“This is ridiculous,” she growled, her muscles shaking beneath my palms.

“Do you want me to let go?”

“If you do, I’ll cover you in jurda juice.”

I was eager to have something to do. The ship was too quiet, and I could feel the day’s nightmares waiting to crowd in on me.

Misha hadn’t budged from his spot curled into the hull. He was clutching the wooden practice sword that Mal had found for him. My throat tightened as I realized he’d brought it with him on the terrace when Baghra made him escort her to the nichevo’ya. I fished a piece of hardtack out of the provisions and took it to him.

“Hungry?” I asked.

He shook his head.

“Will you try to eat something anyway?”

Another head shake.

I sat beside him, unsure of what to say. I remembered sitting like this with Sergei in the tank room, searching for words of comfort and failing. Had he been scheming then, manipulating me? His fear had certainly seemed real.

But Misha didn’t just remind me of Sergei. He was every child whose parents went to war. He was every boy and girl at Keramzin. He was Baghra begging for her father’s attention. He was the Darkling learning loneliness at his mother’s knee. This was what Ravka did. It made orphans. It made misery. No land, no life, just a uniform and a gun. Nikolai had believed in something better.

I took a shaky breath. I had to find a way to shut down my mind. If I thought of Nikolai, I would fall apart. Or Baghra. Or the broken pieces of Sergei’s body. Or Stigg, left behind. Or even the Darkling, the look on his face as his mother had disappeared beneath the clouds. How could he be so cruel and still so human?

The night wore on as a sleeping Ravka passed beneath us. I counted stars. I watched over Adrik. I dozed. I moved among the crew, offering sips of water and tufts of dried jurda blossoms. When anyone asked about Nikolai or Baghra, I gave them the facts of the battle in the briefest possible terms.

I willed my mind to silence, tried to make it a blank field, white with snow, unmarred by tracks. Sometime around sunrise, I took my place at the railing and began shifting the light to camouflage the ship.

That was when Adrik muttered in his sleep.

Nadia’s head whipped around. The Bittern bobbled.

“Focus!” snapped Zoya.

But she was smiling. We all were, ready to cling to the barest scrap of hope.

* * *

WE FLEW THROUGH the rest of the day and long into the next night. It was dawn on the second morning when we finally glimpsed the Sikurzoi. At midday, we spotted the deep, jagged crater that marked the abandoned copper mine where Nikolai had suggested we stash the Bittern, a murky turquoise pool at its center.

The descent was slow and tricky, and as soon as the hulls scraped the crater floor, both Nadia and Zoya crumpled to the deck. They had pushed the limits of their power, and though their skin was flushed and glowing, they were completely exhausted.