I’m sorry, Lily.

  But Porter’s the one who shut off the motor when the settlers first caught up to us. He’s the one who told them all to stand down when I raised the flag. He’s the one they listened to. Not me.

  Porter’s not here with the rest of us. I don’t know where he is or what the settlers are doing to him.

  I still have Tam’s blood on me. I still have his look in my eyes. He hasn’t been gone long.

  He’s been gone forever. He’ll never be back.

  “Quiet down,” says a voice I recognize. It’s one of the Quorum. Sister Haring. She’s wearing boots and a militia uniform and her blond hair is rolled up, pinned back. Her hands are nice and clean, the nails polished and smooth. I notice them because her hands are on her hips, her fingertips splayed out like claws, gripping tight.

  When it was clear the settlers had seen our surrender, Porter went out to negotiate the terms. It didn’t take long. I can’t imagine that the settlers agreed to anything except to stop killing us, for now. When Porter gave the signal from the shore, we opened the gangway and the settlers came on. They took our weapons and herded us down from the deck and into the cafeteria.

  There are so many settlers. Even though they’ve left most on the shore, it feels like they take up every inch of the ship.

  I think it’s clear to us all that the Admiral isn’t just here to escort the gold back to the Outpost. There’s something else happening.

  “I’ll deal with all of you in time,” Sister Haring says. “Right now, I need Captain Blythe and her first and second mates. Come forward.”

  Are we going to be executed immediately? On full display?

  Some part of my mind registers: She hasn’t asked for Eira. That’s good.

  And another part tells me: She won’t kill us now. The Admiral isn’t here to watch.

  I step forward. Brig does too. In the shuffle and confusion when the settlers herded us down, he ended up near the front of the cafeteria. He looks back for me, and our eyes meet across the room. He is dirty. His shoulder is bloody. Naomi is nowhere in sight. And then I remember, Naomi turned on us. Brig locked her up.

  “Where’s Second Mate Naomi Moran?” Sister Haring asks.

  Naomi. Lifting her rifle and shooting Tam. Planning to shoot me. Fury darkens my vision, skips beats in my heart. I’m not going to say where she is. Let her rot away, alone in a cabin without windows.

  They’ll find her, though. They’ll search every inch of the ship.

  All along, I knew the Admiral would have sent someone to watch me, to watch all of us. I wonder whether Naomi had orders to kill anyone who betrayed him. That would explain her shooting Tam. Turning the rifle on me. We had decided to fight on the side of the drifters. We were traitors.

  What did the Admiral promise her?

  Is she the one who attached the rheostat? Who tried to keep us from running?

  It must be.

  “Where is Second Mate Naomi Moran?” Sister Haring asks again. I don’t answer. Neither does Brig.

  “We’ll find out what happened to her,” Sister Haring says, her eyes boring into mine. She continues her roll call, down the list of names. And then she comes to his.

  “Where is Tam Wallace?” she asks.

  Brig lowers his head. I raise my chin, stare into Sister Haring’s eyes.

  Silence.

  People liked Tam. Drifters and settlers alike. They responded to his smile, his way of wanting to know you, how he cooked and took care.

  How many of them know he’s gone? And do they know who took him down?

  “Where is Tam Wallace?” she asks again.

  No one answers.

  She walks over to me, gestures for a guard to cuff my hands. “Captain Blythe,” she says. “Tell me where Tam Wallace is.”

  I open my mouth to spit out the words. He’s dead.

  But.

  I can’t.

  * * *

  • • •

  They throw Brig and me into one of the small crew rooms together.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  “It’s not over yet,” he says.

  I lean my head against the wall behind me. “It’s over for Tam.” There are tears behind my eyes and I can’t have that. I won’t have the Admiral know I’ve been crying. I blink, looking up at the ceiling, and then I bring my chin level, rest my hands on my knees.

  “I didn’t have to see them die before,” I say.

  “It makes it worse,” Brig says.

