2

W HEN K I NCHEN reached town, she headed down the back street directly for the governor’s house. She didn’t see anyone. Music and laughter rang from the dock area: crowds of Islanders there yet again, trading and eating and mixing with the Raftworlders, who wouldn’t go back to Raftworld until late at night—and then would return again by small boats early the next morning.

She paused only for a second as she heard a particularly loud voice call out, “Tell us another one!” The Islands didn’t have an official storyteller, but Raftworld did—an old man with special gifts at remembering and making stories. Heeding Ren’s suggestion (though with reservations on her own part), Kinchen and Pip had lain on a dockside shed roof just yesterday and listened to the storyteller as he stood in the market, a crowd around him, and told tales. True stories, made-up ones, stories from this world and from the one before. The old Raftworld storyteller, dark-skinned like most Raftworlders and with thick white hair pulled back in a tie, had a deep, magical voice, and listening to him was like being inside a dream. Kinchen would have loved to hear more—and she knew Pip felt that even more strongly than she did.

At the kitchen entrance to the governor’s big house, she hesitated, then slowly cracked open the door. Usually the cook—a terrifying person named Prissy who did not want her clean and efficient kitchen interrupted, ever—stood at the back window chopping and stirring, and would have hailed anyone who ran up to the back door. But today no one was there. Ah. Kinchen remembered a booth she’d spotted from her perch on the shed roof yesterday. A couple of Raftworld mechanics had brought several new clockwork and hydraulic kitchen devices—including something called a “beater” (which Kinchen suspected, based on the name alone, would appeal to the governor’s cook) and a new type of small bread cooker. Prissy would certainly be trying out these items as much as possible before making a trade for them.

Perfect. Kinchen didn’t even need to dream up an excuse for being at the governor’s house—not yet, anyway. She slid in the side door, removed her shoes to be polite, and slipped through the kitchen, resisting the urge to irritate Prissy by rearranging the hanging pots or crumpling the neatly folded towel on the counter.

The governor’s house was not enormous. It was merely larger than the other Island homes, because the governor held a lot of meetings there—often in a large, airy room next to the town’s library of historical manuscripts, which took up most of the rest of the ground floor. Kinchen had been in the house many times, to pick up or drop off books for Ren to repair.

It took only a moment to be sure that no one was home. She even ran upstairs and checked the bedrooms. Back in the kitchen, she paused. Where?

The kitchen window was open to the back garden, and through it drifted faint voices: people at the pond behind the house. Frowning, Kinchen went back outside, shoes in hand, and sneaked quietly down the path to the pond. As she drew nearer, she could hear the governor’s low, smooth tones intermingled with a deeper voice, a man’s, Raftworld-accented—less nasal than the Islanders—and speaking English, the language used for trade.

But she couldn’t hear Pip.

Sure enough, the governor and the Raft King (in a deep purple cape, easily recognizable as she drew near) stood with their backs to Kinchen, watching the pond. It wasn’t anything special, just a swimming hole fed by a creek that led from the sea. Occasionally a larger fish would find its way in from the bay, but mostly the creatures were small and quiet. Toddlers were brought here, where there was no tide or undertow, to learn swimming in safe waters.

Kinchen crept closer, working herself behind a bush. She wondered what the adults were doing—and where Pip was. She feared...yes, there he was. Sure enough.

In the middle of the small deep pond, Pip floated, facedown, completely still and spread-eagled like a drowned child.

He was talking to the fish.

The Raft King and the governor stood on shore, watching. “We have someone with a water gift, too,” the Raft King said. “But she doesn’t float. She sinks.” A tall, muscled man with big shoulders, he wore wide Raftworld-style pants under his impressive cape. His curly black hair was closely trimmed to his head.

“Well, every gift is different.” The governor, her gray top and leggings dull next to the king’s clothes, shrugged as if these kinds of gifts didn’t make much sense to her. “He’s the only one we have right now like this. And his adopted grandfather,” she corrected, “but the old man has only a little magic, I’m told. And he’s too feeble to use it.”

“This is exactly what I needed to see,” said the Raft King. “Exactly the type of person I was hoping you’d have. Is he really talking? If so, this boy is what I need.”

“When he’s old enough, we’ll definitely offer him the opportunity to go with you,” said the governor in a bland, cool tone. “Now. Let’s discuss the volunteers and our trading deals.”

“I don’t want any volunteers.”

