Merrigan hadn't thought it possible, but Quincy's face lit up even more. Yes, he knew of an inn where the food was outstanding and the rooms were clean and the innkeeper's family made sure their customers were safe and they kept out riffraff. He was friends with the innkeeper's sons and daughter, and would entrust Mistress Mara and Mistress Elli to their care, personally.
Ah ha. A daughter, she thought to Bib. No wonder Quincy can't wait to go back. He's fallen in love. I wonder, does his mother know?
Ma never misses anything, her companion responded.
Merrigan shuddered. She hoped there were at least a few things that had escaped Ma's sharp eye and even sharper instincts.
So it was that two days later, Mistress Mara bade farewell to the friends she had made at the Bookish Mermaid. She boarded the Fleetwind with her new apprentice, several crates of material, and all the essentials to set up a dressmaker's shop in the port town of Windward, in the tiny kingdom of Seafoam.
ELLI DIDN'T CARE MUCH for sewing, and her attempts at singing hurt Merrigan's ears. She did find books fascinating, and confessed that she much preferred that method of storing information to the way it was done under the sea—trusted to the memories of the great whales and to the spiny, blind creatures that lived at depths that would crush ordinary mortals. While their memories were perfect down to the inflection used when the information was relayed to them, whales were stodgy creatures devoted to protocol and manners, and the spiny creatures of the dark, cold depths had even spinier feelings. Sometimes retrieving the information stored in their minds was harder than reading books retrieved from sunken ships. Elli had wondered what was in the books, but the ink always faded away before she could teach herself to read.
Merrigan found some ironic amusement in discovering that she could be a fairly decent teacher if her pupil was clever and hungry to learn. She and Elli spent their time either holed up in their cabin or in the prow of the ship out of the way of the sailors. Merrigan designed fantastical gowns to catch the attention of the court ladies of Seafoam, while Elli learned her letters by reading aloud to her. Quincy had delightful taste in books, and four-fifths of the volumes lining one wall of his cabin were all fables and romantic tales of daring and adventures, rather than manuals devoted to the seafaring life. Four books were full of poetry. That made sense, since he seemed besotted to the point of turning mute, when it came to the subject of the innkeeper's daughter.
Merrigan blamed self-preservation and cleverness when she quizzed Quincy about his sweetheart until she had a good idea of the girl's height and build. She designed and sewed a dress for her that was just a little grander than an innkeeper's daughter would wear, but not so grand she would feel uncomfortable. She doubted she acted out of gratitude for Ma and Tiny's help, so she helped Quincy's courtship. There was no real profit in being nice to the lower classes just for the sake of being nice to them.
Still, there was a vague disquiet deep inside, when she presented the dress to Rosa, the innkeeper's daughter, and she and her mother insisted that Merrigan and Elli had to have the grandest room in their inn. That was what she intended, wasn't it?
Rosa brought all her friends to see Merrigan and the material she had brought with her, and exclaim over the dresses she had designed. Of course, the other clothes were far too grand for them to ever dream of wearing, but many of them worked for rich merchants or were servants in some of the grand houses of Windward. They promised to speak with their mistresses about the fashionable seamstress who had come from far over the sea. Merrigan left hints that royal employers had sent her on her journey. By the end of the day, word spread through Windward that a royal seamstress had arrived, and she would be happy to share what she had learned before she returned to her employers.
"Now we'll see how fast the fish are biting and how hungry they are," she remarked to Elli that evening, as they headed downstairs to the dining room. The mermaid girl laughed at her figurative language. She had been trying to rid some of the sea-based metaphors out of her vocabulary during the voyage, while Merrigan had been picking them up from the sailors.
She returned to their room after dinner, leaving Elli sitting by the fire, listening with delight to a long, involved tale from Miles, Rosa's oldest brother. She stopped in the doorway, the question she had for Bib frozen on her lips.
A massive dog with eyes as big as rum bottles sat beside her bed, head bowed over Bib, who was spread out open on the quilt.
Merrigan blinked, rubbed her eyes, then looked again. She finally thought to close the door, and moved farther into the room. The dog was an enormous, muscular breed that looked like it could take a bite out of a building, or even drag it into the street. She could only walk to the foot of her bed because the dog took up most of the sitting area next to the fireplace. Merrigan was too stunned to feel afraid.
"Good evening, Princess," the dog said in a growly sort of slobbery voice that threatened to drip drool. He bowed his head to her, nearly knocking Bib onto the floor.
"Good evening, dog." She decided it might be prudent to curtsey. "Are you all right, Bib?"
Merrigan braced herself to find out that Bib's original master had regained his magic and had sent this huge dog to take him back home. She considered flinging herself onto the bed,