  “I think we should have to see them, and they should have to see us.” My voice breaks. “We should have to look right into each other’s eyes.”

  The drifters killed Call in the dark.

  If they’d seen him, they would have known him.

  But Tam was killed in broad daylight. Naomi knew what she was doing. She knew Tam, and she killed him anyway.

  “Porter wouldn’t have let you surrender if he didn’t agree with it,” Brig says. “We were getting slaughtered out there.”

  “We’re going to get slaughtered in here.” Why couldn’t I think of anything else to do? I didn’t think it through. I saw Tam die, and I wanted it to stop.

  “There’s got to be a reason they haven’t killed us yet,” Brig says. He lifts his hands, cuffed together, and rubs at his face—his cheekbones, his forehead. A spray of blood dots the chest and collar of his shirt, but I don’t think it’s his.

  “Did Naomi say why she shot Tam?”

  “No,” Brig says. “And I didn’t ask. I wanted to get back up to the deck as fast as I could.”

  “But you locked her up,” I say. “Even though you didn’t see her kill him.”

  He nods. “You were sure of it.”

  “Why do you trust me?” I ask.

  Brig leans his head back against the wall, but he keeps his eyes on me. I see the pulse in his throat, the hollow at the base of his neck. “You do good things,” he says at last.

  If I could laugh, I would. “Like building armor that tears people up? Like trying to set a village on fire?”

  “You did your best to get the crew off the ship safely when the drifters attacked,” he says. “You kept track of all of us in the forest.”

  “That was just being practical,” I say. “I wanted you all near me so I could keep an eye on you. And so you could help me take back the ship.”

  “You know how to change,” he says. “You shift course.”

  I have never seen myself that way. He can’t be right. I’ve always been driven, like an arrow, headed for one fixed purpose, one destination at a time. To run with Call. To kill the raiders.

  “You’ve been trying to help the drifters escape,” he says. “You fought alongside them.”

  “You think I’m better than I really am,” I tell Brig.

  “Poe.” Brig scoots closer, the handcuffs sliding against his wrist bones. His fingers are dirty and tan, and up close I can see his eyelashes, the stubble shading his cheekbones, the curve of his top lip. “I don’t—”

  The door opens. Sister Haring. “Poe Blythe,” she says, her voice cool, a cut. “The Admiral wants to see you.”

  CHAPTER 41

  THE ADMIRAL HAS THEM BRING ME TO HIS ROOM.

  Which is, of course, my room. The captain’s room. He’s taken it over.

  The lantern glows on the desk. My bag is still on top of the dresser. The Admiral is sitting on my bunk and he leans back, arms folded, boots crossed at the ankle. I see the glimmer of his teeth.

  I’m surprised. It’s faded and far away under fear, under knowing Tam is gone, but it’s there. The Admiral really does want me for something. He doesn’t just want me dead.

  So, what is it?

  “Well,” the Admiral says. “Captain Blythe. Would you like to tell me what happened?”

  “I changed sides,” I say.

  “Of course you did,” he says. “You thought it was to your best advantage.” He smiles at me, lifts up the lantern, and sets it on the bed next to him. Now all of the light is on his side of the room. “Naomi told me everything.”

  “Did she,” I say. “What does she get in return?”

  “She gets to live.”

  “Do I?”

  “That depends,” he says. “On how useful you might prove to be.”

  “You want me to fix the ship.”

  He waves his hand dismissively. “Naomi can fix the motor. She’s working on it now. But not everyone can design weapons the way you do.” He rocks forward, sets his hands on his knees, the hairs on his arms glinting amber in the light. “Even so, I have to say that I’m not pleased you ruined the armor. Naomi tells me that was your idea.” He tilts his head, looks right into my eyes, lowers his voice. “Why would you do that?”

  “I made it,” I say. “So it was mine to ruin.”

  “No,” he says. “You designed it, but you didn’t pay for it. That’s all right, though. You will.”

