Icebreaker by Lian Tanner Page A

hidey-holes in Grease Alley than in Dufftown and Braid put together. I reckon we’re safe down here till after Orca’s funeral.”
    â€œWhen is that?”
    â€œTomorrow morning. We’ll move then.” And Petrel yawned again, made herself as comfortable as she could on the lumpy floor, and closed her eyes.
    The sounds of the ship soothed her, as always. The slow rumble of the engines. The gurgle of the ballast pipes. The creaking and groaning of the iron hull as it plowed the ocean.
    Don’t spose Fin can help being annoying , thought Petrel. He’s a bit like that orphaned penguin chick Krill caught last summer. All it did for the first week was snap at folk and squawk its head off. But Krill didn’t give up on it, and after a while it followed him around as if he was its mam.
    She opened her eyes and said kindly, “Don’t worry, Fin, I’ll look after you.”
    â€œThat is not my na—”
    â€œIt was me who saved you, right back at the beginning. That means I’ve got a responsibility for you. You were gunna die on that berg. If it weren’t for me, you’d be lost.”
    â€œAlbie rescued me,” said Fin, “not you.”
    â€œBut I’m the one who told Albie you were there.”
    The boy didn’t believe her; Petrel could see it in his face. “You should be grateful to me,” she said, annoyed with him all over again. “And grateful for the name too, seeing as how you forgot yours!”
    But that, it seemed, was the wrong thing to say. Fin’s expression darkened, and he turned away from her and refused to utter another word.

 
    CHAPTER 11
    FEVER
    The boy did not think he would sleep. Not with bits of rusty iron jabbing at his back, and the whole ship hunting him. But he closed his eyes anyway, and when he opened them again an unknown amount of time had passed, and he ached all over, as if he had been beaten. His head was so heavy and thick and sore he could hardly lift it.
    He wondered if the imp had cursed him. Or perhaps Petrel had poisoned him. Such a possibility should have filled him with alarm, but for some reason he could not muster the energy to worry about it.
    Petrel was still asleep, curled up against the wall with her mouth open. She is a fool, thought the boy.
    But then, unwillingly, he found himself thinking about her dark hair bent over his arm, and the care she had taken with his stitches. Someone else had taken care of him like that once. Someone whose face he could not quite remember …
    He shoved the thought back into the locked recesses of his mind, where it belonged, and told himself that of course Petrel had taken care. After all, she was the one who had cut him in the first place.
    On the pile of broken machinery, something moved. The boy stiffened. It was the imp, the one with the green ribbon! The one he had tried to kill!
    A dreadful coldness crept over him. He tried to think, which was not easy with his head so sore and jumbled. He gripped the spanner.
    But the imp was still making its way across the machinery when the dreadful coldness turned to a dreadful heat. The boy blinked, and blinked again. That is odd, he thought. The creature is dancing.
    It ought not have been funny, because the Circle of Devouts did not approve of dancing. But it was funny. Hoppity hop, went the imp. Hoppity hop. The boy wanted to wake Petrel and tell her about it, but when he tried to raise his hand it would not obey him.
    That brought him to his senses, for a moment at least. There is something wrong with me, he thought. The creature is not dancing, it is coming to kill me. And I cannot lift a finger to fight it.
    The imp, however, merely inspected him. It began at his toes and examined him inch by inch, all the while muttering to itself as if it were taking notes.
    What if it can read my mind? thought the boy, and he tried desperately and unsuccessfully not to think about the sailing ship that had brought