Ransom wasn’t as tall or as old as I had expected from my parents’ description of the boy who once lived on Luar Island. The only extraordinary thing about him was his beard: a great white mass as untameable as my hair and white as ice. It fell like fog across his shoulders and stretched down to his belly without thinning. He laughed hello, and the air turned sweeter. I found myself thinking, suddenly, of warm fresh bread.
‘I’m a traveller too,’ he said, and held out his hand.
I took it and let myself get tugged into a fuzzy hug.
He let go of me and stood back, examining me from head to foot. ‘I like the plaits,’ he said, indicating the dozens of braids keeping my black hair from puffing out around my head. ‘How’s Patchy?’
‘Shall I ask him?’ On Ransom’s nod, I opened up my mind to my h