  A grumble, low and deep. A roll of mechanical thunder. My ship. It’s coming alive again. I feel the hum through the soles of my feet, in the beats of my heart.

  “Well.” The Admiral is pleased. “It sounds like Naomi has the motor going. We’re going to go as far as we can as fast as we can. Run the ship into the ground. And then, we’ll use the wagons to go the rest of the way.” He gives a long, satisfied sigh. “Everything is working out fine.”

  He rises to his feet, filling the room, his shoulders squared and his voice warm, an invitation to fall into line. “We have the gold again. In the end, nothing is lost.”

  Nothing. Only Tam. And some of the others. “You’re a fool,” I say.

  The Admiral’s jaw tightens.

  “Do you really think you can bring yourself back from the dead?” I ask him. “No one can do that.” I am sure of this, and I know he hears it in my voice. I have seen the dead, just hours ago. I have seen the way their eyes look.

  Something goes when you go.

  That is the magic, the alchemy: the primitive, deep-seated element that is in you—that is you—while you live, and which leaves the moment you die. You can’t get it back. Nothing can buy it. No amount of tears will ever call it home.

  “What are you talking about?” the Admiral says. “I’m not dead.”

  “The palingenesis project,” I say. “Tam told me about it.”

  “Ah,” the Admiral says. “Tam.”

  Does he know that Tam is dead? He must, by now.

  “Tam made a mistake.” The Admiral shakes his head. “He chose the wrong side in the fight against the raiders. And I don’t want to live forever.” He laughs. The convivial, rich sound seems to constrict the room, to steal the air from the space above bed, table, chair, between us. “Captain Blythe. You know me better than that. I’m a practical man.”

  In some ways, he is. In some ways, he’s not.

  “The palingenesis project may have a whimsical name,” he says, “but it’s an extremely rational venture.”

  We’ve come down to it. Tam was right. This project is why the Admiral wants the gold. So what is it? “What are you trying to do?” I ask. “What do you want?”

  “Glory,” he says.

  He answered me. A single word, frank and brief. I believe him.

  Will he answer my other questions with the same honesty?

  “What happens now?” I ask. “Do you kill us all right away, or wait until we’ve helped you with the gold? Or do you torture the drifters to find out what they had planned?”

  “Oh, we know where they’re going,” he says. “The raiders should have been more careful about who they bargained with. Those same people made a deal with us, too.” He smiles. “Whoever gets them the gold first, wins.”

  “Wins what?”

  “I can’t tell you everything, Captain Blythe.” The way he uses my title is mocking, as if he’s pointing out the fiasco my leadership has been, start to finish. “Now. Tell me something. I know from Naomi that you were shooting at us from the dredge. But you had the raiders remove the armor. And you rigged your ship to go too fast. Did you want the raiders to succeed, or were you trying to help us?”

  I could lie.

  I should.

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  He hits me so fast I only see it coming in the last second, the backhand across my face that feels like it knocks my bones and my teeth clear through my flesh, my brain. I stagger back against the desk, stretch my cuffed hands out in front in a futile attempt to gain balance, but the impact of the desk sends me forward. My knees hit the floor hard.

  I’m kneeling in front of him.

  “I had to leave a mark that would show,” he says. “Do you know why?”

  I don’t answer. My mouth is full of blood, and I think I’ll be sick if I swallow it because it makes me think of Tam’s blood and Call’s blood and everyone’s blood.

  “Some of the Quorum think I’m too easy on you,” he says. “They wonder if I have a tie to you. If you’re some kind of family, maybe. I can’t rightly see why. We don’t look alike. Do we act alike? Is that it?”

  I turn my head and spit the blood out, spray it across his pillow, his bed, his blanket, the things that used to be mine.

  The Admiral makes a sound of disgust. “Like a dog marking its territory,” he says. “Well then. You can lie in it.”

  He walks out of the room and shuts the door behind him. I hear him speaking to the guard outside but I can’t make out the words.