“What?” The governor’s voice rose. And Kinchen could understand her surprise. There were always volunteers—both to go to Raftworld and to join the Islanders, grown-ups traveling from each direction. “We have a perfect fourteen this year, seven men and seven women, all adventurous—”

“I don’t want them. Raftworld is overcrowded. We don’t have room.” The Raft King put his hands on his hips and nodded toward the pond. “I want this boy, with his gifts. Only this boy.”

“But—you just want to consult with him, right?”

“I need to take him with me.” The Raft King’s voice sounded strained. In the distance, Pip hung motionless in the water, facedown. Kinchen felt frozen as well—what could the Raft King mean?

“What?” the governor said again. She stepped back from the water’s edge, away from the Raft King. “We don’t allow children to volunteer—and I’m not sure he would volunteer anyway. His sister wouldn’t let him. Nor his adopted grandfather.”

“ Adopted grandfather?” The Raft King turned toward the governor, and Kinchen could see his strong features in profile. He did not see Kinchen, so intent was he on the governor’s words.

“Their parents died when they were only toddlers. One after the other. Old Ren volunteered to take them in. He’s—he’s different.”

She didn’t go on, but she didn’t need to. The Raft King had evidently heard of him. “The albino.”

Ren wasn’t albino—his skin tanned every summer, and he said he’d once had brown hair. But he was awfully pale. No one knew where he’d come from or how he’d come by such a strange complexion. He’d been around for ages, living alone in the hill caves for as long as anyone could remember. Alone until Kinchen and Pip’s parents died, when he came down from the caves and volunteered to take them in. Even though it was clear that Pip was awkward with people, always looking at them like he didn’t know who they were (and before it was known he had a gift), Ren had volunteered anyway. And Ren loved Pip right from the start; he didn’t think Pip was stupid. It was, thought Kinchen, another of Ren’s great qualities. He thought his grandchildren were good the way they were.

“Yes, the albino. That’s the one,” the governor confirmed.

“So the boy doesn’t have any real family.”

“He has his sister. And Ren.”

“But I mean, family who would object to him going off. This is a big opportunity for him, you know. What does he have here to look forward to?”

“Not much,” the governor said. “He’s bright enough with math and literature and things , but with people...well, he’s odd. Mostly he talks to fish, I think.”

“Exactly. So we take him off your hands.”

“I see what you’re saying. But the fact is, we Islanders don’t trade people unwillingly. I can’t give you this boy. He’d have to volunteer, and he’s not likely to.”

The Raft King’s voice thinned. “It’s what’s best for him.”

“I’m sorry.” The governor sounded like she was reluctant to say no—but saying no nonetheless. Firmly.

The Raft King’s voice grew suddenly firmer, too. And threaded in it was a note of something else. Fear? “I must have this boy. You don’t understand, you people with your islands. We need this child.” The Raft King took a deep breath. “He can lead us to our own land.”

“What? How?” The governor sounded genuinely interested. Kinchen was, too—how in the world could Pip help the Raftworlders find their land? And what was their land ? She thought the Raftworlders had always lived on Raftworld, ever since they’d arrived here in the second world. That was the story, anyway.

The Raft King looked out over the pond for so long, it seemed like he wasn’t going to reply. And when he did, he didn’t answer the question. “State secret. But this boy is the key.” The governor took a breath as if to speak, but the king cut her off. “And until you give him to me, there will be no more trading, no nothing. We’re the only two nations in the world, and we won’t be friends, not without the boy.”

The two adults stood in silence, staring out across the water. Pip still floated facedown, but now his arms, instead of drifting off to his sides, were gesticulating downward, as if he were waving slowly at someone at the bottom of the pond, or petting something beneath him in the water.

Why wasn’t the governor saying no to the Raft King? Who cared about Raftworld anyway? And how dare the Raft King say so casually that he would take Pip away? And how could Pip survive without Kinchen’s help?

Finally the governor cleared her throat and said, in a small voice that sounded like a shrug, “You can have him. For a visit only.”

That was when Kinchen leaped out from behind the bush, eyes blazing.

At the same moment on the little deep pond, schools of fish leapt high into the air, small and quick, over and over, hundreds of them bubbling up like a pot at high boil. mkV2q7d0OZOzILfxFysUu4QcSWCfSgU+V9RFNxiSCtniD5qfzNUZ0MBEqp0dv0gb