Do you think the Ship will be ready to sail by the night of the betrothal celebration?” Queen Celina asked, strolling across the deck the next morning.
“It is my thinking so,” Orlath said. “But only for the very short sailings. Will these many parts be in harmony? I am not knowing—not at the first,” he hastened to add. “It will be having small cruises of the harbor before there is the larger undertaking.”
“Celie, aren’t you excited?” Lilah whispered. “The Ship is almost finished!” She patted her hands together. “Lulath will be so happy when he gets back!”
“Um, yes . . . ?” Celie said, drawing her mind back to the present. “It’s very nice.”
“Nice?” Lilah arched an eyebrow. “It’s a Ship. Can you imagine the look on Lulath’s face when he feels it?”
“I know,” Celie said, moving restlessly around in the bow, picking up and putting down a belaying pin. She hadn’t slept well since Lulath had left to find the griffin rider village, though Lilah seemed to have moved from worry about him to anticipation of his return since the figurehead of the Ship had been put in place. “I—I just—”
“I know,” Lilah said.
“You do?” she asked. “Oh, well, of course you do—”
“You’re thinking I’ve forgotten about our quest,” Lilah went on. “But I assure you I haven’t! As a matter of fact, I have everything planned out.”
Celie was baffled. “Our . . . quest?”
“To find the unicorns,” Lilah said with impatience.
“Oh,” Celie said.
“Listen,” Lilah said, lowering her voice. “Have you noticed how Mother never mentions that anymore? How she only talks about building the Ship and then going back to Sleyne?”
Celie nodded. Although, really, from the beginning it had always been Lilah’s quest, and no one else’s.
“Well,” Lilah said, drawing Celie even closer to the rail, “I’m not going to let my dream be set aside. We have plenty of time to go to the Land of a Thousand Waterfalls,” she told her, using Larien’s older, more romantic, name.
“All right,” Celie said, not feeling even slightly romantic.
“What I’m planning,” Lilah continued, not noticing Celie’s lack of enthusiasm, “is to take the Ship out for one of these little harbor cruises that they’re talking about, and then we demand that the Ship take us to Larien!”
Lilah tossed her hair back and waited for Celie’s answer, but Celie didn’t know quite what to say. It sounded like Lilah wanted to steal her own ship. But was that stealing? It was Lilah’s and Lulath’s ship together, to be exact, but would Lulath go along with this plan?
She asked this last question out loud.
“Lulath will do whatever I ask,” Lilah said airily, but Celie thought she looked slightly worried.
“So you want to steal the Ship?” Celie said.
“It’s not stealing if it belongs to me,” Lilah said, answering that question at least—albeit in a very roundabout way. “And I’m not going to steal it. I’m just going to make sure we have everyone and everything on board that we’ll need for the journey, and then when we’re out in the harbor, I’ll simply command it.”
“I see,” Celie said.
“Don’t you dare get cold feet,” Lilah warned her.
“Me? This isn’t my plan!” Celie protested.
“But you want to find the unicorns, too,” Lilah said. “Don’t you?”
Celie paused, but she wasn’t really thinking about the answer. Of course she wanted to find the unicorns. She wanted to know that the griffins hadn’t killed them all. She wanted to prove that they could live peacefully in Sleyne with the griffins.
And, to be honest with herself, Celie wanted to know what it would be like to have a pet unicorn.
“I’ve spent too much time around Lulath,” Celie muttered.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Lilah said with a huff.
“It means, yes, I’ll help you,” Celie said.
Lilah squealed and hugged her.
“Calm down,” Celie said, worried that someone would see and ask what Lilah was so excited about. “You don’t want to let the cat out of the bag.”
“The unicorn out of the bag,” Lilah said gleefully.
“Unicorns?” Pogue asked, coming out of the hatch near their feet. “What unicorns?” He put a hand over his eyes for a moment. “Do I even want to know?”
“It’s none of your concern,” Lilah snapped.
“Lilah!” Celie said, as Pogue’s face turned red.
“Oh, I would say that it is Pogue’s concern,” Queen Celina said. “I would say that it’s all of our concern.” She arched an eyebrow at Lilah. “First apologize to Pogue, and then tell us what this is about unicorns.”