Goliath by Scott Westerfeld Page B

awfully small. How did that device detect it?”
    “Watch this.” She pulled out her compass and set it close to the sliver of metal, which set the needle shivering. “It’s magnetized iron!”
    Bovril crawled down from Alek’s shoulder, getting close enough for a sniff.
    “Magnetized,” the beastie said.
    “I don’t understand,” Alek said. “What has magnetism to do with an explosion?”
    “I reckon that’s one for the boffins to ponder.”
    “I’ll ask Klopp as well. We have to know if Tesla’s telling the truth before he gets off this ship.”
    Deryn frowned. “Why’s that, exactly?”
    Alek drummed his fingers on the table a moment, then shook his head. “I can’t tell you.”
    Deryn’s nerves twitched a bit. There was something odd about the way Alek was looking at her, not just exhaustion and nerves. He’d been tense all night, but now there was something stormy in his eyes.
    “What do you mean you can’t tell me?” she asked. “What’s wrong, Alek?”
    “I need to ask you a simple question,” he said slowly. “Will you listen to every word? And answer me truthfully?”
    She nodded. “Just ask.”
    “All right, then.” He took a slow breath. “Can I trust you, Deryn? Really trust you?”
    “Aye. Of course you can.”
    Alek breathed out a sigh as he stood up. He turned without another word and walked from the room.
    Deryn frowned. What in blazes was he . . . ?
    “Can I trust you, Deryn?” repeated Bovril, then it sprawled across the table, chuckling to itself.
    Something coiled, tight and hard, in her chest. Alek had called her
Deryn
.
    He knew.

 
    She was a girl. Her name was Deryn Sharp, and she was a girl disguised as a boy.
    Alek walked toward his stateroom with steady, determined steps, but the floor was shifting beneath his feet. The soft green wormlight of the corridors looked all wrong, as sickly as when he’d first come aboard the
Leviathan
.
    He raised a hand to guide himself, his fingers sliding along the wall like a blind man’s. The fabricated wood trembled against them, the whole ghastly airship pulsing with life. He was trapped inside an abomination.
    His best friend had been lying to him since the moment they’d met.
    “Alek!” came a frantic whisper from behind.
    Part of him was pleased that Deryn had followed. Notbecause he wanted to talk to her, but so he could walk away again.
    He kept walking.
    “Alek!” she repeated, breaking into a full-voiced cry, loud enough to wake the sleeping men around them. Alek had almost reached the officers’ cabins. Let the girl keep yelling where
they
could hear.
    She’d lied to all of them, hadn’t she? Her captain, her officers and shipmates. She’d sworn a solemn oath of duty to King George, all lies.
    Her hand grabbed his shoulder. “You daft prince!
Stop!
”
    Alek spun about, and they glared at each other in silence. It stung him to finally see her sharp, fine features for what they really were. To see how completely he’d been fooled.
    “You lied to me,” he whispered at last.
    “Well, that’s pretty barking obvious. Anything else obvious to say?”
    Alek’s eyes widened. This . . .
girl
had the nerve to be impertinent?
    “All your talk of duty, when you’re not even a soldier.”
    “I
am
a barking soldier!” she growled.
    “You’re a girl dressed up like one.” Alek saw that thewords cut deep, and he turned away again, shards of satisfaction mixing with his anger.
    Until this moment he hadn’t believed it. The newspaper article, her lies to the crew about her father, even the whispered words of the perspicacious loris hadn’t convinced him. But then Deryn had answered to her real name without blinking.
    “Say that again,” she spat from behind him.
    Alek kept walking. He didn’t want to have this absurd discussion. He wanted only to go inside his stateroom and lock the door.
    But suddenly he was stumbling forward. His feet tangled, and he landed on his hands and knees, staring at the floor.
    He