Stone stared at Athis as if he’d never seen a denizen of Faerie before. Which in fact he hadn’t. “Oh, no!” he said. “Don’t tell me you live in trees! Drake couldn’t have been telling the truth!”

“We do live in trees ~ Where else would a thinker live? ~ Leaky wooden huts?” Athis replied.

Grace prodded her father, who intervened, “Well! That is! Yes. We have in fact got on with them very well, Captain. Which is not to say they aren’t in league! But in the meantime, very helpful. Yes.”

Stone considered. “I am Captain John Stone come to relieve Her Majesty’s colony.”

“Your language is strange ~ does ‘relieve’ mean ‘take away’? ~ I can only hope.”

Stone opened his mouth to reply but was interrupted by a piercing scream from down the shore. All eyes turned to the frozen tableau of Christopher Marlowe, the now-conscious Lady Belinda Hyphen-Dash Throtestalking, and a third figure in the water beyond them, striding forth in a froth of fury.