Are they still taking me? Even though I didn’t kill Porter?

  “Go ahead,” the Admiral says. “Ask.”

  He’s going to make me do it. I swallow my pride, my fear, my anger, my loss. My throat is raw. “Am I going?”

  “Yes.”

  The speed of his response is a shock, as is the fact that he doesn’t toy with me. Just tells me straight. “Why?”

  “It’s like I said earlier,” the Admiral says. “You’ve proven inventive for death. You’ve managed it on the largest scale in recent history. That counts for something.”

  That’s what I’ve done. That’s my immortality. My soaring heart begins to sink. I did not see their faces. But they died anyway. I did it. For Call.

  No.

  For me. Because the idea of revenge kept me alive.

  What kind of person am I? The Admiral thinks he knows. What he’s said is fact. I can’t deny or refute it.

  “Who do you need to kill?” I ask. “You said the place where you’re going is abandoned.”

  “For now it is,” he says, “but people will want to come and take it from us.” A gold tooth glints in the back of his mouth. I think of my missing tooth, of the way he hit me in the captain’s quarters.

  I remember how I fought Tam there.

  Tam.

  Tam was brave. He wanted to know about everyone. He learned all our names. He made food that nourished people. He came into the woods with us. He fought on the deck. This deck.

  I saw him go.

  “I need a weapon. One that isn’t broken.” The Admiral’s gaze flickers to me. “Are you broken?”

  I stare past the river, to the horizon where the golden ship vanished. Everything here is wrong and ruined. There is something light and beautiful that can take us to another world. Two choices, a flip of a coin, stamped in gold and blood.

  And there is something in the distance, low on the horizon. Something the Admiral may have missed.

  “No,” I say. I point up to the sky, where the ship, the golden Palingenesis, is coming back. “I’m reborn.”

  CHAPTER 45

  “IT’S TIME TO SAY GOODBYE TO THE LILY,” the Admiral says. “She has served us well.”

  He’s called everyone together, drifter and settler alike, and has climbed up on the platform of the mining deck to address us.

  Time has run out. We have come to the end of our voyage. The motor is silent for now, shut down by the machinists at the Admiral’s order. It lasted long enough. I want to pat the casing surrounding the motor, whisper Good job. Even though of course it’s not alive. Even though it’s brought us to a place from which there may be no return. The ship did what we asked it to do.

  Everyone knows about the other ship, the Palingenesis, now. But only the Admiral knows for certain who will be on board when it leaves for good.

  Who will die? Who will live? Who will be chosen to leave and start again?

  “It’s time to run the dredge ashore,” says the Admiral. “Once that’s done, we’ll unload gold onto the wagons through the tailings stacker.”

  “Running the ship aground will ruin it.” The moment the words are out of my mouth I curse myself. I’m supposed to be trying to please the Admiral, not lose my spot on the Palingenesis.

  “It’s the fastest and easiest way to load the wagons.” The Admiral props his foot up on a bag of gold, leans on his knee. “And we have no need for the Lily anymore. She’s fulfilled her purpose.”

  “It’s going to be dangerous for whoever’s left on board to steer the ship,” Corwin says. “The force of impact will be tremendous.” I fix my gaze on my chief machinist, who’s dared to speak up on behalf of whoever might be given the unenviable and dangerous task of ruining the Lily. The Quorum has chosen him to go with them. Does he know? If so, is he glad? His face is inscrutable.

  “It is,” agrees the Admiral. “But we have someone who knows the ship inside and out and who is up to the challenge.”

  A stone settles in my stomach. The Admiral stands up straight again and makes a broad, sweeping gesture in my direction. I am standing with the rest of the group. I am no longer at his left hand.

  “Captain Blythe will handle it.” The Admiral smiles at me, his eyes and teeth bright across the whole length of the room. “She knows the dredge. She’ll bring it to land. The rest of us will wait for her on the shore.”

  Of course. He’s not really going to let me on the Palingenesis until I’ve proven myself. I failed the test with Porter, so I’ve been given another. The Admiral wants me to do this first.

  To survive the wreck of my ship.

  * * *

  • • •

  The Admiral takes me up to the bridge. To my surprise and the guards’, he dismisses them at the door and tells them they can wait outside. Once they’re gone, the Admiral removes a handgun from his pocket and places it inside the small metal safe set into the wall. He locks it and hands me the key.

  “For you,” he says.

  “Why?”

  “You’ll see.” The Admiral surveys me. He’s wearing a clean shirt and vest this morning, not a work shirt. It’s an occasion. “I hope you survive the crash,” he says. “I think you will. And when you’ve finished doing what you have to do on this ship, you can come with us on the next.”

  He needs someone who knows how to run the dredge aground. Whom he can spare if they die. That’s me.

  It’s always me and I’m sick of it.

  One more time.

  I’ll do whatever it takes, one more time, to get what I want.

  Once we’ve finished talking, the Admiral and his guards will use the drifters’ little light boats to get clear of the ship. As soon as the Admiral’s safe, I’m supposed to start the motor and gun it for the shore in reverse, toward a long sandbar that edges out into the river. I’ll beach the dredge there, so that the stacker hangs over land instead of water. Then the settlers will board and send the gold out through the stacker directly into the wagons.

