CHAPTER 17

Spring arrives cold and endlessly rainy at Woodcarver’s castle. Johanna trudges through mud to her bungalow, reflecting on the Tines’ world as beautiful yet deadly without technology. Inside, she recognizes the castle comforts as exceptional in a generally primitive society and longs for her lost family, forcing herself to accept their deaths even as memories persist.

Her servant pack prepares a simple meal, highlighting the scarcity of winter. Johanna notes that reports claimed Jefri died months before, and she has begun to adjust to being alone. She remains crucial to Woodcarver’s efforts, guiding use of the dataset to accelerate technology.

Scriber visits, speaking passable Samnorsk and presenting himself as a wide-ranging thinker. He shares a stack of sketches and speculative inventions—flying boats lifted by tethered birds, giant sun-lenses, and a notion to combine radio with pack-thought. Johanna humors him, finding his naïveté almost comforting amid alienation, but sees the ideas as half-baked and far beyond current capability.

When Scriber presses for friendship and defends Peregrine, Johanna’s anger surges. She throws his notes into the fire, kicks him back as he tries to salvage them, and promises to kill Peregrine if he visits. Scriber flees into the storm. Left alone, Johanna recognizes a grim satisfaction: beyond physical resistance, her rejection itself can wound, giving her a newfound sense of agency even as it isolates her further.