rough tunic fabric.
    “I’m picking up Kolur Icebreak’s order.” I stood in the doorway, fidgeting, looking around. It wasn’t much of a store, just a room stacked with packages. I wondered what was in each of them. Goods from all over Skalir, probably.
    “Certainly.” The shopkeeper turned to one of his stacks. It was a dull sight, his hunched-over back, and I knew it was likely the last non-Kjoran sight I’d see for a good long while. “Here you are.”
    He dropped the packages on the counter. There were about ten of them, rather large, all wrapped in the same rough fabric. He read off the list – food mostly, dried fish and some sea vegetables, skins of fresh water. An awful lot for a three-day trip.
    “Need any help carrying it to your boat?”
    “No, thanks.” I scooped the packages up by their tie strings and staggered out of the shop, where I called on the south wind to help lighten my load. Those ten packages felt like two as I walked back down the docks, the wind bearing the bulk of their weight. So far, adventuring was pretty dull. About the same as being in Kjora, all things told.
    I carted the supplies back to the Penelope and set them up in the storeroom. The sun was sinking pale gold into the horizon, and I figured Kolur was anxious to be out on the open sea. So it was a surprise, when I climbed up from down below, to find Frida still on board.
    And a bigger surprise still that she was standing over the wooden map with a sextant.
    “What’s going on?” I hissed at Kolur. “I thought she was finished repairing our boat.”
    “She is.” Kolur stared straight ahead, out at the water.