was an open doorway leading to the room with the big metal stove and the storage for dishes and food supplies. A couple of crewmen were in there, eating at the table.
Esom looked up, blinking, startled out of deep concentration. “Oh, hello, Moon.”
Moon pulled a padded stool closer and sat down, facing Esom. “Can I talk to you?”
“Yes. Is something wrong?”
Moon couldn’t think of any way to ease up on the subject. He asked, “Did you kill Ardan?”
“What? No. What?” Startled, Esom closed the book and sat up. “I thought you said he fell and hit his head when the leviathan moved?”
“He might have. But the way he fell, it would make more sense if someone hit him from behind.” The men at the table in the next room had stopped eating, and watched them with a mix of suspicion and curiosity. They were a little too far away to hear the conversation.
“It wasn’t me.” Esom seemed earnest and baffled. “Stone left me on the west side of the chamber. I was trying to work my way over to the door to the tunnel, but with the water and the angle of the floor, it was slow going. I kept sliding down and ramming into the pillars. I’d just gotten within sight of the door when Stone came back for me.”
That sounded true, unfortunately. “I was hoping it was you.” Esom had plenty of reason to hate Ardan, and his friends had still been trapped back in the tower; he might have seen it as the best opportunity to free them.
“Sorry to disappoint you, but I see what you mean.” Esom looked thoughtful. “If not me, then who? Do you think it was one of his own men? I don’t think most of them knew he was in control of the leviathan. They may have suspected it, but…”
“But it doesn’t make much sense.”
“No,” Esom admitted. He leaned forward, struck by a sudden thought. “Unless one of them secretly worked for Magister Lethen.”
“Maybe,” Moon said, and let Esom talk about it until he could pretend to be convinced. He was fairly certain he knew who had killed Ardan, but he didn’t want to be on this ship when he confronted the guilty party.
Since they were getting along with the groundlings, they spent another day and a night resting on the Klodifore. Moon slept through most of it, though he made sure someone was always watching Rift. River and Drift became unwilling allies in this, since they distrusted Rift far more than they disliked Moon, and never hesitated to take a turn guarding him.
Moon hadn’t spoken about his suspicions to anyone but Esom. The weather was good, windy but clear. The ship stopped at one point and settled down in the water to fill its tanks directly from the freshwater sea. It was a far more convenient system than having to fill jars or buckets and haul them up the side, the way the Golden Islanders did on their boats. It meant there was plenty of bathing water, which they all took advantage of. The basins were small, but capable of producing hot water, which made up for a lot.
The rest of Negal’s crew had adjusted reluctantly to the presence of the Raksura, though they were still obviously wary. They stared at them, and asked Karsis and Esom questions, most of which they had to pass along to Moon or Chime. Or to Floret, who had spent a while talking with Karsis while waiting at the camp in the abandoned tower. The crew was especially nervous of Stone at first, but he used his uncanny ability to disarm groundling fears, which to the untrained eye involved hanging around in their cooking room and asking about their food. By the evening they were so used to him that none of them seemed to mind when he fell asleep in front of the stove in their main sitting area. Esom tried hard to talk to Chime about groundling magic, and Chime resorted to hiding in their cabin, clinging to the ceiling above the doorway where no one could see him from the corridor.
Moon didn’t think these groundlings would ever be entirely comfortable with the presence of shifters, but maybe that was for the best. He hoped that the next time they left their isolated land, they would explore in a different direction.
On the morning of the second day aboard, Stone judged they were more than close enough for the warriors to make the flight