“No,” said Eurion. “But I think I used to swim. I remember the way the sea feels, all warm and salty.”

  Carys gave a short laugh. “It wasn’t the Sunderland Sea you were swimming in, then,” she said. The sea she knew was always cold, always dark. Even the beach where the fishermen took their boats in and out was pebbly and always cold. “You’re certainly Eppan.”

  “Is the sea warm in Eppa?”

  “I’ve never been there,” Cary said, even more briefly. The only authority she had for her surmise of warm seas was the tales of the traders who came from Eppa.

  “Are we in Sunderland, then? You look Sundermanish—all pale and dark and cold.”

  “This place is on the Sunderland Coast. Sit forward; it’s time for your steam.”

  This time he barely needed the support of her hand beneath his shoulders to sit forward, and although Carys pushed up the pillow behind him, he could have sustained himself without it. Carys let him hold the bowl himself instead of pooling the covers to steady it, and tossed a cloth over his head. Eurion made a surprised sort of noise but only reached to adjust the cloth.

  “You said I looked Eppan,” he said, from beneath the cloth. “Did I come off a ship then, do you think?”

  “I don’t know,” said Carys, bringing over his cawl and speckled bread. “Are you breathing?”

  “I can breathe and talk.”

  “I see.”

  “How did you find me, Lady?”

  “I found you while I was looking for seaweed,” Carys said. “Turn your head.”

  He turned his head. “Oh. Why were you looking for seaweed?”

  “That’s what I do.”

  “Oh!” Eurion said again, in surprise. “There’s water wriggling in my ear.”

  “Yes. Stay still. When it feels like the water has stopped moving, turn your head the other way.”

  “Do you sell it—the seaweed, I mean?”

  Carys went back to the table for her own meal. “Yes.”

  “I learned about that in school—it’s the residual magic in it that makes it valuable, isn’t it? I always wanted to see Sunderland seaweed.”

  “It looks just like Eppan seaweed,” Carys said. “What else did you learn in school?”

  Eurion’s face passed rapidly from thoughtfulness to confusion, and thence to delight. “You were trying to trick my memory!” he said, laughing. “It didn’t work, Lady; I don’t know why I said that! But the seaweed doesn’t look the same, you know. It’s more…well, it’s more bright, or green, or—just more.”

  “I see,” said Carys again, wrapping her fingers around the unfamiliar warmth of the teacup. Normally, she wouldn’t have had a warm drink so early in the day. “What else looks different?”

  “The sand on the floor,” Eurion said, raising his head. “It glitters. It didn’t do that yesterday.”

  “You were very sick yesterday. It might get brighter again tomorrow.”

  “Oh,” Eurion thought about that, gazing abstractedly at her with distant eyes. “Why?”

  “I’m told it means you’re a magic user,” Carys said, turning away. “Breathe your steam.”

  “I can breathe and talk, though, Lady.”

  Carys sighed.

  “Does that mean you’re a magic user, too?”

  “No.” Carys smiled rather bitterly at her half-eaten bowl of cawl. “I don’t have that talent.”

  “Then how do you know—”

  “I knew someone who could see it,” she told him. “A long time ago. Most of those who come to the shore can see it.”

  Eurion’s brown-eyed gaze focused on her again, bright and enquiring. “Who is most of those, Lady?”

  It seemed to Carys, facing the brilliancy of that enquiring look, that she had given away a great deal more in the talking than Eurion had given. She said sharply, “Breathe your steam!” and went outside, leaving her half-eaten meal where it was.

  The rain had slowed to a fine drizzle while Carys prepared their meal, much to her relief. She hadn’t come out in her oilskin, and she wouldn’t have been able to bring herself to go back in and fetch it while her whole cottage was so obnoxiously filled with warmth and brightness. Relieved to be out of it, she fetched her handcart and began to load it with seaweed for the market. She should have done it before she fed Eurion, but she hadn’t thought of it at the time, and now she wondered why. She had done the same thing with the dog she had taken to Enfys; cared for it and fed it and watered it without wondering why or even thinking about it.

