Dorian had been right. Their stay in the Boyar’s castle had burned away the last of autumn’s temperate days. Now the skies were gray and overcast, and rain drizzled on them while they slept. The Day of Velizos passed, and winter came near. Travel was less comfortable than before.

To the adults, a lack of snow proved some small relief. To Corvo, that was the worst part. He was cold, uncomfortable, and often wet, and he could not even play snowballs with Aletheia.

At least Mother’s tent kept the rain out.

Mother and Trito scouted ahead as night fell and rain picked up. They were halfway down the Veshod peninsula once again, past the Spire, and approaching the southwestern coast. From there they would charter a ship to the shores of Seneria.

Dorian sat Corvo down outside Mother’s tent. A simple, invisible spell reached up to the treetops around them and deflected the rain from the branches while Aunt Aletheia kept watch with her bow.

Dorian presented the tinderbox Mother had packed and retrieved flint and pyrite from it. Already they had gathered kindling from the nearby trees, placing it upon a pile before the tent. Corvo had also found an apple, which he slowly nibbled away at.

He was exhausted. After a few sticks were placed on the ground, he said, “I don’t want to make a fire.”

“You’ll go cold tonight if you don’t,” Dorian said. “Freeze right into an icicle.”

“Mama won’t let me freeze into an icicle,” Corvo said.

Dorian frowned and looked to Aletheia, who was perched on the branch of a nearby tree. “He’s learning. Soon he’ll see right through us.”

“I think he already does,” Aletheia said.

Corvo huffed and sat down outside the tent. “Why can’t Aunt Aly light the fire?”

Dorian sat down beside him. “Aletheia won’t always be there to light a fire for you.”

“Yes she will.”

“No, she won’t. I won’t, either. Or your mother. Someday you’ll be grown up, and you’ll need to do things for yourself.”

“But Aly is here now,” Corvo said.

“And so am I. And I’m going to teach you. So sit up, and let’s see if we can get a flame going.”

What Dorian said made sense, but it was not what Corvo wanted to hear. He folded his arms.

“Why can’t Aunt Aly teach me?” he whispered.

“I’m not sure she knows how. Do you know how to light a fire without magic?”

“Nope,” she said.

“Why can’t she teach me magic?” Corvo said.

Dorian sighed, shaking his head, shrugging. “You know why, chicklet. You can’t use magic, and nor can I. That’s how things must be.”

He did know why. But that didn’t make it any better. He always wished he would wake up one day with the powers of Mother. He waited patiently for it to happen. Yet it never did. He was too young to understand what resentment was, but he did, quietly, resent it. A piece of him was missing. Could he ever make Mother proud like that?

Aletheia jumped down and sat on the other side of him.

“Sometimes you only see the good parts of something,” she said. “Magic is fun. And powerful. But it hurts, too. There are ways to negate it. And getting it—you would never want to do that to yourself.” She kissed his ear. “I wish I was normal like you. Being normal’s underrated.”

“It’s true,” Dorian said, eyeing her. “So let’s see if we can get this working, hm?”

Corvo relented. Sullenly he watched as Dorian struck the pyrite on the flint, explaining as he went along. Sparks flew across Corvo’s vision. Normally he would have found the spectacle entertaining, but tonight he was determined to remain sullen.

Dorian swore. The kindling seemed to immolate with streaking orange. But no flame ever took.

“It’s all soaked through from this rain,” he said. “Dry it off for us.”

“Me?” Aletheia said.

“Yes. Can’t you use a spell? I just—I want to show the boy how to do it, but it’s no good in this weather.”

She gave him a bemused blink. “I don’t think that’s in the spirit of the challenge.”

Stolen story; please report.

“It’s a lesson, not a challenge.”

She shrugged. But she cast no spell.

Dorian sighed, and he got back to it. And he did it, eventually. But by the time he had a small flame, Corvo had fallen fast asleep with his head on Aletheia’s lap.

A small town had a large port in a much larger bay. Corvo did not learn its name. Galleys laden with lanterns around their hulls, oars like a centipede’s legs, and towering masts clogged a channel leading south.

Mother inquired after transport.

“We are five,” she said. “And four horses.”

“That all can be arranged,” said the first captain, a balding merchant with a hat and heavy accent. “We set for Katharos up the Hepaz on Monday.”

“We do not head for Katharos,” she said. “We wish for passage across the Sea of Silence, and we will pay three gold talents for this diversion.”

The captain smiled. “To Akancar, in Telmos?”

“No. Not so far. To the shores of Seneria.”

He stared at her for a moment. Then he blinked, and he shook his head, and he left them. Corvo never saw that man again.

The same happened with the second captain. And the third. And the fourth. Soon they had rendezvoused with Trito, who reported similar results.

“It is not a surprise,” he said. “We may need to make our own way over the Slagpile Mountains.”

“We will not,” Mother said. “We will find passage.”

