* * *

  Carys rose late enough from her sleep the next day that Eurion was just coming in from his sword practise.

  “I was just coming to get you, Lady,” he said. “It’s late.”

  “I’m aware,” she said, though there was no coldness to her voice. “Are you ready to leave?”

  Eurion, his hair still tumbled in black-rooted coils of gold, said in surprise, “I’m to go now?”

  “There will be many things to be done,” Carys said. “Some time ago there was talk of building a storehouse beside Enfys’ shop—I didn’t have the chance to do it myself, and I didn’t like to ask Aled to do it.”

  “No,” said Eurion, nodding decidedly. “I can build it.”

  Carys felt a faint smile on her lips, and banished it. “You’re able to build? Are you sure?”

  Eurion grinned guiltily. “Well, I think so, Lady! I can do machines like the water spigot, so I think I can do this. I’ll try, at any rate.”

  “Enfys will tell you where to go for the things you need: where to find suitable rocks, what to buy that can’t be found.”

  “Will you come to see how it goes?”

  “Later in the week,” she said. “Enfys will have some small jobs for you, too—as payment for using her shop to store all the supplies as you build. She’ll likely want you to put in a new fireplace for her as well; if so, I’ll reimburse you for your time.”

  “No,” Eurion said, frowning. “If I can pay something of what I owe you, I’ll work all day.”

  “Very well,” agreed Carys, because there was no time to argue. “Put on your coat; it’s cold.”

  Eurion did so, and stood, combing fingers through his hair to neaten it as she fixed her shawl around her shoulders and crossed it over her chest, tying it at the back. He took the note she had written for Enfys, turning it curiously between his fingers, but didn’t try to open it.

  Still, Carys said to him, “It’s for Enfys’ eyes only.”

  That made him grin. He said reproachfully, “Ah, but now I want to open it, Lady! You shouldn’t have said that.”

  “Enfys’ eyes only,” Carys repeated, but she felt the reluctant curl of a smile beginning. “Out. Make sure you return before it’s quite dark.”

  “Yes, Lady,” said Eurion, smiling brightly at her. “Will it storm today?”

  “Perhaps,” she said, though it was more of a hope than a conviction. “Take your lunch with you.”

  She was already lifting the handles of her cart when he called after her, “Thank you, Lady!”

  “Go,” she said, and walked away herself. She heard his footsteps moving lightly through the sand as she went, and threw a wary look up at the sky. It was dark, but there was still a ribbing of red to it, and in the sticky stillness of the morning, she could clearly hear her own footsteps, as well as Eurion’s.

  At the shore, it was similarly quiet, the sea swelling against, instead of lapping at, the rocky shore. And when the sun rose, bringing with it the gulls, there were few of them and not much more noise than before they’d come. Carys set to work swiftly, passing rapidly from one pool to the next, ruthless in her gathering. She thought she saw huge brown eyes in the swell of the sea, but the sunlight was filtered and red, and with any luck the rocky shore would be less appealing than the waves to the drifting selkies for some time yet.

  She was still only a little way along the shore when someone said, “Good day, Lady.”

  “Good day,” said Carys, without turning. She knew the voice, as well as the shadow that fell on the rocks. “What brings you to the shore, Steele?”

  “A question,” he said. “Do you have some time, Lady?”

  “No,” she said shortly. The still coldness, the sky rippling with red, and even seemingly lethargic waves, tugged at her to make sure every skerrick of seaweed was out of reach. She had already started too late. “But if you walk with me as I work, I’ll answer what I can.”

  “These beaches,” said Steele, following easily with her as she worked. “Do you often see smugglers on them?”

  “There are always smugglers,” Carys said. It was one of the constants of Sunderman life along the shore, along with the interminable succession issues and the ever-present sheep.

  “Do you know how they reach the villages unseen by your authorities?”

