Chapter 27

By the time we had gone two rounds of tea, night had become dawn, and was getting itself ready for the day. Eade had returned to the hammock and was pointedly ignoring us.

Goat approached, started to say something and then frowned, turning and listening to some hidden conversation. I waited with polite interest, mostly feigned, for him to get back to us.

In the middle of his fugue, Goat wandered off muttering, “Left, right, left, left, right. Wait, was that right, left, left, right? Who’s right? My left? Where did you go?”

“We should get him some help,” I said.

“With what?” Drakeforth asked.

“Working that out should be the first thing we get him some help with,” I agreed, and put my empty cup down with a pang of disappointment.

“The murrai are taking us to Semita,” Eade announced, driv­ing home how seriously she was ignoring us.

“How can you tell?” I asked.

“The angle of the sun—”

I felt an irritated moment of being impressed. Navigating by the sun was the kind of amazing skill Eade would have.

“—shines through the holes in this bug-bucket of a vessel, and illuminates the screen on my mobile phone. Which is equipped with a navigation app,” Eade continued.

“Annoying, isn’t she?” Drakeforth’s grin showed all his teeth.

“No, she’s fine. Really.”

“Good idea, getting the murrai on a leash,” Drakeforth said.

“Thanks.”

“It’s that kind of lateral thinking that indicates a clear sense of direction.”

“It just came to me; one of those ideas that might be just crazy enough to work.”

“And yet, not crazy enough to make your friends and family concerned for your mental health.”

“Speaking of concerns for my mental health, I saw her again.”

Drakeforth nodded, still smiling and giving no indication he had heard a word I said.

“It seems like the sort of thing I should mention, to a friend. Casually, I mean. Something like, ‘I appear to be having the oddest hallucinations’.”

“Quite right,” Drakeforth replied, and patted me on the should­er before pushing past and heading to the front of the ship.

“Great. Thanks!” I called after him. “That was really not helpful at all…” I added quietly. The woman with black hair nodded with an expression of genuine sympathy.