“Grab this!” he yelled. “It’s too dangerous to be in there!”

“No!” Rio shouted. “I’m staying.”

He turned his back to the boat. Now he was face-to-face with White Beak.

“Hello, White Beak,” he murmured.

Out of pure instinct, he cradled her nose with his arms, resting his face against hers so their eyes were level. Beneath his fingertips, he could sense her life ebbing away breath by breath.

“Don’t die!” he whispered. “Please don’t die!”

There was no distance between them now. Under his cheek, he could feel the soft patch of skin where no barnacles had settled, smell the oily brine of her breath, and hear the faintest rumble of her heart. Rio’s own heart slowed, in rhythm with hers, so part of him was no longer a boy, but had become a whale.

“I’ve been so afraid,” he said softly. “About Mum, about life, about everything. But then I found you. And you’ve been keeping me safe, haven’t you? You’ve been watching over me all this time. Now it’s my turn to keep you safe.”

He held her tight.

“I know I can’t make Mum better,” he said. “I think I knew all along, but I had to try. I had to do something. You understand that, don’t you? You understand I couldn’t just do nothing?”

White Beak didn’t move. Yet somehow, deep inside, Rio was certain she was listening.

“White Beak? I know you can hear me. Just like I can hear you. I don’t know how I can, but it’s the greatest gift anyone could have given me,” Rio murmured, tightening his grip around her nose. “I might not be able to make Mum better, but I can do something about you. Not just you but all the gray whales. Some battles aren’t yours to fight. But there are other battles . . . there are other battles that we can all try to do something about.”

He pulled his cheek back from her skin and swallowed the lump in his throat.

“You’re the most amazing animal that’s ever lived,” he said. “I’m just so sorry we haven’t looked after you better. But I promise we’re going to do everything we can to save you.”

“What’s happening?”

He hadn’t noticed Marina leaning over the side of the boat, looking pale and anxious, her face wet either with the sea or something else. “Is she dead?”

Rio shook his head and then fixed his attention back on the whale. He cupped her face affectionately—as much as he could cup it. “I love you,” he whispered. “Just like my mum loved you. I loved you even before I met you, and I’ll keep on loving you. And it’s not just me who loves you. It’s all of us . . . So please . . . please don’t leave us. Not now.”

For a long while, nothing moved, not even the clouds in the sky.

But then White Beak’s eyelids fluttered and moved, and her eye slowly opened the tiniest of cracks and Rio could sense something passing, like electricity between them. Something profound and tremulous. As if she had been bolted back into life.