“Where do you want go then? Oxan won’t let you stay and the Saviour Island has complicated rules…you have to become dedicated… I thought this suggestion would make you happy. You could learn to become a healer-maid like Lealy… We’ll do something for your mother too. If she gets the Saviour Ship tattoo, no one would dare to hurt her,” he says and immediately regrets having said that. He doesn’t know why he has become so soft to invite these women to the Saviour Ship. They are just two strangers with a weird past that know nothing about the Saviour. He can teach them all about the Saviour Rules and Narratives, but this is not the right thing to do. If they were to take in everyone that came to them, the whole Island would sink in the water from the overload of population. But these two are different; they really don’t have anywhere to go. Is it not one of the Saviour Rules that says ‘shelter the forlorn’? Dalia and her mother were exiled by their own people for no good reason. Her father is gone; they have no one to turn to. But he hopes that Dalia doesn’t take his word seriously or refuse him; otherwise, this will bring him too much responsibility. It would be very difficult to convince the Circle to let them join the Ship. Although, he knows in his heart that he can’t easily let go of Dalia, she seems more hesitant to speak now. She pauses and then without raising her head, she mumbles: “I heard Mart talking… Mart and his friend!” Tirad puts her fingers under her chin and raises her head so he can see her face more clearly. It has become completely dark and the boatman has not yet turned on the lights. Tirad looks at her, waiting for further explanation and she gives him the same stare as she did the whole time on the boat.

“I don’t think you would ever go back to the Saviour Ship again! I heard them talking about their plan,” she says. Tirad doesn’t know if this is part of her lying, storyteller self or she is really giving him a warning.

“I know you don’t believe me… Ever since we got on the boat, I wanted to tell you…but I didn’t know how to say it? That night when you were fighting, I thought you wouldn’t even get to Oxan!” she says with a bold voice. And now, Tirad understands the source of her constant staring. Dalia is worried about him. And how can a person be worried about someone if he or she doesn’t care about that person? He asks Dalia to clarify her words.

“I was in the cabin with my mother, before we sailed. You hadn’t boarded yet. I heard two voices talking behind the cabin door. One of them was Mart and the other an older voice. He told Mart to be careful and be sure that Tirad doesn’t come out alive after the incident… I don’t know what incident! But he persisted that you shouldn’t live…because it would jeopardise their plan,” Dalia explains. Tirad shakes his head furiously.