  There’s something small and hard in the bed when I lie down on it. And a hole at the back of my mouth. He knocked out one of my teeth.

  I don’t think he’ll spare me the gold for a new one.

  CHAPTER 42

  IN THE MORNING, they take me to the Quorum.

  Two guards drag me from my room to the cafeteria. The Quorum looks up from their seats. I can tell from their expressions that the bruise on my face is doing the work the Admiral wanted. It’s making them wonder.

  “Sit here,” says one of the guards. The chair is as far away from the Admiral as possible. He watches from the head of the table.

  I’ve gone from being at the Devil’s hand to sitting at his feet.

  I take my position and look at the Quorum. They’re all here. Not one has been left behind in the Outpost to govern in the Admiral’s absence.

  Why?

  Sister Haring isn’t smiling with her mouth, but her eyes have a satisfied look to them as she takes in my bruise, my cuffed hands, the dried blood on my shirt and in my hair. Bishop Weaver, who has never liked me much, twists his mouth sadly at the sight of my injury and I see new sympathy in his eyes.

  Too late. If you have to see me broken and beat-up to care about me, I will never care about you. If you only like me when I’m cast down, I will get back up and wipe the kindness right off your face.

  Wishful thinking. I’m in handcuffs on a locked-down ship.

  “We have one spot left,” the Admiral says. “We need to choose who will take it.”

  One spot for what?

  “Are you certain we should have the candidates here when we decide?” asks Sister Haring.

  “I think we might find it revealing,” says the Admiral.

  “I still argue for Brig Tanner,” says General Dale.

  As if he’s summoned Brig by saying his name, the door opens, and two guards escort Brig in. He’s been hit, too—his nose is swollen, the cut reopened, and his lip is split. His eyes meet mine as the guards walk him down to sit next to me. I wish I could reach out and touch his hand. I wish I could say, I’m all right. Are you?

  “Of the dredge crew, we’re taking Corwin Revis, Joseph Andrade, and Ophelia Hill,” says General Foster. “They’re the most useful for engineering and navigating.”

  “The last spot goes to Naomi Moran,” says Bishop Weaver. “We agreed on that earlier. It was promised to her.”

  “I think the case for Captain Blythe is more compelling,” says General Foster.

  “We’ll hear all arguments,” says the Admiral. “You may each take a turn.”

  The door opens and guards bring Naomi in. She isn’t handcuffed the way Brig and I are, but she still has to sit with us. I want to kill her for killing Tam. And I never want to kill again. I want both things at the same time.

  I look away from her and at Brig. I don’t know him as well as I wish I did, and I’ve been betrayed before, but I think I know something about Brig. I think he is my friend.

  I may be wrong.

  “Excellent,” the Admiral says. “Now we can begin.”

  “What’s going on?” asks Naomi. Her face is clean, uninjured. She doesn’t look afraid, exactly, but she’s wary.

  “I know we told you we’d likely be able to bring you with us,” says the Admiral, “but General Dale prefers First Mate Tanner, and it turns out that General Foster wants to give the spot to Captain Blythe.” He gives a cheerful grimace, as if saying, As you can see, my hands are tied.

  “What?” Naomi glances at Brig, at me. “After everything that happened? Why?”

  “First Mate Tanner has many skills,” says General Dale. “And he’s loyal to his commanding officer. Almost to a fault.”

  “He didn’t do what I did.” Naomi’s voice is steady, assured. The Naomi I know, the one who taught me about the ship on my first voyage. “I did everything you asked. Why would you take her?”

  “Captain Blythe has proven inventive for death,” says the Admiral. He is perfectly polite, hands on the table, nothing to hide. Is that blood from my lip on his turquoise ring? Or were those dark specks always there against the stone?

  “We may have need of such a skill.” General Foster shuffles the papers in front of him, and I realize what they are: the schematics for my armor. “Who knows what weapons we might need in the future. Having someone who can design them could be very useful.”