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.
Chapter Twelve
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. Not because 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 dutywhen you're not even a soldier."
"I am a barking soldier!" she growled.
"You're a girl dressed up like one." Alek saw that the words 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 turned to look up at her. "Did you just . . . shove me?"
"Aye." Her eyes were wild. "Say that again."
Alek got to his feet. "Say what again?"
"That I'm not a real soldier."
"Very well. You aren't a real - oof!"
Alek staggered backward, the breath driven from his lungs. His back thumped against a cabin door - she'd punched him in the stomach. Hard.
He clenched his fists, anger coursing through his blood. In a flash he saw an opening, how her fists were held too low, how she favored her injured foot . . .
But before he could swing, he realized that he couldn't hit back. Not because she was a girl, but because she wanted so much to fight. Anything to make herself feel like a real boy.
Alek straightened himself. "Are you proposing that we settle the matter with a fistfight?"
"I'm proposing that you say I'm a real soldier."
He saw a glimmer in the darkness, and his lips curled into a thin smile. "Is that how real soldiers cry?"
Deryn swore extravagantly, her thumb squashing the single tear on her left cheek, her fists still clenched. "That's not crying; that's just - "
Her voice choked off as the door behind Alek opened. He stumbled a moment, then turned and took a hasty step back. A sleepy-looking Dr. Busk stood in the doorway, wearing his nightgown and an annoyed expression.
His eyes darted back and forth between them. "What's going on here, Sharp?"
Her fists dropped. "Nothing, sir. We thought we heard one of the Russians wandering about. But it might be that a sniffer's got loose."
The boffin glanced up and down the empty hallway. "A sniffer, eh? Well, whatever it is, keep it quiet, boy."
"Our apologies, sir," Alek said, giving the man a small bow.
Dr. Busk returned the bow. "Not at all, Your Highness. Good night."
The door closed, and Alek met Deryn's eyes for a moment. The naked fear in them sent a pang through him. She had expected him to tell the boffin everything. Was that what she thought of him?
Alek turned and walked toward his stateroom again.
Her quiet footsteps followed, as if she'd been invited along. He sighed, the rush of anger fading into the dull throb where she'd punched his stomach. There was nothing else to do but have this out with her.
When Alek reached his stateroom door, he pulled it open, extending his hand. "Ladies first."
"Get stuffed," she said, but went in ahead of him.
He followed, shut the door softly, and sat down at his desk. Out the window the snowy ground glowed in patches, moonlit islands in a black sea. Deryn stood in the center of the room, shifting her weight, as if still ready for a fight. Neither of them whistled for the glowworms to light up, and Alek realized that they'd left the loris behind in the middies' mess.
For a moment he brooded on the fact that a mere beast had figured Deryn out before him.
"That wasn't a bad punch," he finally said.
"For a girl, you mean?"
"For anyone." It had hurt rather a lot; it still did. He turned to face her. "I shouldn't have said that. You are a real soldier - quite a good one, in fact. But you aren't much of a friend."
"How can you say that?" Another tear gleamed on her cheek.
"I told you everything," Alek said in a slow, careful voice. "All my secrets."
"Aye, and I've kept them all too."
He ignored her, making a list on his fingers. "You were the first member of this crew to know who my father was. You're the only one who knows about my letter from the pope. You know everything about me." He turned away. "But you couldn't tell me about this? You're my best friend - in some ways my only friend - and you don't trust me."
"Alek, it's not that."
"So you lie simply to amuse yourself? 'Sorry, Dr. Busk, it might be that a sniffer's got loose.'" Alek shook his head. "It's as natural to you as breathing, isn't it?"
"You think I'm here for my amusement?" Deryn stepped closer to the window, her fists clenching again. "That's a bit odd. Because when you thought I was a boy, you said it was barking brave for me to serve on this ship."
Alek looked away, remembering the night Deryn had told him about her father's accident. She'd wondered if it was madness for her to serve on a ship full of hydrogen, as if she secretly wanted to die like him.
Perhaps it was both brave and mad. She was a girl, after all.
