A rising full moon washed the calm sea in brighter tones of blue and green, bathing the shoreline as well as the robed figures who stood upon it in dim aquamarine light. Overhead, stars danced and guttered in a warm night sky.

Rafe Merrique leaned on the gunwale of the longboat and scanned the shore. Behind him, the Kinshark lay at anchor in the shallow bay, unmagicked for now in these abandoned waters. Ahead, he saw a small gathering of men amid their wagons and horses.

"They have the look of Francines," he whispered to his first mate.

The man grunted a reply as he worked the oars. Rafe kept his attention on the beach. There were four figures in view, their backs turned and their hoods up so that he could not see their faces.

But why are they so far from home? Merrique was a veteran of the horn, seasoned at bringing his ship and crew through the Ghosting Crests and into the Churning Wastes. He'd spent half his life running the Order back and forth on one secret venture or another. At first, he'd done it for the bits of magick and technology they'd offered him. Later, the money had been enough of an incentive.

And now, with the Order decimated and the Ninefold Forest assuming guardianship of Windwir's holdings, the Gypsies were his customers.

Until the moon sparrow found him, that is.

He'd just landed a fresh company of Gypsy Scouts to assist with the work at Sanctorum Lux and was turning his vessel west when the bird fell from the sky to perch on the railing of his forecastle. It was small and made of a silver metal so bright that the sunlight reflecting from it burned Rafe's eyes. It hopped twice, regarding him with emerald-jeweled eyes, before cocking its head and opening its tiny beak.

A reedy voice whispered out. "Rafe Merrique," it said, "the light requires service of your ship."

And if it weren't a bird he'd seen so many times before, bearing a message he'd also heard many times, he might not have yelled for a pencil to scratch down the course heading and coordinates it suddenly chirruped before closing its beak and lifting into the summer sky to speed northeast.