"What do you mean, they won't start?" said the captain.

Rav would have felt sorry for the crew member on the receiving end of that statement if it had been anyone but Indra. The mechanic, though, kept the same cool expression he always did.

"They're mended," he said. "The coal hasn't been tampered with, and the system runs smoothly when I turn it by hand. But neither engine will start."

The captain uttered a phrase Rav hoped would bump him over a phylogenetic category in his next life. He would make a great sea cucumber.

"Curse this ship," hissed the man under his breath.

Rav's eyes widened. It was the first time he had ever heard the captain vilify Dreamcatcher. Normally he loved the ship—almost unreasonably so.

Manish finished rummaging in a galley drawer and edged out through the curtain like he didn't want to get involved. He had pocketed a fresh roll of sail-mending thread. Sanjay had discovered a huge slash in the brand new rudder this morning, and they didn't have the canvas to replace the damaged panels. Rav had seen the tear. In his most secret of thoughts, he didn't think even a knife could have done such damage.

"Keep trying," said the captain. "Cabin boy, go help him. It'll be useful for you to see how the engines work."

For when you work for me.

Rav swallowed hard and tried not to let his feelings pinch his face. He nodded. Indra's look had gone from neutral to sour at the order, but he said nothing until they were back by the engine room. Then he opened the door and swore loudly. Black smoke billowed out. Indra threw his shirt over his nose and mouth and plunged inside. There was a bang of metal on metal and the screech of a protesting valve. Rav ran down the hallway to open the hatch to the deck. The engine-room door slammed behind him.

"Someone open the damned exhaust pipe!" roared Indra to the ship at large, his back to the door. Smoke leaked from its cracks around him.

Sanjay's footsteps ran across the deck overhead. There was another creak, and a whoosh from the engine room. Rav could picture the black billow of smoke ejected from Dreamcatcher's tail end as the backed-up system exhaled. Indra wiped his sooty face with a black-stained sleeve. Rav heard him mutter something about the island.

Was the ship's first mate superstitious?

Maybe this was why he'd been in such a bad mood lately.

Indra pulled the piece of wire from his pocket and threw it at Rav. "Go feed your dragon. I need to fix this."

I don't want you in the engine room, was the real meaning Rav sensed there, but already his heart was pounding. Was he being told to go into the captain's cabin alone? Did Indra trust that he wouldn't release the dragon? Or did he no longer care?

"Are you deaf, boy?"

Rav startled like a rabbit. He had been staring at the wire in his hands. Face hot, he jogged down the hallway. Another realization heightened the feeling of stupidity: the hallway was straight. Indra could still see him from its other end.

There was another slam as the engine-room door closed again.

Rav stood rooted outside the captain's cabin. He was alone. Nobody was watching him, and he was just steps from the hatch to the deck—and from there, steps to the railing. Sanjay and Manish were up there, but he could hide the dragonette in his shirt... would she even let him go? He'd get caught disobeying orders if she didn't.

With shaking hands, Rav bent the wire, fed it through the crack in the door and knocked the latch inside free. The dragonette was as he had left her. Fear made a snake's coil of Rav's insides. Her breathing had slowed considerably since he had last been here. Her water dish at least was empty, but she still had not touched food. Rav refilled the dish, splattering water across the dragonette's tail as his hands refused to steady.

"Careful there," said a voice behind him.

The water went everywhere. The captain reached past him and moved a tidy stack of notebooks away from the new puddle. Rav fumbled with the hem of his shirt, mopping up the water before it reached them. The captain, meanwhile, flicked back the latches on the porthole up the wall and pulled it open to air out the lingering smell of coal smoke. Then he peered into the cage. His bushy brows knitted together in a contemplative frown.

"You can't get it to eat?"

Rav shook his head.

The man grunted. "It won't be worth as much taxidermied. Keep trying. If it dies, store it in the bathroom. I want the skin to rot as little as possible." He attempted to set a rolled-up paper on top of the notebooks, but it just rolled off. He stood it upright in a corner.

"When are we leaving?" ventured Rav. He added quickly, "Captain."

Before the man could answer, the engines uttered the creak and groan of a possessed locomotive. They coughed to life. Indra let them run for half a minute before pulling the brake. He stuck his head out the engine-room door. "We're running again, Cap'n."

"Perfect," said the captain. He shouted through the deck, "Sanjay?"

There were footsteps above, and Manish crouched with a hand on the open hatch. "Nearly mended. We'll be ready to sail by nightfall."

Nightfall?

The captain tugged his impressive moustache, frowning. "How are we for food? I'd rather not sail by night."

"Only two days."

"We leave in the morning, then. One of you keep watch."

Manish nodded and returned to the deck to pass on the news.

Rav wasn't sure his lungs would keep supplying enough breath to keep him upright. Tingles of fear had occupied his limbs like a nest of spiders, and he could barely feel his hands. Tomorrow morning. Even if the dragonette survived the night, she would not survive the journey to the biological station who-knew-how-far away. He had to release her. She had to go back to the island.

He was barely aware of the captain talking to him. He was to help prepare the ship so they would be ready to sail the moment dawn pushed above the horizon. Manish took him on deck, where they calibrated the mended rudder, checked the ship's gas pressure, and inspected the lines and envelope for damage. Rav followed orders in a daze. When they returned to the gondola, he could barely stomach supper. He retired to his room and hammock, and pulled the covers over his head.

He had to do something. Now they were leaving in less than twelve hours, and the dragonette was wasting away in a cage he had not been able to keep her from. All because she had come to find him. All because of him.

The captain would be asleep in his cabin tonight, the door locked, chained, and bolted. For such an adventurer, he was as paranoid about his room's security as any rich war veteran could be—and even if Rav got inside, the man himself would be there. Did he dare sneak out right now, before the rest of the crew went to bed?

The captain ordered that you never go in there alone. What makes you think I'd let you disobey a direct order?

If he got caught...

His spinning thoughts were broken by the passage of footsteps outside.

Too late.

Rav sank back in his hammock as all the tension he hadn't realized he was holding drained away. He wasn't going to get her out tonight. She would not see the island again. Now all he had to do was keep her alive until they reached the biological station, where he could tip off the scientists and they could face the captain. Somehow. He would free the dragonette somehow.

Footsteps returned. Rav startled violently as a fist pounded his door. He tumbled from his hammock and tripped himself to open the door. The captain stood in the hallway outside. He set the dragonette's cage in Rav's hands.

"Remember what I said," he said. "Bathroom. And make sure the skin doesn't rot."