The robin glances suspiciously at me and then walks away, leaving me scrubbing.
“What was that?” I ask Jik.
Jik shrugs.
“Magonians can’t go to ground to bring up wheat. They need us to pull the ships, to net their harvest, and to be their help shipboard. I am a part of the Annapenny as much as the rigging and the sail are. And I’m as easily replaced.”
“That can’t be true,” I argue. “You just said you were born aboard.”
She nods. “Yes, and I’ve done every job on this ship—from knotting nets to braiding hair.” She pauses. “Captain’s Daughter, I don’t know if you know this, but you don’t inspire confidence. You’re pretty unskilled.”
She smirks and looks pointedly at a streak of grime I’ve been unable to buff out of the figurehead.
I laugh. It comes out a giant, sarcastic bark. “I don’t know how to do anything . . . except talk. I’m not great, am I?”
“Perhaps.” Jik regards me a moment. “But you’re not the worst.” She nods to where Dai is striding back into view. Then she flies up to the top of the batsail, grabs a rope, and tugs it until the bat’s wing is straightened out.
“What’s this new mission?” I ask Dai when he’s at my side, keeping my voice low.
“We’re hunting,” says Dai casually.
“Something alive?”
“It’s classified. Ordinary skymen don’t have that information,” he says smugly.
Superior show-off. I’d give him an ostentatious eye roll if it wouldn’t turn into a thing. I’ve already had to endure about a million too many of Dai’s lectures on proper protocol and duty.
He observes the streak of dirt Jik pointed out moments ago. With a “tsk” he takes the brush from my hand and swings like some kind of acrobat out onto the figurehead. Securing himself in place with his feet, he makes quick work of the grime while rattling on about technique. A tuck and a backflip, and he’s returned to the deck again. His movement is so fast and sure, I have small struggles about my gaping jaw. No, thou shalt not gape.
I distract myself from his gymnastics routine by scrubbing the figurehead until its every tiny painted pore is clean. All the while, I try to put things here in perspective by thinking of them in terms of my old life.
This boy, Dai, he’s nothing to me. He’s essentially one of the kids from school, tramping down the hallway, not super interesting.
But um, except not really at all. And I can feel Magonia sidling up around the edges of my brain.
I should be grateful, it says. I’m walking around. I can breathe. I’m not the dead girl I was always going to be.
I’m something else. Something important. What? No clue.
It’s different here. Aza, YOU are different here. Better?
But no.
Even if I’m in this place for the rest of my life. Even if I never see my family and Jason again, I can’t forget them. I won’t. Because, what if I forget myself along with them? Who will I be then?
I scrub until my fingers bleed blue, and as I scrub, I chant.
“Jason, Eli, Greta, and Henry. Jason Eli Greta Henry. Jasoneligretahenry. And Aza.”
When I look up, Zal’s standing above me, a disappointed look on her face.
She kneels, and extends her hand to help me back on deck.
“I started out at the lowest rank on this ship and made my way up to captain, faster than anyone imagined,” she tells me. “These were the years when everything went wrong. Magonian ships couldn’t harvest enough to sustain even our own sailors. Our squallwhales sickened. Our people began to know hunger.
“Our problems are worse now than they were before. The world is overtaken with drowner poisons. Magonians suffer and die. We’re at their mercy.
“You’ll soon understand, Aza, what it means to be in charge of the future of your people. Some of us are born to crew ships, and some are born to captain them. This ship was my salvation, as it will be yours. And as you will be to your people.”
Zal puts her hand on my back, and it feels strangely good. Is it because she’s my mother? Or is it because of her power aboard the ship? Is it because part of me likes being in favor, being special?
“Amina Pennarum sails for treasure, Aza,” Zal whispers. “You’ll be the one who raises it from the deep.”
“Treasure?” I ask. “What do you mean?”
“Learn to sing for us,” she says. “And you’ll see. You must see.”
My brain whirrs. Is there actually still treasure in the world? The notion is exciting. I think about curses and pirates. Skeletons guarding booby-trapped hideaways.
I think about the bird I keep hearing—the one who, every night, sings along with my emotions, my pain—the one Wedda called a ghost.
I mean, obviously it’s not really a ghost? But what do I know about Magonia? There could easily be ghosts all over this sky. I wouldn’t know about it. I’m a stranger here.
Zal takes the ship’s wheel, her charts open to some highly cartographed territory. I can see monsters drawn in the margins.
Below us, for a moment, I see a flash of earth, but then a squallwhale comes between us and the ground, stirring the air until there is only cloud, and we’re only a thing hidden inside it.
Jason (stop it, Aza, just stop thinking about him, just stop) would love it here. He’d be prowling around with his hands out, asking question after question after question. And people would answer him, because he never met an expert who wouldn’t tell him anything he wanted to know.