“I’m glad you’re safe,” Frypan had uttered several times. “I was worried sick.” Such a kindness from a man she’d barely known until the boat voyage.

“Tell us what happened,” Miyoko said, finishing off a chunk of hard cheese. Each of them had been given a sack of dried meat, cheese, and bread.

Dominic pestered her with an annoying ritual of saying one or two words between bites of food. “Who did . . . you . . . talk to?” Then, “What . . . did they . . . say?”

Jackie had mostly been ignoring them, stuffing herself with the nourishment. She’d thought she had found strength in volunteering to be the representative, but now the food tripled it. Despite her own doubts and weakness from before, she felt strong enough to take on the world. And that chance might be coming, though Minho had given no details.

“Jackie,” Miyoko intoned with annoyance. “What the hell happened out there? If you take one more bite I swear on Old Man Frypan I will punch you in the face.”

“I will, too,” the man added with a chuckle. “But it won’t hurt much.”

“Okay, okay,” Jackie replied. Most of her food was gone, anyway. “They took me to a room and I sat at a table with the guy named Minho. The one who climbed out of the river and smacked the lady . . . um, Letti . . . in the head. Somehow he’s involved with these people that captured us, but he seems to be rebelling for all I can tell. He said he and a couple others are going to—”

An abrupt and terrifying thought closed her throat. What if they were listening? They probably were listening.

“Jackie?” Dominic touched her shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

She tried to recover. “I didn’t really understand much of what he said. Mostly he wanted to ask me questions, about you guys, about where we’re from, stuff like that.” She widened her eyes in a look of warning, then tapped her ear. She wanted to scream at herself. Idiot, you should’ve kept your mouth shut.

Someone rapped on the door, a quick series of metallic knocks that made her heart ball up into a fist. Like clockwork, she thought. I said too much and now they’re here to take me away, throw me out of a flying machine.

But when the door opened, Minho stuck his face in. He gave her a quick and reassuring nod that filled her with so much relief she almost fainted from the rush.

“Jackie,” he said. “It’s a go, soon. Have everyone hold on to something. Tight.”

He didn’t wait for a response. He closed the door and was gone.

He hadn’t taken his eyes off the key since Orange had passed it over with a handshake. Some part of him worried the sliver of cut metal would magically disappear if he glanced away.

“When are we supposed to unlock ourselves?” Trish asked. “What’s supposed to happen?”