  “I’ve heard there are tunnels.” Carys was no lover of smugglers, but she wouldn’t give him any information that he couldn’t find elsewhere. For all she knew, Steele was a smuggler himself.

  “Where?”

  “I don’t often travel otherwheres than the cottage and the village,” Carys told him. She added, “Less so, these days. There have been some unwelcome visitors to my cottage, and I prefer to be there.”

  “Indeed?” said Steele.

  Carys was tempted, for a brief, mad moment, to be as honest with Steele as she had been with Ma Yong Hwa. Only for a moment, however: Steele might know, as Yong Hwa did, that she knew of his presence in her cottage, but she was quite certain their responses to being told so would be quite different. She was not a small woman by any means, but she didn’t think she had the necessary skills to fight off a sword-wielding male of Steele’s size, even if she would have risked it with an unarmed man.

  Instead, she said, “Even so. But even in the general way, I have no knowledge of the tunnel entrances. The men who keep them tend to extreme measures to keep their privacy.”

  “I see,” said Steele thoughtfully.

  There were a few moments of silence, where Carys hoped to hear him walking away, but there was no such relief.

  Instead, he asked, “You would see such men on the shores from time to time, however?”

  “From time to time,” she agreed, stretching her back. “I pay them no heed, and they pay me no heed.”

  “Perhaps you’ve seen a younger one lately—or perhaps two?”

  “I’ve never seen one close enough to know his age,” Carys said, moving to the next pool. Smugglers, in her experience, tended to beards and broad shoulders; she would have noticed if there were any young enough to be without beards, but she didn’t see why she should tell Steele so. “They avoid my shore.”

  “Do they?”

  “This shore is dangerous.”

  “So I’ve heard. You’ve not seen two young lads, then?”

  A more direct question—Steele, if not impatient, was certainly becoming more open with her.

  “I have not,” said Carys. It shouldn’t hurt to tell the truth, as much as she disliked the idea of giving any kind of help to Steele. It occurred to her, briefly, that the young lad Steele was apparently now in search of, might be the boy the Mas were searching for, and that gave her further reason to close her lips on anything else. Perhaps she would relay Steele’s questions to Ma Yong Hwa when next she saw him.

  * * *

  Carys arrived home before noon to an empty cottage, but this time it only produced a dour smile in reaction. Enfys had read and understood the note well.

  It was not until the last light was dying over the sea that Carys heard Eurion’s familiar, quick step approaching. She filled his bowl and his teacup, then sat down with her own just as sand grated on the doorstep.

  “Lady!” said Eurion, rushing through the door in a breath of frigid, salty air. “Lady, I’m home!”

  “So I see,” she said dryly. “There’s food.”

  “Ah!” Eurion sighed happily, and surprised Carys by throwing his arms around her neck as he passed behind her chair to his own.

  He was too wise to do so for more than a few seconds, and Carys, who had opened her mouth to remonstrate, closed it again as he sat down.

  Pouting a little now, Eurion said, “Enfys is an evil old woman.”

  “I know it,” Carys said, smiling faintly. “Did she make you work hard?”

  “I tried to get home before you did, but she kept giving me one more thing to do!”

  “Enfys values her time and attention at more than another person might think worthwhile,” Carys told him. “It will be hard work.”

  “That’s the problem, Lady. It’s not hard work—there’s just a lot of it, and I don’t know why it’s work for me instead of her shop assistant.”

  “You said you would do it,” Carys reminded him. “Is it too much?”

  “No,” said Eurion, around a mouthful, cheeks bulging. “Only I don’t know why she doesn’t give me anything harder. I was washing her windows and shining her shoes.”

  “Enfys has her own ways of amusing herself,” she said. “How goes the building?”

  “I must have built things before,” he said. “Not with these sort of materials, though. It’s…different to what I expected. But I can do it. I’ll go early tomorrow as well.”

