Rinka smiled at the girls. “We wanted to thank you for saving us. We didn’t know what to get you, so we brought you a few things from the land we thought you might like.”
Rinka opened the chest to show the girls what was inside: a mirror, a hair comb, a doll with red hair, and a spying glass.
The girls leaned over and reached for the items, picking each up and asking about its use before discarding Rinka’s explanations in favor of their own.
“It’s for poking fish when they won’t stop bothering you,” Cordy told Em regarding the comb as she poked her in the arm with it.
“Ow!” said Em.
“We appreciate your gift to our girls,” said King Olo, willfully ignoring the chaos to his right. “Is that all you came for, landfolks?”
“King Olo,” said Idris in a serious tone that Rinka had seldom heard from him. “We owe a debt to your people. Is there a way we can repay it?”
King Olo nodded gratefully. “We’ve seen fewer shipwrecks and burning vessels lately,” said King Olo. “But still, there is much of your garbage in our waters. If you are the prince as they say you are, maybe you can put a stop to it.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” said Idris, nodding back.
“Goodbye, girls!” Rinka called after Cordy and Em, who were already swimming away with their gifts, weighted trunk forgotten. “And thank you!”
“We’ll take the trunk as well,” said the red-headed man. Idris helped Admiral Northwood chuck it over the side.
“Next time you come, bring a diving bell,” said King Olo. “I’ll give you the grand tour.”
Gull Bay was unrecognizable when Rinka and Idris made it to the shore a short time later.
“Mostly military,” said Idris, gesturing to the people coming and going along the docks and to theDelphineout at anchor. “The Burning Ash cleanup operation.”
When they’d arrived in the summer, the town had seemed abandoned. But Burning Ash was known to make use of small towns—often to the point of their abandonment, like Gull Bay—in between voyages.
“They staged an ambush a few weeks ago. Three ships captured. The others won’t be returning here anytime soon.”
“I suppose it’s for the best,” said Rinka.
“You have pity for the pirates?”
“If they were ordered to attack by the king or his court and then betrayed, it seems pretty unfair. But I suppose they got what was coming to them.”
Idris laughed entirely too loudly as he led her from the docks to the waiting carriage. “Of course, my dear, they’ll have plenty of soup for us in Fossholm…”
Rinka was bewildered. “Soup?”
“Yes, soup, your favorite,” said Idris. He waited until a group of men in naval uniform had passed. “Careful what you say with these men around. You never know who might be listening.”
“Of course. I’m sorry,” said Rinka. She had gotten used to their habit of openly criticizing the king. But they had agreed to play a part, to make nice with the king in order to gain Idris’s seat back at the table. It was Rinka’s idea, and it had taken some convincing to get Idris onboard. It wouldn’t do at all to ruin their plans before they’d even truly begun.
“I’m not sorry you said it,” muttered Idris. “Only sorry you need to be sorry.”
“Something you could change one day,” said Rinka. “To give people the power to speak their minds, even if it’s critical.”
“Just as long as I don’t have to listen to all the idiotic things they have to say,” said Idris.
Rinka punched him in the shoulder.
“Ow!” said Idris, rubbing his arm.
Rinka felt a little bad because she was trying to be playful, but that probably really hurt. “Sorry,” she said, kissing the spot where she hit him, and then she quickly added: “But don’t be so condescending. At least half of the thingsyousay are idiotic.”
“Idiotic and sexy?” Idris looked at her with his bedroom eyes. They were alone in the carriage; Idris’s guards were outside and in a separate carriage behind them.
