The river had the audacity to look peaceful.

  It stretched before them, wide and brown and completely unaware that it represented everything wrong with large bodies of water. Which was that they were large bodies of water, and Reyn was expected to cross them.

  "It's just a river," Venn said helpfully from where she leaned on her walking stick.

  "Nothing is just anything," Reyn replied, eyeing the ferry tied at the dock. It bobbed with each tiny wave, which seemed excessive. "It's nature. You can't control nature. And who knows what lurks underneath the dark surface."

  Venn smiled and shrugged. "Fish?"

  "Among other things."

  That made Venn chuckle for the first time since they left Falun

  "What other things could possibly—"

  "Remember Greenlake?"

  The ferry operator was possibly the oldest woman Reyn had ever seen still in possession of all her original teeth. She sat on a barrel, whittling what might have been a duck or a castle.

  "Three for crossing?" she asked without looking up. "That'll be six silver. Eight if you want me to pretend I don't notice the rabbit."

  Turnip chittered indignantly.

  "Twelve if the rabbit's going to cause problems."

  "Six is fine," Randulph said quickly, producing coins from somewhere in his scorched robes. Wizards always had coins in unlikely places. It was like a very specific kind of magic.

  The old woman pocketed the silver and stood with the kind of grunt that came from years of doing the same job. "Name's Senna. Been running this crossing for sixty years without losing a soul. Granted there was that one fellow who jumped off halfway because he thought he saw his mother-in-law on the other side."

  "Did he make it?" Venn asked.

  "Oh, she wasn't really there. Trick of the light. He drowned." Senna untied the ferry with practiced ease. "But I didn't lose him."

  Reyn stood at the dock's edge, Good Deeds across her back, studying the ferry with the intensity usually reserved for enemies flanking her. It was a flat wooden platform with railings that seemed more for looks than actual practical use. The whole thing looked like it had been built by someone who'd heard a description of a boat but had never actually seen water.

  "You getting on or admiring the craftsmanship?" Senna asked.

  "I'm... assessing." Reyn could feel the rank taste if Greenlake in her mouth.

  "It's a ferry."

  "And a grand one at that, as far as ferries are concerned," Randulph offered, then stepped aboard. The ferry rocked. Reyn's knuckles went white.

  "Oh, for—" Venn limped past her onto the ferry. "Reyn, you've fought the Greenlake Monster, Deagles, mind-controlled people while fending of an actual living Dragoon. It's just water."

  "I can’t fight water," Reyn muttered, but stepped aboard. The ferry immediately tilted slightly, because of course it did. She grabbed the railing with both hands, which made Turnip relocate to the floor with an irritated squeak.

  By the ancestors, Reyn thought, Why are there so much water everywhere?

  Senna poled them away from the dock with movements telling that she'd been doing this since rivers were invented. "Heading to the Capitol, are you?"

  "What makes you think that?" Randulph asked.

  "Three folks looking like they've been through several kinds of hell, heading Westward? You look like the kind of folk thinking you might have a shot at the Tournament."

  The ferry moved into the current, and Reyn discovered that boats did a thing where they went up and down for no good reason. Her stomach offered several opinions about this, none positive.

  "Your barbarian friend doesn't like water much," Senna said.

  "Bormecians don't swim," Reyn said through gritted teeth.

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  "Everyone can swim. It's just controlled not-drowning."

  "Bormecians can't not-drown. We sink. It's a cultural thing."

  Senna raised an eyebrow. "Sounds stupid."

  Venn, apparently deciding Reyn needed distraction, asked, "You must have seen a lot, running this ferry for sixty years."

  "Seen enough." Senna's pole found the river bottom with practiced ease. "Merchants, mostly. Occasional adventuring types like yourselves. Once had a whole theatrical troupe. They performed the entire tragedy of King Aldren right here on the ferry. Three people cried. One of them was playing King Aldren."

  "Must have been moving," Randulph said.

  "Not really. He was crying because he forgot his lines and was making them up. Nobody noticed except him, but he took it personal."

  The ferry lurched slightly as it hit a current. Reyn's grip tightened enough that the wood creaked and moaned.

  "You know," Senna said, "I used to transport Bormecians regular-like, back during the last proper raids. Course, that was a hundred years past, but my grandmother ran the ferry then. Said they were decent enough folks once you got past all the axe-waving and death threats."

  "We've moved past that," Reyn managed.

  "To sword-waving?"

  Reyn did her best to hold the inside of her stomach where they bemonged. "Something like that."

  "And the death threats?"

  This time Reyn did manage a smile. She regretted it immediately. "We're very polite about them now."

  Senna cackled, which was apparently what happened when laughter aged. "My grandmother would've liked you. Although she’d reprimand you for not learning to swim."

  "There’s no reason learning something you won’t make use of," Reyn said darkly.

