I climbed the trail in the early morning with a cup of Heilan flower tea and no particular plan beyond reaching the peak before anyone else thought to follow me there.
The tea had been the island elders' offering at breakfast — flowers steeped until the water turned the colour of pale honey, fragrant and sweet with something quietly herbal underneath, the kind of warmth that spread from the inside out rather than just sitting on the tongue. I had taken a cup and excused myself before the morning's socialising could fully begin.
Below, the others were already awake and mixing with the islanders over breakfast, and the sounds of it carried up the trail behind me — comfortable and lively, the particular ease of people who have found that they like each other. I was fond of all of them. I also, very specifically, needed to be alone for a short while.
The bracelet caught the early light as I walked, the stone shimmering with a steadiness it had not had yesterday. I looked at it, and the image arrived before I could prevent it: his hands around my wrist, the extraordinary care of it, the complete and unhurried attention he had given to the task of refilling the enchantment. The patience in every motion. The way he had paused and checked when I flinched, as though what I felt at any given moment was a piece of information more important than what he was trying to accomplish.
My cheeks warmed with a promptness that I found embarrassing in retrospect and could not seem to prevent in the present.
'I must simply enjoy being attended to carefully.' That was the most neutral explanation available.
"We are stopping there," I told myself, aloud, to no one, as I reached the peak.
---
The morning light at this hour was a different thing entirely from the late-afternoon gold of yesterday. Softer, more diffuse, the sun still low enough that its rays arrived at an angle rather than from above — the kind of light that suggests rather than declares, that finds the edges of things and outlines them rather than flattening them into full exposure. The field of Heilan flowers held it in a way that the afternoon sun had not quite achieved: every petal surface carried a dew drop from the night, and each drop had become its own small prism, catching the early rays and returning them in brief, scattered fragments of colour. The pink and gold of the flowers themselves had acquired a secondary layer of light — rainbow specks moving across the field as the morning breeze shifted the leaves, appearing and disappearing with the indifferent generosity of something that does this regardless of whether anyone is watching.
I stood at the edge of it for a long moment.
Then I found the boulder at the clearing's rim where the flowers began, and sat, and drank my tea, and did nothing else, which was exactly what the situation called for.
Rei had told me, after the work of the bracelet was done and he was visibly exhausted but determined to talk anyway, that we would stay at the island for a full week. Three days would have been sufficient for resupply and repairs, he had said, but the islanders would likely not see another ship for a year or two after we left. The traffic that passed these waters was thin at the best of times, and most vessels that did pass had no particular reason to stop — the island's offerings were fresh water, medicinal herbs, and Heilan tea, none of which outweighed the effort of the detour for captains bound for specific destinations with specific schedules. The Silver Eagle had skipped the island on several previous voyages when time was against them, and the return visit had always been met with the same sequence: a warm welcome, arrows through the hull, the oath, and then the grumbling of elders who had missed them and would not say so directly. So Rei had decided, at some point, that when they could spare the time, they would stay long enough to matter.
I was glad they had. I was particularly glad of it this morning, with the tea warming me from the inside and the dew-lit flowers spreading across the hillside in every direction, requiring nothing from me except to be present.
Footsteps on the trail.
I did not look back. I did not need to. There was only one person on this island who moved with that specific combination of purpose and quietness, who would follow a barely visible trail up to a peak before breakfast without having been told anyone was there.
"There you are," he said, with the tone of someone who has found the thing they were looking for and is genuinely pleased about it.
I kept my eyes on the flowers and moved slightly on the boulder to indicate there was space.
"What's the schedule today?" I asked, as he settled beside me.
"Nothing complicated. The crew and the islanders will work through the water and herb resupply this morning — once that's done they'll have the rest of the week at their own pace, without the work hanging over them." He stretched his legs out in front of him. "Benedict and I will inspect the ship's hull and the engraving channels. You're welcome to come along if you'd like to."
What he was actually communicating, beneath the reasonable and practical wording of the invitation, was considerably more specific. I let the smile happen privately, on the side of my face he could not currently see.
"I don't see why not," I said.
---
The morning resolved itself into purposeful activity the moment we returned.
The crew moved with an efficiency that suggested they had done this particular sequence of tasks before and had worked out the optimal order. Phoenix hauled fresh water from the island's spring to the ship in steady, repeated trips, carrying the heavy barrels with the ease of someone whose actual physical capacity is not reflected in how they look. Sheriya worked alongside him in her quiet, focused way, passing and receiving, the two of them developing a rhythm that required no words. Ivanna and a cluster of island elders were engaged in the specific art of packing dried herbs and tea leaves for a long voyage — taking wide dried leaves, splitting them carefully at the spine, nesting the herbs inside, and folding the whole into tight, tidy parcels that would not spill or deteriorate over months at sea.
I followed Benedict and Rei to the ship.
Benedict came to a full stop at the hull, looked at the three arrow holes still embedded in the wood from yesterday's welcome, and made a sound of profound and personal grievance.
"Every single time," he said, with the feeling of someone whose patience has been eroded across many visits to a particular disappointment. He went aboard to retrieve a ladder, still muttering.
"He takes it rather personally," I observed.
"He built her," Rei said simply.
I looked at the ship. Then at Benedict, who was the height of approximately two-thirds of a normal man. Then at the ship again.
"He built this ship?"
"I was there. He had some assistance from craftsmen out of Furha, and I provided the engraving magic framework, but the design was entirely his — every measurement, every joint, every proportion. He turned a yard full of raw timber into that in less than six months." Rei said it with the ease of someone stating a fact they have long since stopped finding remarkable, though the fact itself remained remarkable. "He is a dwarf. Craftsmanship at that scale is not unusual for what he is. But even among dwarves, this was notable work."
I watched Benedict position the ladder against the hull with the bristling efficiency of a man prepared to correct someone else's damage to something he loves.
"To him she's his," Rei said. "'The Lady' is his, in the way that something you made entirely is yours in a way nothing else can be. That's why the arrows bother him. The islanders know this, which is presumably why they do it."
It made complete sense of everything I had observed, and reframed several earlier conversations.
"So," I said, turning back to Rei. "What can I do?"
He turned to me with a smile that had the particular quality of someone who has been hoping for exactly that question.
"I need to inspect all the engraving magic channels throughout the ship — every one that keeps her moving, navigating, and holding together as she should. If any are running low, they need to be refilled." He paused. "I emptied myself out last night. My reserves need time to recover." Another pause, with the slight quality of someone building toward what they actually wanted to say. "You, on the other hand, have an essentially unlimited supply of magic and have now demonstrated that you can channel it with reasonable precision."
He looked at me with an expression that was simultaneously a request and a statement.
"You need a great deal of help," I said.
"I need a great deal of help," he agreed, without any particular difficulty.