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“Hundreds of men. Hundreds of guns. I didn’t think they’d send such a force, not this deep into Turgonian territory.”
    “New heading, Cap’n?” a swarthy man at the wheel asked.
    “Take us closer to land. We’ve a shallower draw than those ships. If we can reach the Dead Snake River, we can head up it where they can’t follow.”
    Tikaya frowned. Wouldn’t the Nurians simply wait at the mouth until the schooner ventured out again?
    Before the helmsman had said more than a quick, “Aye, Cap’n,” Rias appeared at Tikaya’s shoulder.
    “We’ve already passed the Snake,” he said, nodding toward the east, though the coast wasn’t in sight. “We’ll reach land at the Fire Cliffs. They’re nearly twenty leagues long, and the water is deep right up to the rock.”
    The captain scowled at him. “I don’t need the terrain explained to me. I know where we are, and we will reach the river.”
    Rias said nothing, though he wore what Tikaya had come to recognize as a there’s-little-point-in-arguing-with-fools expression. The captain may have recognized it, too, for his scowl deepened.
    “You.” He pointed at Tikaya. “You figure out the flute yet?”
    She lifted the instrument and played a short childhood ditty about a boy who was hit on the head by falling coconuts whenever he didn’t mind his elders. The captain peered about, as if he expected some miraculous transformation of everyone around him.
    “Well, does it work?” he asked when she finished.
    “I don’t know,” Tikaya said. “Do you feel more kindly toward me?”
    The captain growled.
    “Perhaps not then.”
    Rias touched her arm and nodded toward the rigging above them. Garchee crouched on the yard, his mouth agape as he stared down at them. As soon they looked in his direction, he snapped his jaw closed and scurried out of sight.
    The captain hadn’t noticed. A string of curses flowed from his mouth, punctuated by terms such as “deadbeat passengers.” Tikaya wanted to defend herself—more than ever she believed she’d solved the puzzle—but, if Rias was right and the flute had no use in this setting, what did it matter?
    “Someone get that boy down here,” the captain snarled.
    The other cabin boy jumped to comply. A worrisome grin stretched across his face as he scampered up the mast. He darted behind sails that blocked Tikaya’s view, and she could only frown when, a moment later, the cabin boy practically shoved Garchee down the mast. Blood trickled from the Nurian boy’s nose.
    The captain waited, eyebrows drawn into a V, his fists propped on his hips. “Do you see that, boy?” He pointed at the ships on the horizon, ships that had inched closer in the last few minutes. “Three Nurian warships. Three! What’d you do? Steal the most valuable piece in the collection?”
    With nearly a foot of height separating them, Garchee had to look up to meet the captain’s eyes, but he did so, giving the older man a hard stare. “I warned you when I offered to trade the flute for passage that I might be pursued,” he said, speaking in precise but nearly flawless Turgonian. “You saw the ivory, and calculation and greed filled your eyes. I have not... made good decisions myself, but you had the option to turn down my offer.”
    A crimson hue suffused the captain’s cheeks as he suffered this lecture. “You said some one might come after you, not the whole slagging Nurian navy!”
    The boy’s resolve wavered as he glanced toward the encroaching ships. He looked like he might have an apology in mind, but the captain yanked a knife from his belt, snarling, “I’m going to kill you, you worthless runt!”
    Before Tikaya could react, the captain lunged for the boy, murder in his eyes. Rias moved just as quickly. He darted in front of the boy, caught the captain’s wrist, and twisted against the joint. The dagger fell to the deck, landing point first in the wood. Bellowing with rage, the captain yanked his arm free even as he