  They were halfway across now. The far shore looked impossibly distant, the near shore already too far. Reyn had positioned herself in the exact center of the ferry, as far from edges as geometry allowed, which wasn't very far on a platform designed by someone who thought railings were for aesthetic reasons only.

  How did I even survive the crossing from Bormecia? Reyn thought, already forgotten how perilous the calm journey on a large shipping had felt.

  "You could sit down," Venn suggested. "Lower center of gravity."

  "I'm fine standing, thank you." After all, standing would at last give Reyn a slightly better opportunity at jumping if needed.

  Venn smirked. "You're leaving fingerprints in the railing."

  "I don’t see a problem with that."

  Turnip, apparently bored with Reyn’s personal crisis, had discovered that the ferry's edge provided excellent fishing opportunities. He hung over the side, tiny paws batting at the water, occasionally pulling up something small and unfortunate which he consumed with great joy.

  "Your rabbit's got the right idea," Senna said. "River's full of good eating. Caught a fish last week big as my leg."

  "Which leg?" Randulph asked.

  Senna scowled. "The good one."

  "Randulph!" Venn said.

  Randulph shrugged. "Details are important."

  The discussion was interrupted by a splash. Everyone turned to see Turnip in the water, paddling with the frustration of something that had just learned physics still applied even to soft and cuddly murder-rabbits.

  "The rabbit fell in," Senna said unnecessarily.

  Reyn looked at Turnip. Turnip looked at Reyn. The rabbid's eyes promised terrible vengeance on whatever had betrayed him, which appeared to be gravity, water, and possibly existence itself. Not to mention Reyn.

  "Should we... help him?" Venn asked.

  Turnip chittered something that sounded deeply offensive, then swam to the ferry's edge with movements that suggested swimming was beneath his dignity but he'd do it this once. He hauled himself aboard, shook water everywhere with an obvious aim towqrd Reyn's boots, then resumed his position as if nothing had happened.

  "Tough rabbit," Senna noted.

  "He’s not a rabbit," Reyn said as Turnip flared its teeth.

  "You don’t say."

  The far shore approached. Reyn's relief was physical enough that her shoulders actually dropped. Solid ground. Wonderful, non-moving, non-wet solid ground.

  "See?" Venn said as they approached the dock. "No problems at all."

  "We're not there yet," Reyn said.

  Venn blinked. "We're twenty feet from shore."

  "A lot can happen in twenty feet."

  "Like what?"

  The ferry bumped against the dock with the gentle expertise of sixty years' practice. Nothing exploded. No one drowned. The world continued its general existence.

  "Huh," Reyn said.

  "What?" asked Randulph.

  "I expected more drama."

  "From a ferry crossing?"

  Reyn didn’t bother answering.

  Senna tied off without giving the ropes a single glance "Capitol's another three days' walk from here. Two if you're in a hurry. Four if you're smart enough to avoid the main roads."

  "Why would we avoid the main roads?" Venn asked.

  "People like you tend to want to avoid such."

  "We're completely legal," Randulph protested.

  Senna looked at his scorched robes, Venn's obvious injuries, Reyn's everything, and Turnip's general aura of malevolence.

  "Course you are. And I'm the Queen of Ardenia."

  "Your Majesty," Reyn said with a completely straight face. She found it hard to believe a Queen would bother working a ferry, but there was something to respect if it was true.

  Senna cackled again. "I like you. Try not to die in the Capitol. Bad for my reputation if I ferry folks to their doom."

  They disembarked, Reyn moving with the careful speed of someone who'd been holding their breath for twenty minutes. The moment her boots hit solid ground, her entire body relaxed.

  "You know we'll have to cross back eventually," Venn pointed out.

  "We'll see about that."

  They paid Senna the promised six silver, plus an extra for not mentioning Turnip's brief swimming lesson, and started down the road toward the Capitol. Behind them, the ferry pushed off again, Senna already sizing up her next passengers with the critical eye of someone who'd seen enough to know trouble but ferried it anyway.

  "That wasn't so bad," Randulph said after they'd walked a while.

  "Says the man who wasn't death-gripping the rail," Reyn replied.

  "You left marks in the wood."

  "Says something about its quality."

  They walked on, the Capitol somewhere ahead with its promises of Patch, Kael, and a tournament that might move Reyn one step further along her Pilgrimage. Turnip had dried to his usual state of vaguely ominous fluffiness, occasionally making disapproving chirps about the river experience.

  "You know," Venn said eventually, "for someone afraid of water, you handled that well."

  Reyn kept her face still. "Fear is a sign of caution and important for survival, if one can control it."

  "Controlling it by leaving fingerprints in wood?"

  Reyn looked at Venn, who grinned back at her. Reyn smiled back, to which the Mage-to-be turned red in her cheeks.

  The sun climbed higher and the road stretched on, to Reyn’s pleasure and Randulph’s displeasure.

  Venn started whistling, but was promptly abrupted by the whistling of an arrow heading straight toward her face.