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if wondering what they were still doing there. “Lucky for you the summer Ore Fleet has already sailed with its cargo of metal back to Dun Derhan. Otherwise nothing could persuade me to venture those waters.”
    He directed his next words at the tattooed fellow standing behind Rath. “Don’t just stand there, Nax, find our guests food and a place to sleep.”
    “You will accept my hospitality, I hope?” he asked Rath and Maura. “We will need to be on our way very early tomorrow.”
    Before Rath could reply, Maura spoke up, “You honor us with your kindness, Captain. May the Giver’s favor fall upon you.”
    Gull accepted her blessing with a wry smirk and an exaggerated bow.
    Rath guessed the man did not risk his life keeping open tenuous links between the Umbrian mainland and the Islands out of duty to the Giver. Likewise, his offer of food and shelter was an act of caution, not kindness. If they were spies, Gull wouldnot give them a chance to steal away and tell the local garrison about the forbidden voyage he had agreed to make.
    Rath suspected Maura knew it, too. But since they had no money and knew no one in Duskport, even a smuggler’s hospitality beat sleeping out in the fog. Perhaps destiny was taking care of them, after all.
    The man called Nax led them through a maze of narrow hallways and up two flights of stairs to a snug, windowless room. The latter did not sit well with Rath, who preferred open spaces and always liked to have an avenue of escape. But he hid his misgivings from Maura, who seemed pleased enough with Captain Gull’s “hospitality.”
    “Luxury!” She threw herself down onto the thick straw mattress in one corner of the room. She sniffed. “The straw’s clean, too, strewn with honeygrass and pestweed.”
    Rath forced a smile and nodded. The most comfortable cage in the world was still a cage.
    “There’s plenty of room for us both.” She patted the mattress.
    “A good thing,” he teased. “I would feel bad making you sleep on bare floor.”
    The door opened and Nax entered bearing a well-laden tray. “I hope you’re hungry. There’s plenty here.”
    Maura scrambled up from the mattress. “This looks like a feast for twice our number! Give Captain Gull our thanks for his generosity.”
    “Very good, mistress.” The large, menacing smuggler sounded so meek, Rath could scarcely keep from chuckling. “If there’s anything more you need—anything at all—just give a call.”
    That cordial invitation did not reassure Rath. It only confirmed his certainty that one of Gull’s men would be standing guard outside the door. He hoped the cozy straw mattress would not put any amorous notions in Maura’s head. Much as he wanted her, he could not abide the thought of someone listening in on them, perhaps thinking about her that way.
    Nax set the tray down on a low table in the opposite corner of the room from the mattress. Once he had gone, Maura pounced on the food.
    “Hold a moment!” Rath grabbed her hand on its way to her mouth bearing a biscuit of some kind. “How do you know that’s not poisoned?”
    “Don’t be daft.” Maura jerked her hand free and took a bite before he could stop her. “If Captain Gull decided to have us killed, he had no need to go to all this bother. He could just have let his first order stand.”
    “Or his second,” Rath muttered. How could she talk about threats of cold murder as if they were trifles?
    “Just so.” Maura swallowed her first bite and took another. “It would make no sense for him to pretend he was going to take us to the Vestan Islands, then waste perfectly good food by using it to poison us.”
    She stared at her left hand, which was still clenched in a tight fist. “I had better wash off this madfern, though, or I could do myself worse harm than our host means us.”
    Her tone reminded Rath of the gentle scoldings he used to get from Ganny when he was a young fellow. Maura was probably right. Somehow, when it came to her