I don’t bother explaining in Cantonese. Instead, I carefully haul my frozen limbs over the edge of the boat, sinking into the space he just occupied. It feels as nice as stepping into a bath, and the chilly bits of me are drawn even closer to his solid warmth. He covers us with the canvas, trapping the heat.

I try to hold on to some of my righteous indignation, but every part of me has begun to feel gooey, like butter melting across toast. “Look, Bo. We may not see eye to eye, but if you care for Jamie, you must want what’s best for him. He’s changed. Maybe you can’t see it because you didn’t know him before. But he used to be lighter, more carefree. Now he walks like he’s caught in a thicket.”

“What is ‘thicket’?”

I don’t know the Cantonese word. “A tangle of bushes. Like what rabbits live in.”

“Oh. Maybe thicket is just life.”

“Yeah, a miserable life full of muck, and thorns—”

Voices and footsteps sound from somewhere close by, cutting off my speech. We both fall still.

“Twenty-two knots at least,” says a man in the hearty voice of one accustomed to talking over the roar of the ocean. “Mr. Ismay’s breathing down Captain Smith’s collar from dawn till dusk to up the pace.” The leggy chairman steps into my mind. “Wants to take the Blue Riband from Cunard, those oily frigates. If we’re the fastest, we’ll get the Royal Mail contract. Then it’ll be raining silver. You’ll be able to get your girl a shiny stone for her finger.”

Closer they come, their boots falling as loudly as the pound of hammers in a forge.

“Shucks,” wheezes his companion. “She already said no.”

“That’s ’cause you’re poor as piss,” says the hearty man. “But our luck might be changing soon. Hold.” His boots stop right beside our lifeboat. Bo has gone corpse-like beside me, but my heart bangs as loud as a drum beating to quarters. “Looks like a couple of”—does he see us?—“eyelets came unhooked.”

My heart flattens against my rib cage, like a trapped mouse. Any second, they’ll discover us hiding and figure us for stowaways, which is half-true. Images of me walking the plank or being keel-hauled across barnacles—the way Jamie said they punish sailors—bubble up in my mind. I’d be cut to ribbons, seasoning the ocean with blood and gore and brains—well, obviously lots of brains. Then we’d never get to perform for Mr. Stewart. At least Jamie would be sorry for making things so hard on me.

My breathing comes too shallow and fast, and I can’t stop my limbs from trembling.