Goliath

“You’re a girl dressed up like one.” Alek saw that the words cut deep, and he turned away again, shards of satisfaction mixing with his anger.

Until this moment he hadn’t believed it. The newspaper article, her lies to the crew about her father, even the whispered words of the perspicacious loris hadn’t convinced him. But then Deryn had answered to her real name without blinking.

“Say that again,” she spat from behind him.

Alek kept walking. He didn’t want to have this absurd discussion. He wanted only to go inside his stateroom and lock the door.

But suddenly he was stumbling forward. His feet tangled, and he landed on his hands and knees, staring at the floor.

He turned to look up at her. “Did you just . . . shove me?”

“Aye.” Her eyes were wild. “Say that again.”

Alek got to his feet. “Say what again?”

“That I’m not a real soldier.”

“Very well. You aren’t a real—oof!”

Alek staggered backward, the breath driven from his lungs. His back thumped against a cabin door—she’d punched him in the stomach. Hard.

He clenched his fists, anger coursing through his blood. In a flash he saw an opening, how her fists were held too low, how she favored her injured foot . . .

But before he could swing, he realized that he couldn’t hit back. Not because she was a girl, but because she wanted so much to fight. Anything to make herself feel like a real boy.

Alek straightened himself. “Are you proposing that we settle the matter with a fistfight?”

“I’m proposing that you say I’m a real soldier.”

He saw a glimmer in the darkness, and his lips curled into a thin smile. “Is that how real soldiers cry?”

Deryn swore extravagantly, her thumb squashing the single tear on her left cheek, her fists still clenched. “That’s not crying; that’s just—”

Her voice choked off as the door behind Alek opened. He stumbled a moment, then turned and took a hasty step back. A sleepy-looking Dr. Busk stood in the doorway, wearing his nightgown and an annoyed expression.

His eyes darted back and forth between them. “What’s going on here, Sharp?”

Her fists dropped. “Nothing, sir. We thought we heard one of the Russians wandering about. But it might be that a sniffer’s got loose.”

The boffin glanced up and down the empty hallway. “A sniffer, eh? Well, whatever it is, keep it quiet, boy.”

“Our apologies, sir,” Alek said, giving the man a small bow.

Dr. Busk returned the bow. “Not at all, Your Highness. Good night.”

The door closed, and Alek met Deryn’s eyes for a moment. The naked fear in them sent a pang through him. She had expected him to tell the boffin everything. Was that what she thought of him?

Alek turned and walked toward his stateroom again.

Her quiet footsteps followed, as if she’d been invited along. He sighed, the rush of anger fading into the dull throb where she’d punched his stomach. There was nothing else to do but have this out with her.

When Alek reached his stateroom door, he pulled it open, extending his hand. “Ladies first.”

“Get stuffed,” she said, but went in ahead of him.

He followed, shut the door softly, and sat down at his desk. Out the window the snowy ground glowed in patches, moonlit islands in a black sea. Deryn stood in the center of the room, shifting her weight, as if still ready for a fight. Neither of them whistled for the glowworms to light up, and Alek realized that they’d left the loris behind in the middies’ mess.

For a moment he brooded on the fact that a mere beast had figured Deryn out before him.

“That wasn’t a bad punch,” he finally said.

“For a girl, you mean?”

“For anyone.” It had hurt rather a lot; it still did. He turned to face her. “I shouldn’t have said that. You are a real soldier—quite a good one, in fact. But you aren’t much of a friend.”

“How can you say that?” Another tear gleamed on her cheek.

“I told you everything,” Alek said in a slow, careful voice. “All my secrets.”

“Aye, and I’ve kept them all too.”

He ignored her, making a list on his fingers. “You were the first member of this crew to know who my father was. You’re the only one who knows about my letter from the pope. You know everything about me.” He turned away. “But you couldn’t tell me about this? You’re my best friend—in some ways my only friend—and you don’t trust me.”

“Alek, it’s not that.”

“So you lie simply to amuse yourself? ‘Sorry, Dr. Busk, it might be that a sniffer’s got loose.’” Alek shook his head. “It’s as natural to you as breathing, isn’t it?”

“You think I’m here for my amusement?” Deryn stepped closer to the window, her fists clenching again. “That’s a bit odd. Because when you thought I was a boy, you said it was barking brave for me to serve on this ship.”

Alek looked away, remembering the night Deryn had told him about her father’s accident. She’d wondered if it was madness for her to serve on a ship full of hydrogen, as if she secretly wanted to die like him.

Perhaps it was both brave and mad. She was a girl, after all.

“All right. You’re an airman because your father was.” Alek sighed. “That is, if he really was your father.”

She glared at him. “Of course he was, you ninny. My brother’s crewmates knew Jaspert had a sister, so we made up another branch of the family. There’s no more to it than that.”

“I suppose all your lies have a certain logic to them.” As he thought it through, Alek felt his anger building again. “So in my case you thought I’d be a stuffy, arrogant prince who’d turn you in!”

“Don’t be daft.”

“I saw your face when Dr. Busk caught us in the corridor. You thought you were done for. You don’t trust me!”

“You’re being a Dummkopf,” she said. “I only thought he might have heard us arguing. We’d said enough for him to figure it out.”

Alek wondered what Dr. Busk had heard, and found himself hoping it hadn’t been too much.

Deryn pulled out the chair and sat down across from him. “I know you’ll keep my secret, Alek.”

“As you have kept mine,” he said coldly.

“Always.”

“Then, why didn’t you tell me?”

She took a long, slow breath, then spread her hands on the desk, staring at them while she talked. “I almost told you when you first came aboard, when you thought I might get in trouble for hiding you. They’d never hang a girl, you see?”

Alek nodded, though he doubted that was true. Treason was treason.

That thought made him shake his head—this girl had committed treason for him. She’d fought by his side, taught him how to swear properly in English, and how to throw a knife. She’d saved his life, and all while lying to him about what she was.

“When we were in Istanbul,” Deryn went on, “and I thought we’d never get back aboard the Leviathan, I tried a dozen times to tell you. And just a week ago in the rookery, after Newkirk mentioned my uncle, I almost told you then, too. But I didn’t want to . . . to ruin everything between us.”

“Ruin everything? What do you mean?”

She shook her head. “It’s nothing.”

“It’s obviously not nothing.”