Damiana’s red-eyed stare raked over her friend’s grief-mottled features. “What will you do?”
Sophia shook her head. “I’m not sure … yet.”
Damiana frowned, unfamiliar with the angry, determined light that suddenly appeared in her friend’s eye. “What are you—”
“Come.” Sophia jumped to her feet, putting a halt to any more questions. “Another barge has arrived. We must be on this one.”
Sophia towed the smaller woman to the ramp and onto the flat, square ship, an ungraceful vessel of function, elbowing past and around the ballooning group of passengers. Packed together like fish caught in a net, there would be no chance for a private conversation yet no possibility of a normal one with what hung suspended between them, and the girls rode in companionable yet pregnant silence.
As they stepp
