"Where are we supposed to stay?" Weevil asked.
"I don't know. I don't understand everything they talk about. Most of it makes little sense. I only knew I walked away from them with that warning: Stay anywhere else."
"I can't stay elsewhere," Della said, as if the conversation had been about her. "My father will come for me on the island. He'll look for me in the old prison."
That wasn't possible. Surely she knew that. I bit my lip, and now I did feel the smallest hint of compassion for her. Shaking my head, I said, "When I was in the physician's examination room, your father came in, trying to persuade the governor to let you go."
"You're lying," Della said. "The governor doesn't sit in for Scourge tests, especially not for a grub! My father never would've gone in there!"
My fists clenched, but I took another breath and said, "Why would I lie about this? He did come in, and he tried to get you back, but the governor refused him and threatened to bring in the rest of your family for testing if he didn't leave. He had no choice, Della--he had to let you go. But he asked me to tell you that he loves you."
Loves. Not loved. I couldn't say it to her exactly as her father had done.
Della scoo
ted back in the boat until she sat directly beside Marjorie, facing me. Tears had welled in her eyes again, but her expression was so full of fury, I knew the tears were a sign of her rage, more than of her pain.
To Marjorie, she said, "A friend of mine was sent to the Colony three weeks ago. He was a worker in town about my age, named Jonas Orden. Did you happen to overhear anything about him? Anyone who mentioned his name?"
"I'm sorry." Marjorie shook her head. "Perhaps he will be there to greet you when you arrive."
Della's spine stiffened. "Yes, and then when my father comes, he will take us both back home again, and he will find a way to cure me."
Weevil and I looked at each other. Della, friends with a worker? I couldn't understand that.
She leaned toward me now with a frosty glare, adding, "And then you will pay for your lies!" That Della, I understood.
"Move back," Weevil said more forcefully. "Della, move back to where you were, away from Ani. If you don't, my oar might slip out of my hand and accidentally spank you out of this boat. I'm very clumsy, and my accidental spanks are really quite hard."
Della's glare went from him to me and even to Marjorie before she returned to the front of the boat, where she refused to turn around again for the rest of the journey.
I should have been angry with her. She had caused me nothing but trouble, and even worse trouble was no doubt on the way. And yet, as I searched myself for the proper word for the emotion I felt, it wasn't anger. If anything, it was pity.
For the first time in my life, I truly felt sorry for a pinchworm.
No, not a pinchworm. I felt sorry for Della.
The old prison loomed even greater as we neared Attic Island. The battlements that had once surrounded it were mostly rubble now. Yet the prison itself seemed no less foreboding for their loss. The thick stone walls had been gray once, but time had blackened them. Any trees that might've been there before were long ago chopped down, perhaps to prevent their use as weapons by invading armies. What invading armies? I thought. No one had ever stepped foot on this island who wasn't forced to be here. The prison looked more like the ancient fortress it once was than a place to hold criminals. We were neither invaders nor criminals, but it was home now.
The rope to which our boats were attached ended at a wood post, while a fair depth of water still remained below us. I had only barely dried out from my last swim, and I certainly didn't feel up to another one, but there was nothing else to do. Weevil and I splashed into the water first, then helped Marjorie get safely to shore. She whispered her thanks and promised to repay the service somehow.
Della had gone directly to land. And though I hadn't cared about getting there first, once I arrived on land too, I realized I might've made a mistake. Because Della was at the end of a conversation with the warden waiting for us on the shore, who was glaring at me as if I'd done something wrong. I already didn't like him--oily black hair stuck out from beneath his hat. If I were the governor of Keldan, I'd have sent him here too, as far away as possible.
As I approached, the warden asked Della, "Is this the girl who pushed you out of the boat?"
The sneer on her face was so triumphant I wanted to slap it off. But it was obvious I was in enough trouble already. Slapping wouldn't be the best way to prove I didn't start fights. "She wouldn't let us lift a Scourge victim into the boat," I said.
"Any Scourge victim who can't get into the boat would probably be better off just drowning," he replied.
Thus the reason for the boats departing and leaving in deep water, I guessed. To get rid of the weakest people first. I already hated this place.
"My flask of medicine was lost," Della added. "If it had been a mistake, I wouldn't be complaining now, but this grub meant to do it."
The warden frowned at me. "Is this true?"
The problem was that yes, technically it was true. Even if Della had deserved what happened, that didn't excuse the fact that I had absolutely intended for her to fall into the water. I hadn't wanted her to lose her medicine, though. No more than I wanted to lose mine. I grabbed hold of my flask, hoping the punishment for what I'd done wasn't being forced to give it to her.
So I nodded, but added, "Would it matter if I tell you that she is a genuinely horrible person? Literally, the worst person I've ever met?" That might've been an exaggeration, but not a big one, and I figured it might help my argument.