  “Very well,” agreed Carys. She was quite certain that Enfys would keep him just long enough again tomorrow, and so on for at least the next week. She had asked as much in her note—had promised, moreover, a significant amount of pearls for so doing. The work on the shore was growing more dangerous by the day, below red skies that promised a storm and beside a swell that was deceptively quiet, and Carys had no time to ensure Eurion’s safety as well as deal with the longer days gathering seaweed.

  No, it was far better for him to be away from the cottage while Steele seemed determined to make his presence felt. Carys was less sure than ever whether Steele searched the shore for a person or a thing, but she was quite certain that in either case, she did not want him to set eyes upon Eurion.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The cottage was colder these days. Or so thought Carys, returning to it alone over the next few days. That was undoubtedly the fault of the fire, which, lacking someone to tend to it, burned right down to coals and gave little heat until she came in to stoke it and lay the wood again. By the time Eurion returned, usually after dark, it was warm again.

  Nothing that Carys was not used to, of course; and before Eurion, she wouldn’t have been lighting the fire for such nights anyway. But along with the former coldness, came also a lack of something to do. After the first day of finding herself slightly at a loss to know what to do with herself when she wasn’t fending off questions or otherwise occupied with Eurion, Carys cleaned the cottage from top to bottom. That saw her through until the third day, but by the fourth afternoon there was no need to do more than sweep the floor—and not much need for that, either. Carys was more tidy than Eurion in her entrance and egress, and brought in less sand as a result.

  At least there had not been any further interaction with Steele, thought Carys, when she found herself in danger of repining at the quietness. That was excitement she could well do without. There had been no sign of Steele’s return to the cottage, either, which was more important. It was by far too early to think of bringing Eurion back home, but Carys felt a little hope that Steele might soon move on and leave the rocky shore and cottage safe again in his wake.

  There was certainly nothing of interest or importance washing ashore to keep him around these days. Carys blamed that on the selkies—and, indirectly, the storm which was always building, building, but never breaking. The selkies must be hoarding playthings to use during the breaking of that storm. She made a mental note to warn the fishermen especially when next she went to the village, and found herself pacing by the fireplace. Of all the things that had washed up on the shore lately, surely the seal was the most likely thing for Steel to be seeking. It could be politic to simply give it to the man.

  The thought irritated her like sand in her ears, but if Steel wasn’t inclined to go away, and Eurion was likely to be in danger, it was better to give up the thing at once. On the other hand, it could be better to hand it over to Ma Yong Hwa, who, for all his faults, was at least reasonably honest. Telling Steele where it had gone would surely be as good as actually giving it to him—let him and the Mas fight it out between them.

  The question then was, thought Carys, fetching out the seal in its pouch, was the seal also something Yong Hwa was seeking? Carys didn’t doubt that he would accept it whether or not it was the thing he was looking for, and she would much rather know first. It was also possible that the seal could help bring back at least Eurion’s pre-sea memories, and if all else failed, Carys didn’t want to lose that chance, either.

  Besides, it was possible that the seal really was Eurion’s own, in which case it was not for Carys to give it away. If it was not his—no, it was better not to think about that. Safer, too—far safer—to keep it hidden for now, Carys decided. The laws in Sunderland were very strict when it came to theft of identity, and a stolen seal was certainly theft of identity.

  It was barely afternoon, and there was nobody in view when Carys threw a look toward the window, so she hung the kettle above the slowly growing fire and fetched out the seal from its hiding place. Blue silk slid softly through her fingers, and the golden likeness of waves peeked through the half-tied top; she had forgotten the form of it, though not the square solidness of it. That was something she could do, at least: next market day, she would seek information from some of the Eppan traders. Carys took the seal from the bag and turned it over, careful to wipe away the smudges from her fingertips afterward: it would be a shame to smudge such a beautiful thing. She wouldn’t take it with her tomorrow, of course, but it was possible that the Eppan traders would know whose family bore a seal in the form of waves without her having to show it to them.

