Jamie squeezes my shoulder. “Valora, go with Charlotte.”
“But I—”
“She and her mum might need help getting to the lifeboats.” The phoenix glares at the dragon, a vein throbbing in his neck. “Don’t worry. I’m just going to fetch the others. We’ll figure out what’s what and meet you up on the Boat Deck.”
The dragon withdraws her talons. “Fine.”
Charlotte catches Jamie by the arm. “You’ll be okay, right?”
“O’ course. Strudel and I have a date for tomorrow, don’t we, girl?”
Strudel pants happily between them. I begin to turn away, but not before seeing Charlotte place a kiss on Jamie’s lips.
Jamie whispers to Charlotte, and she whispers back, something stubborn animating her features. A tense moment seems to freeze them.
At last, Charlotte nods. Then like the sun as it sets over a hungry sea, she slips from his grasp.
* * *
A crowd waits for the lifts, so the steward leads whoever is willing to walk up the stairs. But Mrs. Fine doesn’t want to walk. Dutifully, Charlotte waits with her, and I wait with Charlotte, though each moment that passes squeezes my accordion heart tighter and tighter.
“We paid good money for this trip,” a man in a silk robe complains to his wife. “Why should we do these drills?”
Another man bites down on a cigar, his chest puffed with importance. “They’ll sort it out. I heard it was an accident on the Orlop Deck. Probably some bloke was drinking on the job and blew out a boiler.”
Judging by the smirk on his face, he’s probably never seen a boiler before. A blown boiler would be catastrophic for the men working it—and for the ship.
I can’t help thinking of Drummer. What if something happened in Boiler Room 6? He could be injured, or worse. And here I am, waiting in this stuffy lobby with these nobs who can’t be bothered to climb the stairs to their own safety. Charlotte and her mother don’t need my help. Jamie only sent me here to keep me out of the way.
Charlotte squeezes my arm. “Once we get to America, I was thinking, maybe I can take in Wink and Olly through the Home for Little Souls. I want to help.”
“We’re joining the circus,” I say, though the words suddenly strike me as childish.
“Of course. I only meant, just in case.”
Just in case what?
I need to find out what’s going on. Jamie will kill me for going back for the others, but he somehow tricked me into going with Charlotte in the first place. Well, he can rant at me later.
I force a smile. “Help your mother. I’m sorry, but I must go check on something.”
“No, Valora, stay with us.”
“I’ll be okay.” And with that, I hurry back toward the Collar.
Back on the third-class side of E-Deck, a crowd has collected where the Collar crosses Scotland Road. Most are making their way up the staircase, lugging bags or sacks.
A feeling of dread untethers me, pulling me in different directions. I collect snippets of conversations, and though I don’t understand all the languages, I feel the worry in them as sure as I feel my heartbeat pounding in my head.
A woman with a red nose clutches a man in a dressing robe. “Did you hear that racket? It was like iron dragged over a thousand marbles. I knew we should’ve stayed in London.”
We didn’t hear a racket on B-Deck. Maybe they have a better idea of what happened down here. I strain to follow their conversation.
The man pats the woman’s arm. “Maybe it’s a shot propeller. Caught a whale or something.”
“Whales know enough to stay away from propellers. Mark my words, it’s ice.”
Ice.
The word slithers in my head and lies coiled, waiting to strike. Possible ice, the weather reports had said.
The lights flicker, and people shriek. The lights return, but no one trusts them now.
Several paces down Scotland Road, the door Drummer took me through to reach Boiler Room 6 opens. I hurry over. A man emerges, and then another, their clothes wet and beards matted.
“Sirs. Have you seen Drummer? He’s a fireman. Chinese, slim in build, plays a drum.”
Both bend and put their hands on their knees, panting and looking dazed. I’m about to repeat my question when a third man emerges, this one with hulking biceps. His chest heaves as he catches his breath. Water drips from his yellow hair into his squinting eyes. It’s Fireman Brandish, Drummer’s friend. I gasp at the sight of the whirling drum stuck in the waistband of his trousers.
“That’s—” I can’t manage to finish the sentence, as my own heart becomes a whirling drum, beating rapidly out of control.
“Aye.” He passes the drum to me. “Drummer fell when she hit, got his foot stuck. We tried, but the water in 6 was too high.”
The door closes with a heavy thud, like the sealing of a tomb.
Brandish wipes his face, which is wet with more than just seawater. “He was a good man, and I’m sorry. Plenty more souls will rise afore the night is done.” He strides away after his mates, becoming a dark blur in my vision.
The beads hang limply on either side of the whirling drum. Drummer’s laughing eyes dance before me, the liveliest notes on an instrument made to be played. I realize I never learned his real name.
Little Sister, there is much sorrow in your face.
35
April 15, 1912
A woman whose clogs punch the floor drags her suitcase over my foot, but I barely feel it. I sink against the wall of the too-quiet boiler casing, feeling lost and small. Drummer is below. It doesn’t seem right to leave him.
A steward passes out life belts to a group of men with dark beards speaking a language of rolling syllables. One presses his hands together. “Please. No English. Help understand.”
The steward flaps his arm toward the stern and snaps, “Decks! Go to your decks!” Then, having run out of life belts, he sets off in another direction.
“Stowaway!” says a voice only a few paces away.
Bo appears beside me, his face still handsome despite a new cut above his eyebrow and a bruise reddening his jaw, probably from his fight with Skeleton and the bottom cutters.
“He’s gone,” I gasp, showing Bo the whirling drum. “There was a flood.”
Then his strong arms are holding me, his chest a firm but comfortable spot to rest my head. I feel the rise and fall of his breath, and all the torn bits in me that still quietly inflict their damage stop hurting for a moment.