Goliath

She swallowed, pulling her hands back from the surface of the desk, almost as if his sharp tone had frightened her. But nothing scared Dylan Sharp, nothing but fire.

“Tell me, Deryn.” The name tasted strange in his mouth.

“I thought you couldn’t stand to know.”

“You mean you thought I was too delicate? You thought my fragile pride would crumble, just because some girl can tie better knots than me?”

“No! Volger may have thought that, but not me.”

Alek squeezed his eyes shut, fresh anger rising in him. Tossing and turning that afternoon, wondering if the loris’s hints were true, he’d forgotten about Deryn’s falling-out with Volger. But it was all so obvious now. . . .

“Why didn’t he tell me?”

“He didn’t want to upset you.”

“That’s another lie!” Alek stood up. “I see it all now. This is why you helped us escape—why you’ve kept my secrets. Not because you’re my friend. But because Volger was blackmailing you all along!”

“No, Alek. I did all that because I’m your friend and ally!”

Alek shook his head. “But how can I know that? All you’ve done is lie to me.”

For a long moment Deryn didn’t answer, staring at him across the desk. Fresh tears rolled steadily down her cheeks, but she seemed frozen in place.

Alek began to pace about the stateroom. “That’s why Volger never told me, so that he could hold it over you. Everything you’ve done was to protect yourself!”

“Alek, you’re being daft,” she said softly. “Volger might have tried to blackmail me, but I was your friend long before he knew.”

“How can I believe you?”

“Volger wasn’t with us in Istanbul, was he? Do you think I jumped ship and joined your barking revolution for him?”

Alek clenched his fists, still pacing the room. “I don’t know.”

“I didn’t go to Istanbul because of Volger, or because of any mission. I was never meant to reach the city, just The Straits. You know that, right?”

Alek shook his head, trying to order his thoughts. “Your men were caught, and you were cut off from the Leviathan. So you had no choice but to join me.”

“No, you daft prince! That’s just what I told the officers. There were a hundred British ships at harbor in Istanbul. I could’ve taken one into the Mediterranean anytime I wanted. But Volger said you were in danger, that you’d stay in the city and fight instead of hiding. And I couldn’t let you do that all alone. Ihad to save you!” Her voice broke on the last word, and she steadied herself with a ragged breath. “You’re my best friend, Alek, and I couldn’t lose you. I’d do anything not to lose you. . . .”

He stared at her, frozen midstride. Her voice sounded so different now, like another person’s altogether. He wondered if she’d been putting on a voice before, or whether he somehow heard her words differently, now that he knew she was a girl.

“What do you mean, lose me? I’d already run away.”

She swore, then stood and walked to the door. “That’s all you need to know, you daft prince, that I’m your friend. I have to go collect the beastie, before it starts looking for us. It might wake somebody up.”

She left without another word.

Alek watched the door close. Why was it so important that she’d joined him in Istanbul? She’d taken the fight to the enemy, helped the revolution, and saved the Leviathan in the process. That was simply the kind of soldier she was.

But then it came back to him, that first moment when he’d seen her in the hotel in Istanbul. The way Deryn had looked at Lilit with such suspicion. Even jealousy.

And then, without a perspicacious loris whispering the truth into his ear, he finally understood. She hadn’t come to Istanbul as a soldier at all. And she never would have revealed her secret to Alek, for the simplest reason in the world.

Deryn Sharp was in love with him.

The crooked fingers of inlets stretched from the sea into the city of Vladivostok, slicing it into winding peninsulas toothed with piers. Hills rose up from the water’s edge, crisscrossed by avenues where mammothines trudged, bearing cargo from the ships scattered across the harbor.

As the Leviathan’s shadow rippled along the rooftops, traffic slowed, with people looking up and pointing. Clearly they had never seen an airship so huge. The airfield looked paltry to Alek, barely half a kilometer across.

“We’re in the middle of nowhere,” he said. “Exiled.”

“Vladivostok,” Bovril answered from the windowsill, and Alek wondered where the beast had heard the city’s name.

Bovril rubbed its paw against the window glass, which was always fogging up here in the officers’ baths. The plumbing was integrated into the airbeast’s circulatory system, the air as warm and moist as a steam bath in Istanbul, an unpleasant reminder that the ship was a living thing. But at least the room was empty during the day. The officers were on duty, the crewmen not allowed to enter.

“A SHOWER TO CLEAR THE HEAD.”

Since finding out Deryn’s secret, Alek had steered clear of her and Newkirk. The rest of the crew had little time for him, so he’d taken to wandering the ship alone. It had been an education, seeing places where the middies’ duties rarely took them—the ship’s electrikal engines, the darkest reaches of the gut. But after two days of skimpy rations, Alek no longer had the energy to explore. Loneliness and hunger were natural allies, together carving an emptiness inside him.

“Middle of nowhere,” said the perspicacious loris.

Alek frowned. The beast had sounded almost sad.

“Do you miss her?” he asked.

Bovril was silent for a moment, staring down at the airship’s shadow slipping across the ground. Finally it said, “Exiled.”

Alek couldn’t argue. He was truly on the outside now, hiding from the crew, his own men, and especially Deryn. He had only Bovril for company.

But a fabricated beast was better than nothing, he supposed. And its company was much simpler than trying to untangle Deryn’s feelings for him. She of all people knew that he could never love a commoner.

The Leviathan was coming about, turning its nose into the wind, slowly descending. The tiny figures on the airfield resolved into view. Half a dozen cargo bears waited with supplies, and two mammothine-drawn omnibuses stood ready to carry the Russians away. A lone Siberian tigeresque stood sentinel, its fangs as long and curved as scimitars.

Alek dimly recalled that the fangs of a tigeresque came from the life threads of some extinct creature. But surely no dinosaur had been armed with such teeth. Were they from some ancient great cat? For the hundredth time while wandering the ship alone, Alek wished that Deryn were here to provide the answer.

The door opened behind him, and he turned, half expecting to find her there, ready to deliver a biology lesson. But it was Count Volger.

“I am sorry to disturb you, Your Highness, but I need you.”

Alek turned back to the window. The man had betrayed him far worse than Deryn had. She, at least, had her reasons to lie.

“I have nothing to say to you.”

“I doubt that very much, but we haven’t time in any case. We must deal with Mr. Tesla before we land.”

“Deal with him?” Alek shook his head. “What do you mean?”

“He’s dangerous. Have you forgotten our discussion?”