  “He won’t die, at any rate,” she said below her breath, tugging tight a rope end over the first layer of seaweed bundles. The dog had lived for a week and then died; nothing, in fact, that had washed up on the rocky beach to be found by Carys, had lived long. It was the way of the sea; taking back what it had given, giving back what it had taken—but at a cost.

  “Lady,” said a voice at the door. Eurion, clutching the blanket around his shoulders, stumbled on the single cottage step and trotted a few steps forward. “I’ve finished the steam and I drank the tea. You don’t have to stay out here if I’m bothering you; I can sit out—ow, ow, ow! Lady!”

  Carys, grimly seizing him by the ear, bore him back through the door and toward the bed. “What did I tell you?”

  Eurion quickly climbed back in, clutching the reddened ear, but protested, “I’m getting better, Lady! And if I’m making you unco—”

  “Stay where you’re put,” Carys said coldly, “and eat your cawl. If you get out of bed again I’ll put you out of the cottage.”

  “Yes, Lady,” said Eurion, huddling the covers up around his neck and watching her with wide eyes over the top of that mound.

  Carys turned on her heel and strode back to the door, but her hand was only on the knob when Eurion called out, “Lady?”

  Carys closed her eyes briefly, opened them, and turned. “Yes?”

  He was already smiling at her again. “I still think you’re an angel, Lady,” he said. Then he rolled over and curled himself beneath the covers.

  Chapter Four

  Market day was almost always sunny. Carys wasn’t sure why that was, but she had always disliked it. She found no pleasure in market day, and the sunshine always seemed to mock her as she climbed toward the village with her handcart behind her. Aled would be somewhere along the way to insist on pulling her handcart, and she would always, with the sweat sitting on her brow, refuse to let him help. Which meant he would walk awkwardly beside her the whole way to market, and although Carys knew he hated to be at ease when she was not, she hadn’t ever been able to bring herself to accept his help. She knew how easy it was to come to depend upon someone for something that seemed small, and she wasn’t willing to allow that.

  Eurion watched her from the bed as she made her market bundle, eating his lunch, but much to Carys’ surprise, he didn’t ask any questions, not even so much as to find out what she was doing or why she hadn’t eaten any lunch. He hadn’t tried to get out of bed, either—at least, not while she was in the cottage. She was quite sure he had been outside at least once: there were small deposits of sandy grass here and there despite the wiping he had tried to do outside on the step.

  It surprised Carys, in fact, until she noticed that he was fairly quivering with repressed words, his eyes glittering with questions. She had a thought to leave him so—she wasn’t his mother to teach him to be patient, but she did covet the silence—but for the first time in very many years, Carys felt the ghost of a genuine laugh pass through her lips.

  She said, “Speak before you burst.”

  “Thank you, Lady!” Eurion said gladly. “It was so hard not to ask! Didn’t I do well? Have you eaten? Was it cold on the shore? Did you collect all the seaweed you needed? Also, where are you going?”

  “The village,” said Carys, leaving the other questions to flutter away.

  “Can I—”

  “No. You’re to stay in bed and rest.”

  Eurion’s brown eyes grew deep and almost golden. He objected, “I can walk.”

  “Not today,” said Carys. She intended to ask some questions she would rather he not hear, and even if he had been well enough for her to consider him coming along, she wouldn’t have allowed it. “Next time.”

  He brightened immediately. “Really? All right, I’ll wait. Why are you going to the village? Is it far? Is it big?”

  Carys sighed. “I’m going to sell the seaweed I collected this week. Eat the food I’ve put out for you and lie straight back down again when you’re finished.”

  “And I can come next week?”

  “Yes,” Carys said. She would rather he didn’t, but if it would stop him talking now, she was prepared to promise it. She regretted the brief urge that had caused her to encourage him. “I’m going now.”

  He must have picked up on that regret, because he folded his lips over the other questions she could still see burning in his eyes. It wasn’t until she was opening the door that he said, “Lady!”

