I slip a respirator over my nose, dive under his belly, and check for any abnormalities, making sure that his keratin plates are fusing properly as he grows and ensuring that he hasn’t run afoul of anything that might hurt him. I make a mental checklist of everything I notice, imagining that when I turn around and swim back, I’ll be pulling myself up onto the meridian between the observation bays and logging all of my data in a logbook. But it’s always the keel of the Minnow that greets me when I leave Bao’s side, and I always haul myself up onto the trainer deck, disappointment gnawing at my stomach.

But it might just be hunger, since I don’t get to eat in the morning until Swift comes. She’s almost always late. On the one hand, I want to accuse her of doing it purposefully, but she always looks so disheveled when she forces her way through the hatch and slumps in the door frame, waiting for me to get my act together. I think she just always sleeps in.

I’d buy her an alarm clock, but I don’t exactly have the means.

I start to get more privileges as the days wear on, and finally Santa Elena presents me with a key to the trainer deck that was formerly Hina’s. “You’ve learned the ship well enough that I think it’s time you get some say in your protection,” she says when she presses the little sliver of metal into my hands. “But just remember—if you get yourself killed, my girl goes too.”

I want to tell her that Swift’s well-being has no bearing on the risks I take, but I know the captain can smell lies.

It’s not that I care about Swift; she’s one of my captors, one of the people who makes my life a living hell on a daily basis. But I slept next to her for a month and learned all of her little quirks, and when you know a person to that level of detail, you can’t get them killed.