  Carys considered that uneasily, wary of courting trouble by talking about something that might be only too well known, and put the seal away again, not without another glance toward the window. She swept away the crumbs of mortar that she left in her wake, and was suddenly restless with the desire to go to the village.

  There was no use doing that, of course; market day wasn’t for another two days, and what else was there for her to do and see in the village? Aled would be there, but Carys was in no hurry to see him again, nor would she know what to say to questions if he asked her why she was there. There was no reason, of course, that Carys shouldn’t go to the village, but Aled had a habit of asking tiresome questions, and Carys preferred to avoid them if she could.

  She would not go to the village—Eurion and his building could wait until market day, surely? And yet, Carys was restless that night, and woke still restless the next morning, to the dead silence of a lull around the cottage. The sky was bleak and grey when she stepped from the threshold into sand, with a dull red around the edges of it; not so much of a glow as a shallow tint. Carys made a small tsk of annoyance beneath her breath, feeling the out of season stickiness of the morning around her though the sun hadn’t yet risen.

  Eurion, who had taken to the soupy morning before she did, paused in his sword drill to ask her, as he had asked every other morning so far, if she would come to see his progress that afternoon.

  “I made some things,” he added enticingly, and when Carys didn’t seem impressed, added cajolingly, “You said you would check to see how it was going on, Lady. What if I’m doing it wrong?”

  “Enfys would tell you so,” Carys told him. “It’s market day tomorrow, besides.”

  “Yes, but I miss you, Lady!” he said reproachfully. “Don’t you miss me?”

  “I see you every day,” said Carys, and set off with her cart. There was still that restlessness within her: perhaps it could be laid at the door of the storm that hadn’t yet come—or the morning around her that was so sullen and still.

  It was a morning to be careful—a morning that could be either deadly or empty, depending upon the selkies. Carys had not many good memories of mornings like this. The selkies didn’t just give gifts when it suited them—they also took what suited them, as regardless of the feelings of those above the waves in their taking as they were in their giving. The selkies gave and took entirely on their own whims: sea-like, inscrutable, and unchancy.

  With an eye to the swelling waves that rose and fell just a little higher against the rocky shore than usual, Carys began her first pass along the rocks. She had an eye for the unpleasantly familiar figure of Steele, too, but neither he nor the selkies were openly in view that morning. Carys didn’t go so far as to relax, but she did continue her collection with a lighter heart than she had had over the last few days, hunching her shoulder against the glimmering of the cliffs. There quite often was a glimmer to the cliffs, whether from stray magic or from seagulls dropping mother-of-pearled shells to break them open, and Carys never failed to find it annoying.

  That morning, with every fleeting break of sun through the clouds, there was a corresponding, sullen gleam of red somewhere further along the cliffs, where the sea swirled in close to the sheerness of it in a reminder of all the caves that honeycombed the insides of the rock.

  At last, Carys turned her back on it and instead caught sight of Ma Yong Hwa’s top-hatted figure strolling along the rocky shore, far away. She could just tell that his back was to her, but not which way he was looking. He obviously hadn’t been dissuaded by her warnings of a coming storm and the danger thereto attached, though he didn’t seem to be moving very quickly. Perhaps he was being cautious. Carys wondered what the seashore looked like to him, with his ability to see magic.

  Maybe she would ask Eurion about that when he got back tonight.

  She was still wondering what had possessed her to think any such thought when she saw something drifting on the high swell, parallel with the rocks. Carys watched it drift closer, but made no move to step toward the edge: she knew the seashore and the selkies better than that. If it came to fetching out whatever it was, her seaweed hook would do the trick a lot more safely than her hands. She had seen no sign of the selkies all morning, and there were no eyes peering up at her through the sullen sea, but it wouldn’t be wise to trust that entirely. Carys finished her final pass of the shore while the unknown thing floated along beside the shore, but when her duties were done and the floating mass bobbed close enough, she hooked it in with her staff and wrestled it up onto the rocks from a distance.