1
“WE TALK ABOUT YOU.” CALL TELLS ME HE SEES A STAR and that makes me
“I know,” I say to the Admiral. He tells me this as we laugh. sit up in a room in the scrap yard’s wooden office building, “I do.” His voice is serious, his mouth against my ear. waiting for the rest of his advisers to arrive. The Admiral’s I tip my head up. He’s right. It hangs low on the horizon. Quorum—a group of four, three men and one woman—advise “That makes six,” I say. and assist him with running the Outpost. I’ve heard snatches “Seven,” he says. “That was a star we saw the first night of what the Quorum says behind my back, the stories they tell. on the river.” Some good, some bad. Some true, some false. “It wasn’t.” We’ve been arguing about this for weeks, ever They say I live in the Admiral’s pocket. since we left the Outpost behind and boarded the dredge to That I’m actually afraid of the rivers.
go upriver. They whisper about how I was a machinist when I first He he starts again. wentlaughs on the softly dredgebefore two years ago, kissing and thenme came home with on the deck, it’sand easier tofor hear past the sounds made by aUp weaponist’s mind thirst blood. our hungry metal ship. But it’s while still impossible to completely Two days after Call died, our crew was making the ignore constant and grate of the as it moves longthe trek back tothrob the Outpost, I had mydredge first “revelation.” along the what river the in search ofcalls gold,it.taking rocks and stones, That’s Admiral He tellsinthe Quorum, “God tells her something in herupsleep, and then draws theand degrinding them out. It tears the rivers and she leaves refuse for it when she wakes siltsigns behind, ruins valleys, addsup.” a smear of smoke to the sky.
9780141352947_TheLastVoyageOfPoeBlythe_TXT.indd 1
22/01/19 2:54 PM