Two days passed. But Mother proved correct, for Corvo and the horses were brought to the docks on the third morning and found a small ship awaiting them. He hadn’t been on a boat since infancy. The way it gently swayed at the end of a pier made him hesitate.

But he perked up to behold the captain.

He was a child, no taller than Corvo, sitting on the gunwale of the vessel. He feet dangled to the ground, and he jumped to the pier when Mother came near. Corvo had gone months without another boy to play with. Finally, at last, here one was.

Yet when the captain spoke, it was not with a boy’s voice. He sounded serious and adult. The look in his eyes had no playfulness.

“Ten talents,” he said. “We set you down at Echo Point.”

“Ten talents?” Dorian said. “That’s most of the gold we brought, and for a day of work? We’ll be there by tomorrow morning.”

Mother replied without looking away from the small man, “Gold is heavy and of no use where we are going. We will pay you what you ask.”

With that the horses were loaded, and the party huddled together in the cold hold of the galley.

It wasn’t just the captain. Every man at the oars, on the mast, and running up and down stairs or ladders were child-sized. They wore red cloaks and small swords of bronze, and here and there could be found chain suits of armor or plates of bronze. They swore and laughed and gambled like grown men. Corvo felt nervous around them. When they noticed him, it was with sidelong glares.

“What’s wrong with them?” he asked. “Did they eat too many sweets?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Dorian said. “They’re halflings.”

“Quite so. They were born this way,” Mother said.

“The miniature men of Rytus,” Trito said. His voice hushed. “I do not see them often in these lands. It is even rarer to see them take to piracy.”

“Pirates are honest, so long as they’re being paid,” Dorian said. “I’ve been one. I should know. They’ll keep their word.”

Corvo had only the vaguest sense of what a pirate was, that it was a bad man who should not be trifled with. He stayed by Mother’s side for the whole of the journey through.

Night came early. Corvo watched the water through a crack for hours as they set sail, and he saw as the sun’s glow slid across the waves. For a moment it peeked through the hull and shone into his eyes from the western edge of the sky, but in the length of a blink, it was gone. His vision was shaded once again.

Then, a dozen times as quickly as the sun had set, it rewound. Its rays moved quickly up over the mast, to the eastern sky, until with a sunrise glow they disappeared—the wrong way around. Lanterns along the hull of the ship were lit and draped down, twenty of them on either side, until the surface of the water turned amber beneath a black sky.

Minutes ago, it had been late afternoon. Now it was midnight again.

All day there had been murmurs throughout the ship, grunting and singing from the halflings, and conversation within the party. Now all silenced save the splashing of the oars with each pull.

“What’s happening?” Corvo whispered.

Mother traced a hand through his hair, tugging and keeping him close.

“The sun does not shine on Seneria,” she said. “It is a land of darkness. We will not see day again until we return.”

“How will we return?” Dorian asked.

No one seemed to know the answer. Corvo grew frightened, but seeing this, Trito replied, “I will guide you back to safety when this business is done. Do not fret. Focus on the task at hand.”

The endless swaying of the vessel had at first excited Corvo, but after a day aboard he found himself seasick and desperate for land. He barely slept. On what would have been the next day, if only the sun had risen, he couldn’t eat anything. Neither could Aletheia. But it wasn’t long thereafter that the captain visited them in the hold.

“We’ll ground the ship, so you can offload your animals,” he said. He met Mother’s gaze like a man of normal height. “Then you won’t see us again. You’ll have to find your own way out.”

“We will,” Aletheia said. “Thank you.”

They shuffled up to the deck together. Then, for the first time, Corvo saw the dark skies of Seneria.

There was no sun. But the aurora formed clouds everywhere overhead. Sparkling, shifting shapes, like luminescent fish beneath the surface of the sea, floated through the sky. Curtains of every color. They did not give off light as the sun would, but their glow made it possible to see off toward the shore.

It was a forest, thick and verdant like the mountaintop of the Tower of Keraz. But the leaves glowed. Every leaf. Every plant. They all radiated dim silver, green, and orange light, so that they seemed to be burning gently on the horizon.

And looming over the coast, spotting the sky like low-down clouds, were islands. Floating islands. Their bottoms were lined with blue crystals, and they seemed to move gently in one direction or another, as though they were adrift in water. Each was covered in silver forests, and from one came a bright golden glow.

Corvo stared at them in awe.

When the ship landed, the silence of the sailing erupted into the noise of rapid disembarking. Horses whinnied and ramps were set. The voices of halflings picked up, though their sound did not exceed whispers. But Corvo did not listen to that. Instead he stepped up to the gunwale, and he focused on what he thought he heard.

Everything. Animals. Insects. Birds. Groans. Calls. Yells. And more, too. Much more. Seneria was dark, but it was anything but silent. He had never heard so much natural noise before. It was a place that teemed with life unknown—and he was very afraid.