"Jamie," I answered, shaking her hand. Her skin was warm and like everyone else I met in this city, she was impossibly pretty. At least I didn't think I had any more room in my head for mixed up feelings at the moment and she had relaxed me a little with talk of weapons, which meant I probably wasn't going to stumble over my words and sound like a complete fool, as I so often did.

"I guess they think I just won't need it here," I said. "I suppose they're not completely wrong. I haven't had to gut a deer since arriving."

Or stab a pirate. Or kill a Many-Eyed. In fact, most of my time in Darrow was spent trying to settle into a normal life, the sort of thing I had so deeply craved, the thing I'd been running toward, Sal at my side. Given what had happened, that she'd died trying to get us all back to London, I thought it was important to give it all the best chance I could and besides worrying about school and my confusing feelings for my roommate and nearly every pretty girl I met, I thought I was doing a decent job of it.