Paragon felt something inside his wizardwood chest squeeze tight and hard.

"So I asked her who she had hired."

He lifted his hands quickly and stuffed his fingers in his ears. He wouldn't listen. She was going to play on his fears. So his family was going to move him. That didn't mean anything. It would be nice to be somewhere else. Maybe this time, when they hauled him out, they would block him up level. He was tired of always being at a list.

"She said it was none of my business." Amber raised her voice. "Then I asked her if they were Bingtown Traders. She just glared at me. So then I asked her where Mingsley was going to take you to have you dismantled."

Paragon began desperately to hum. Loudly. Amber went on talking. He couldn't hear her. He would not hear her. He plugged his ears more tightly and sang aloud, "A penny for a sweet-bun, a penny for a plum, a penny for the races, to see the ponies run…"

"She threw me out!" Amber roared. "When I stood outside and shouted that I'd take it to the Bingtown Traders' Council, she set her dogs on me. They damn near caught me, too!"

"Swing me low, swing me high, swing me up into the sky," Paragon sang the childish rhyme desperately. She was wrong. She had to be wrong. His family was going to move him somewhere safe. That was all. It didn't really matter who they hired to do it. Once they had him in the water, he'd go willingly. He would show them how easy it could be to sail him. Yes. It would be a chance to prove himself to them. He could show them that he was sorry for all the things they had made him do.

She wasn't speaking anymore. He slowed his singing, then let it die away to a hum. Silence, save for his own voice. Cautiously he unstopped his ears. Nothing, save the brush of the waves, the wind nudging sand across the beach and the crackling of Amber's fire. A question occurred to him and he spoke it aloud before he remembered he was not speaking to her.