"All right. You're an airman because your father was." Alek sighed. "That is, if he really was your father."
She glared at him. "Of course he was, you ninny. My brother's crewmates knew Jaspert had a sister, so we made up another branch of the family. There's no more to it than that."
"I suppose all your lies have a certain logic to them." As he thought it through, Alek felt his anger building again. "So in my case you thought I'd be a stuffy, arrogant prince who'd turn you in!"
"Don't be daft."
"I saw your face when Dr. Busk caught us in the corridor. You thought you were done for. You don't trust me!"
"You're being a Dummkopf," she said. "I only thought he might have heard us arguing. We'd said enough for him to figure it out."
Alek wondered what Dr. Busk had heard, and found himself hoping it hadn't been too much.
Deryn pulled out the chair and sat down across from him. "I know you'll keep my secret, Alek."
"As you have kept mine," he said coldly.
"Always."
"Then, why didn't you tell me?"
She took a long, slow breath, then spread her hands on the desk, staring at them while she talked. "I almost told you when you first came aboard, when you thought I might get in trouble for hiding you. They'd never hang a girl, you see?"
Alek nodded, though he doubted that was true. Treason was treason.
That thought made him shake his head - this girl had committed treason for him. She'd fought by his side, taught him how to swear properly in English, and how to throw a knife. She'd saved his life, and all while lying to him about what she was.
"When we were in Istanbul," Deryn went on, "and I thought we'd never get back aboard the Leviathan, I tried a dozen times to tell you. And just a week ago in the rookery, after Newkirk mentioned my uncle, I almost told you then, too. But I didn't want to . . . to ruin everything between us."
"Ruin everything? What do you mean?"
She shook her head. "It's nothing."
"It's obviously not nothing."
She swallowed, pulling her hands back from the surface of the desk, almost as if his sharp tone had frightened her. But nothing scared Dylan Sharp, nothing but fire.
"Tell me, Deryn." The name tasted strange in his mouth.
"I thought you couldn't stand to know."
"You mean you thought I was too delicate? You thought my fragile pride would crumble, just because some girl can tie better knots than me?"
"No! Volger may have thought that, but not me."
Alek squeezed his eyes shut, fresh anger rising in him. Tossing and turning that afternoon, wondering if the loris's hints were true, he'd forgotten about Deryn's falling-out with Volger. But it was all so obvious now. . . .
"Why didn't he tell me?"
"He didn't want to upset you."
"That's another lie!" Alek stood up. "I see it all now. This is why you helped us escape - why you've kept my secrets. Not because you're my friend. But because Volger was blackmailing you all along!"
"No, Alek. I did all that because I'm your friend and ally!"
Alek shook his head. "But how can I know that? All you've done is lie to me."
For a long moment Deryn didn't answer, staring at him across the desk. Fresh tears rolled steadily down her cheeks, but she seemed frozen in place.
Alek began to pace about the stateroom. "That's why Volger never told me, so that he could hold it over you. Everything you've done was to protect yourself!"
"Alek, you're being daft," she said softly. "Volger might have tried to blackmail me, but I was your friend long before he knew."
"How can I believe you?"
"Volger wasn't with us in Istanbul, was he? Do you think I jumped ship and joined your barking revolution for him?"
Alek clenched his fists, still pacing the room. "I don't know."
"I didn't go to Istanbul because of Volger, or because of any mission. I was never meant to reach the city, just The Straits. You know that, right?"
Alek shook his head, trying to order his thoughts. "Your men were caught, and you were cut off from the Leviathan. So you had no choice but to join me."
"No, you daft prince! That's just what I told the officers. There were a hundred British ships at harbor in Istanbul. I could've taken one into the Mediterranean anytime I wanted. But Volger said you were in danger, that you'd stay in the city and fight instead of hiding. And I couldn't let you do that all alone. Ihad to save you!" Her voice broke on the last word, and she steadied herself with a ragged breath. "You're my best friend, Alek, and I couldn't lose you. I'd do anything not to lose you. . . ."