Upon consultation with the Ship’s crisp new atlas, it seemed that Lilah was correct. Their course was set for Larien, and nothing would move the rudder to change that. Instead they had to address the crew and explain that the Ship was a living thing, and that it wanted to go to Larien and see if there were unicorns there.
Most of the crew was not happy about this, but some of them seemed deeply moved by it. They seemed to feel that if they were on this magical, living Ship, that meant the Ship had chosen them, specially, for this journey.
“We should probably encourage this idea,” Queen Celina said later, in the privacy of the main cabin. “If more of the crew would believe it, I would worry less about there being a mutiny.”
“I think we should encourage it because it’s true,” Celie said. When they all looked at her, she shrugged one shoulder. “If the Ship didn’t want them on board, it would probably just toss them into the water. It doesn’t need them. So if they’re still here, it’s because the Ship has chosen them.”
“See, Cel,” Rolf said. “This is why we always ask you what the Castle wants, and now we’re asking you what the Ship wants. None of us ever think of these things.”
“Even you?” Celie asked him. “You’re the next King Glower!”
Celie used to be pleased when her family turned to her with their questions about the Castle and acknowledged her as its favorite, but lately she’d started to wonder. Why was Rolf the heir if she was the Castle’s favorite? It was something that she hardly dared think about. She didn’t think she’d like to be Queen Glower, and there never had been one. But why? Was it just because the crown only fit on a man’s head? That seemed like a stupid reason. And they’d only had the real crown, the Builder’s crown, and his rings, for a few months. They could just as easily have made a woman’s crown years ago.
“Yes, but I’m the next King Glower because the Castle likes me—it doesn’t love me,” Rolf said, as though he’d reasoned this out long ago. “Being king is a horrible job, full of paperwork and people coming to the Castle every week to complain about their neighbor’s goats and the fight Pogue started—”
“Hey!” Pogue interrupted. “I haven’t started a fight in months.”
“Very true,” Rolf said, shaking his head. “I almost don’t recognize you anymore.”
Pogue gave Rolf a look that clearly said he’d like to start his first fight in months.
“Anyway,” Rolf went on breezily, “the Castle gives you all the fun jobs, Cel. Raising griffins. Finding lost ship bits. That’s because it loves you. It just wants me to be its slave.”
“What an interesting way to look at kingship,” Queen Celina said in a dry voice. “And not entirely wrong. But we should probably discuss that later. For now we need to talk about what provisions we have, and what we’ll do if the Ship won’t let us veer course to get more.”
“Oh,” Lilah said. This was apparently just dawning on her. “Surely if we run out of food, the Ship will help us get more.”
But she didn’t sound sure. The Castle couldn’t make food, and so it stood to reason that the Ship couldn’t, either.
“If we continue on this same course, we’ll go right by the Neira Isles,” Orlath said in Grathian, using a brass ruler and a soft pencil to draw a line from their current position to a group of islands to the southwest. “There’s a fine port here on the largest island where we can resupply.” He drew a circle around a small dot on a heart-shaped island and frowned. “If the Ship doesn’t slow down as we go past, we might try to signal to some of their ships to bring us provisions. They could pull alongside, perhaps.”
“Or we could use the griffins,” Celie replied in the same language.
“The very thing!” Lulath said. “We can fly with the griffins to the port and back to pick up the supplies we need.”
They all stopped to think about this. Slowly they began to nod, and the mood started to lift.
“Dagger could make the flight, if he flew with you and Rufus,” Rolf admitted in Sleynth. “I don’t think he could carry me. Certainly not me and supplies. But some light things. Loaves of bread?”
Celie knew how much it took Rolf to say that, and she rubbed his back. It was hard to be separated from your griffin, and to offer to let him fly over the ocean to a strange port . . . that would be very hard indeed.
“He’s coming along nicely in his training,” Pogue said. “He’ll stay with Rufus and Arrow, and we should be able to sling some light things across his back.”
“And I’ll send Lady Griffin without a rider as well,” Queen Celina said. “Mainly because I don’t think anyone’s ever ridden her!”
“That settles that,” Orlath said in Grathian. He didn’t look happy, though. “With the exception of one, rather large, problem.”
“What’s that?” Lilah asked.
“Water,” Orlath told her. “We’ll need to refill our barrels of fresh water—more urgently than we need bread. But I don’t think the griffins can carry a full water barrel, marvelous as they are.”
“But we don’t know that the Ship won’t stop and let us get supplies,” Lilah pointed out brightly. “If it really wants us to go all the way to Larien, surely it will turn into the port of its own accord?” She looked around the cabin, waiting for an answer that didn’t come.
“I’m not concerned about the water,” Queen Celina said. They all turned to her in confusion. She was smiling. “It will give me a chance to show off,” she told them. “Magic has its limits, as do I, not being a full wizard. So I can’t make food—at least, not food that will taste good enough to eat.” She made a face. “But I can, in fact, make seawater into freshwater.” She tilted her head to one side, and a broad smile stretched across her face. “In fact, I’ve been told I have quite the gift for it!”
“O my new mother!” Lulath exclaimed, reaching across the atlas to clasp both her hands. “A radiant queen, and yet a wizard of such power!”
“Can you really?” Rolf asked in awe. “That’s amazing! That’s probably the most useful kind of spell you could do!” He also reached over and gave their mother’s arm a pat. “I don’t think even Bran can do something like that!”
Queen Celina squeezed Lulath’s hands in return and then released them to wave casually, as though this announcement were of little note. “Oh, I’m sure he can,” she said lightly. “It’s really quite simple.”
But Celie could tell that her mother was proud of herself, and rightly so. Lilah was near tears of joy now, as well.
“It’s really going to happen,” she whispered. “We’re going to make it. We’re going to find the unicorns.”
Lulath hugged her. Even Celie hugged her. Excitement was rising in all of them. They were going on an adventure, in a living Ship. They would have freshwater. They would have fresh food. All they needed to worry about was finding unicorns.
Unicorns!
That, and the griffins trying to eat the unicorns, as Rolf pointed out later.
“Do you really think they will?” Celie asked. They were sitting in the bow of the Ship, looking out over the ocean. It was beautiful, and somewhat terrifying. They had already lost sight of Grath, and though in the distance they could see a few other ships, there was a great deal of sky and a great deal of water. And nothing else.
Celie pointed to where Lorcan was lying sprawled in the sun. Lulath’s girls were curled around him or on him, napping. Dagger, who was at Rolf’s feet, noticed the pile of creatures and went over to join them, flopping down on top of Nisi. Rolf leaped up to rescue the small black-and-white dog, but she wriggled her way out from under Dagger and put her head on his foreleg without even appearing to wake up.
“See?” Celie said.
“Well, yes,” Rolf said. “And it’s not like they’ve eaten all the sheep at the Castle, or anything like that. Which makes me wonder why they attacked the unicorns. Are they natural enemies, like pigs and thornsnakes, or something?”
“Or is there something horrible about the unicorns that we should know?” Celie said, picking up his line of thought.
Then they both laughed, because it was ludicrous to think that unicorns could be horrible in any way.