  “All you have to do is get the ship up onshore and make sure the stacker isn’t ruined,” the Admiral says. “Any other damage doesn’t matter.”

  “I understand.” And I do. If I survive, I’ll be useful to him. If not, I’ll still have completed this task he needed me to do.

  “Good.” The Admiral rolls up his sleeves, folding each cuff neatly over his forearms once, twice. “I’ll see you onshore.” He slides open the bridge door and glances back at me. “Try not to kill yourself. I’d like to see you on the other ship.”

  He doesn’t close the door behind him. I listen to his footsteps as he walks down the hallway to the stairwell, as he’s joined by the guards, as they take the steps down to the boats that will bear them safely away. Once I can no longer hear them, I look out through the window on the bridge. Bits of the metal teeth that once surrounded it remain, ready to shred anyone who tries to climb in or out, but most of the armor is gone. The mining buckets and mechanism are somewhere back on the river. We left a trail they could probably see from the new ship in the sky.

  We’re scarred, battered, bruised. Almost finished.

  * * *

  • • •

  A settler on the shore fires two rifle shots into the air. That’s the signal: The Admiral has arrived.

  Time for me to do my job. I leave the bridge and take the stairs to the mining deck. I run my hand along the rail, note the rivets in the floor. I swear I hear the echo of my crew’s voices down among the machinery. Their joy at finding gold. For a few days, we were a real crew. I swallow.

  The door to the mining deck is open. The voices in my mind grow louder, and I shake my head to clear them, frustrated at my own imagination.

  And then. I’m standing inside the doorway, next to the main control panel, staring up.

  At faces. People handcuffed to the rails of the platform on the mining deck.

  Lily. Brig.

  And three drifters.

  No one else was supposed to be on the ship.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask.

  “What do you think?” Lily snaps. “The Admiral left us like this. He said you killed Porter.” Her voice is beyond hate, beyond contempt. “And now you’re going to do the same to us.”

  Of course. So this is why the Admiral left the gun for me upstairs. Why he said those words: You’ll see. The test wasn’t only to discover whether or not I could finish my ship and survive the wreck. He also wants to see if I can kill my friends and the drifters. Face-to-face. I have to perform these tasks before he’ll let me aboard that beautiful golden ship.

  I am so sick of his games. Of his using me.

  These men. Who play a game of glory and gold and don’t care who it ruins as long as they can take, take, take. Who see other people as their right, their pawns.

  If they see them at all.

  When that ship soared across the sky, and I looked at the horizon near the river, I knew what I had to do. Nothing is going to stop me.

  Nothing.

  And no one.

  “Porter jumped,” I say.

  Lily laughs. “You expect me to believe that?”

  “Where are the keys to the handcuffs?” I ask.

  Brig answers, his eyes gentle and his voice steady. “The Admiral took them with him.”

  Of course he did. I stride over to one of the cabinets on the wall. Please, let the settlers have left some of the equipment behind.

  They did.

  I yank out one of the toolboxes and remove some of the smaller, intricate tools. A tiny screwdriver, a scalpel-like blade with a narrowed end. “Pull as far away from the rail as you can,” I say to Lily and the others. “We have to hurry. The Admiral will know something’s wrong if I don’t get the ship moving soon.”

  I pick the lock on Lily’s cuffs, then Brig’s. Lily steps away, as if she can’t bear to be near me. Brig stands right at my side, his shoulders squared.

  “Me next,” says one of the drifters. “Then I can strangle you.” He flexes his fingers.

  “She’s helping us,” says Brig.

  “I have to start the motor,” I say. “I’m supposed to run the ship aground. They’re waiting.” The next drifter is free. Two more left. I’m leaving the one who threatened me for last.

  “They’ll kill us as soon as we get to shore,” says Lily. “You didn’t buy us much time.”

  “You’re not coming with me,” I say. Another drifter, free. I crouch down near the last one, avoiding his eyes.

  “What do you mean?” Lily’s face goes pale. Does she really think I’d shoot her? After all this?

  “I have a plan,” I say. “But first, go and get the gliders. Some of them are in the storage room up by the mining bridge.”

  Lily’s on the move almost before I’ve finished the sentence. “Come on,” she says over her shoulder to the other drifters. They follow her out.

  Brig stays behind.

  “Where’s Eira?” I ask.

  “She’s with the settlers,” Brig says. “She wants to go on the flying ship.” His smile fades but doesn’t vanish altogether. “Why wouldn’t she? It’s a whole new world to map. And see.”

  “It changes everything,” I say.

  Brig nods and leans against the wall near us, his back up against the signal marks. I wish he’d put his hands on me. The thought is a surprise. But it’s been so long since anyone has touched me the way Call did. Two years. Two years without anything real.

  I hear. The quiet of being with Brig. Quiet like Call.

  I imagine. Brig’s lips on my neck.

  I don’t need someone to hold me. I need someone to meet me, the way Call did, to match need with need, strength with strength. I think Brig could do it.

  I still don’t know how to love someone else.

  But I’m remembering how to want.