  Carys paused for a moment on the step, throwing a brief look over her shoulder, and Eurion brightened just a little.

  “Don’t stay away long, Lady,” he said. “I’m not scared, but the wind makes such sorrowful sounds outside that I feel lonely.”

  “I’ll be back when I get back,” Carys said inexorably. “If the seaweed sells quickly, I’ll be back sooner.”

  “I hope you sell it all in the first hour!” said Eurion, hugging his knees.

  Carys left him to his hopes and closed the door behind her. It was still obnoxiously sunny outside; on the rocky seashore, the selkies would be sprawled out to soak it all in, and in the village the girls would be shocking the older folks by baring their arms all the way to the shoulders while their winter wraps still hung from their elbows. It had often occurred to Carys that the older folk were only selectively shocked—there wasn’t an older fisherman who hadn’t seen the naked selkies sunbaking on the rocks, and there wasn’t a one of those same fishermen who wasn’t loudly shocked to see his own daughter baring so much as her shoulders. Carys herself didn’t bare her shoulders; in the winter months it was too cold to do so and in the summer months there was too much chance that she would be burned. Salt water and sunburns didn’t go well together.

  Perhaps it was the solace and silence of being away from the boy’s intrusive presence, but despite the heat, Carys felt lighter as she climbed toward the village, her handcart juddering behind her. Even the sight of Aled’s waiting figure when she came to the rise before the village didn’t quite take away the feeling of lightness, though it made her more aware of the sweat on her temples and the itching of sweat down the small of her back.

  When she drew even with him Aled bowed, a small movement of his head. “Carys.”

  “Aled.” Carys nodded back. “It’s a good market day.”

  “Yes. Can I take your cart?”

  “It’s no bother to me,” Carys said, starting forward again. Aled fell into step beside her, his shoulders stiff with the discomfort of being unable to help. She often wondered why he bothered to wait for her every market day when he knew he would be made uncomfortable by her refusal to accept his help.

  “It was a good crop this week,” he said. That was another variant of their usual conversation. If her cart was well laden, he would say it had been a good crop; if it was lower, he would ask if there had been mischief on the beach that week.

  There was always more seaweed on those weeks when a storm washed ashore the free-floating pieces. Carys said, with faint amusement at what else had washed ashore, “The storm washed up some things.”

  Aled looked across at her more closely. “Did you find another dog?”

  “A puppy,” said Carys, with the ghost of a smile.

  “You should have left it to die.” Aled’s voice was disapproving, but Carys thought his face was concerned. “It will only die. You shouldn’t waste your energy and love on it.”

  “This one won’t die,” she said, leveraging the wheels of her handcart over the last knobbly rock before the flat. “And I should know better than to love things that come out of the sea.”

  Aled walked with her all the way to the market. That was another thing he always did, but today, Carys felt that it annoyed her, though she didn’t know why. Perhaps she was simply tired of having company all the time—having the boy at home was disturbing her normal pattern of life, and things she could normally bear with indifference, if not with patience, were now irritating her.

  It was because of this irritation that she was shorter than usual in her refusal to accept a share of Aled’s market day meal. Aled didn’t seem to notice her shortness; he bowed slightly as he always did and went away through the market to see what there was to see. He would come back later to see how well she was selling and speak with her for half an hour before he went home.

  Carys found herself relieved at the peace. She would have an hour’s quiet to set up her stall and greet her neighbouring stalls before her customers came through. At this time of day the market was already in full, steady swing, but Carys rarely sold to the villagers. Her customers were the traders who came later in the afternoon and sold exotic spices and jewellery through the twilight hours. Sunderland might be rich in magic-threaded seaweed and sand that sparkled just a little bit more than it should, but Scandia and Eppa weren’t similarly blessed.

  But then, thought Carys, wondering at a way of life so far removed from her own experience, Scandia and Eppa didn’t have to guard their people against selkies, either. Their magicless shores were no temptation for the mischief-loving selkies—perhaps there was something to be said in appreciation of the staid and normal, after all.