  Feet pound on the metal stairs. Lily and the others race inside. My heart lifts at the sight of the gliders on their shoulders. Lily carries two.

  “There’s more upstairs,” she says. “But we can’t decide if we trust you enough to come with us.” There’s a warning in her voice, a firmness.

  “Don’t worry,” I say. “I’m not coming with you.”

  “Poe,” Brig says.

  “I still don’t see how it’s going to work.” A note of doubt wars with the hope in Lily’s voice.

  “You’ll jump from the deck of the ship. At the front.”

  “They’ll shoot us down.”

  “Not if you go right when I run it aground,” I say. “They’ll be watching the back because that’s the end they want me to crash into the eastern bank of the river. That’s why you can’t go through the tailings stacker. You’ll fall right into their hands.” I pause. “But I think someone else is waiting for you.”

  “What are you talking about?” Lily’s expression is wary.

  “I saw some of your boats,” I say.

  That was the moment of my rebirth. I saw the golden ship in the sky, and it dazzled me, and it dazzled the Admiral. For a moment we had eyes for nothing else, but then I noticed something, earth- and-water-bound instead of sky. Boats, tiny, at the very edge of the shore in the distance, far below that beautiful bright ship.

  People do come back for the ones they love.

  “They were upriver, along the western shore. I think the rest of the drifters came back for you. I think they realized something was wrong.”

  “Are you sure?” one asks.

  “No,” I say. It could have been a trick of the light, a way of the sun glinting off the water, rocks along the shore instead of boats. It could be many things. But I know what it looked like to me.

  “They’ll kill you if you let us go,” Lily says.

  “I know,” I say. “Go up to the deck. Stay low. When you feel us starting to run aground, jump.”

  Lily’s face softens as she looks at me and it’s so unexpected that my heart hitches. Does it mean she doesn’t hate me? Even after everything?

  “Everyone thought I was dead for sure, once,” Lily says. “But I wasn’t.” For a moment, her voice sounds far away. Then she squares her shoulders. “You might make it,” she tells me, shoving a glider at Brig.

  He doesn’t take it from her. “I’m not going,” he says. “I’m going to run the ship to shore. Poe can go.” There’s a look in his eyes and a turn of his lips that I haven’t seen before; not a snarl but a declaration, a holding ground.

  But I will not move. “No,” I say. “I won’t.”

  “Why not?” His voice is wild with frustration, and time is ticking, running away with every second. How long before the Admiral sends a boat back to the dredge to see what’s happened? To find out why I haven’t killed the people down on the mining deck and started the motor?

  “Someone has to bring the ship to shore so the rest of you can get away,” I say. “This is mine to finish.”

  “It’s not your fault Call died,” Brig says. “It was the Admiral’s fault for taking him and the drifters’ fault for shooting him. And Naomi killed Tam. Not you.”

  “I killed all those drifters with my armor,” I say. “I can save a few others today.”

  His hand, on my shoulder, gentle and firm. His jaw clenched and his voice tight. I can feel the warmth of his fingers through my shirt.

  “Brig,” I say. “Go.”

  “You don’t have to try to be the hero.” His voice is rough and low.

  “I’m not trying,” I say. “I am.”

  CHAPTER 46

  TIME TO BREAK MY SHIP FOR GOOD.

  The motor hums. I grip the helm, sparing one backward glance at the safe with the gun locked inside.

  Brig thinks I’m better than I am.

  The Admiral thinks I’m worse.

  Call saw me.

  That’s something to have had, at least once.

  My life hasn’t been nothing. It’s been everything to me.

  Are the drifters ready, up on the deck? Is Brig standing next to Lily? Will anyone come to save them when they jump?

  I let the throttle go.

  What if I was wrong about the boats? I’ve been wrong so many times before.

  But I want to believe it’s true. I want to believe that people come back for one another.

  Almost there. I hold the helm steady. “I’m sorry, Lily,” I whisper to the ship. The motor turns and deep inside I hear a scrape, a long, keening groan.

  As the dredge and earth tear into each other, as the world ends, I close my eyes.

  What would it be like to have someone come back for you?

  Call couldn’t. It’s not his fault he never did.

  And.

  It’s not my fault he never did.

  CHAPTER 47

  I SIT UP. My unburned hand dangles awkwardly, but I don’t think it’s broken, only twisted and bruised, because my fingers work. It’s my head that hurts, on the temple and at the back of my skull.

  I’m alive.

  The ship groans and settles. There are shouts outside the bridge, and the sound of the tailings stacker running. The settlers are already on board, sending out the gold.

  The Admiral stands in the doorway of the bridge.

  His face is sunburned and sun-browned, his hat pushed back on his head. He doesn’t look so tidy anymore. His tie is askew, his vest has a streak of dirt on it.

  “I did it,” I say. “I ran the ship ashore. Just like you asked.”

  Blood trickles down into my eye. I wonder how badly I’m cut.

  “The raiders are gone,” he says. “Where?”

  I want to laugh.

  The Admiral, sending me on this voyage, telling me to kill Porter, leaving the gun here on the bridge. He thinks I have to pass his tests to prove myself.