  The afternoon sun had just begun to warm the edges of Carys’ seaweed bundles over the rooftops when the first of the peddlers began to arrive. Her eyes sharp, Carys watched the end of her row as the carts began to roll through. The rag peddler was her main target. He didn’t travel as far as some of the other peddlers, but he gathered news in much the same way that he gathered rags—prolifically and without discrimination. More, he was free about imparting that news to anyone who asked, a kind of human news stand, and he never seemed to be wrong.

  He saw her watching him before he got to her stand. He met Carys’ eyes and nodded slightly, edging his cart to her side of the market; he wasn’t one who would avoid her or ward himself in her presence. If there were money to be made, goods to be exchanged, or news to be had, the rag peddler would have dealt with the selkies themselves.

  “Is it rags or news you’re wanting?” he asked, when he was level with her.

  “Both,” said Carys, and saw his eyes brighten. “What have you got in boys’ clothes?”

  The rag peddler pushed at a battered and much-patched series of tied bundles. “This lot. I can untie them if you want to see them properly.”

  “Not just now,” Carys said, running her eye over the piles of cloth. “Any news of shipwreck lately?”

  The rag peddler nodded. “Two weeks ago there were chancy waters in the strait between here and the Eppan sea. The news booths say one wreck washed up on Scandian seashores, and an Eppan vessel hasn’t been heard from in three days.”

  “An Eppan vessel?” Carys looked up. “What vessel?”

  “Passenger hauler,” said the rag peddler. “There’s some talk of calling in one of the Contraption steamers to search for her—they say she was carrying some important Eppan nobles.”

  Carys considered that, her eyes turning back to the bundles of cloth. None of them would do for Eurion. She didn’t want to spend more money than she had to, but these rags had more patch and hole than original material.

  “Do you have anything better? Something for wearing everyday?”

  “Happens I do,” the peddler said, disappearing briefly behind the stacks of bundled cloth. He came back up again with a small pile of mixed shirts, trousers, and a coat that were bundled with a pair of stout braces, and untied them. “Picked them up in the last village from an old woman who lost her grandson a week or two ago. Seemed too good for rags, so I’d an idea to trade with them. Will you take them?”

  Carys turned the shirts over briefly. They were strong and plain, and if they were slightly too big for Eurion, at least he would have room to grow. Was he still growing, if it came to that? He was about the same height as Carys, or perhaps a touch shorter, but Enfys had said—and Carys was inclined to agree with her—that the boy was perhaps twenty-one or two. If that was the case, he wouldn’t be likely to grow any more.

  “I’ll take them,” she said decisively. They would do: Eurion was just a puppy staying until she had some information out of him, and there was no need to be buying him tailored clothes. “Some things washed ashore a few weeks ago—a few jewels and a toy or two. I’ll trade a ring for the clothes.”

  The peddler’s eyes brightened. “It’ll be more than they’re worth,” he said, despite that. That surprising honesty of his was one of the reasons that Carys preferred him to most of the villagers.

  “What use do I have for jewellery?” she asked, passing him one of the rings she had found sparkling in one of the pools a few weeks ago. “They’re too bright to be wearing on the rocks, and who would I wear them for at home?”

  The peddler looked down at the stone that sparkled against his palm in the sunlight. “You’d best be not showing too many people the kind of crop you get from the sea,” he warned. “There’s people who would want to share in it—or not share, if you get my meaning.”

  “I’ll be careful,” Carys said. She had already seen the mingled looks of curiosity and avarice directed at the rag peddler from some of the surrounding marketgoers. They were probably travellers from another village—it was unlikely that anyone in the village would be stupid enough to attack the person who kept off the selkies from the village. Still, it was kind of the peddler to think of her safety.

  The peddler winked and stowed the ring somewhere she didn’t see, his fingers smooth and lightning fast. “I’ll give you more news next week,” he said. “If I have it.”