Page 107 of Tiger's Voyage

I slept for a long, long time. Kishan was gone when I awoke. The hot water of the shower hurt as it hit my bumped and bruised skin. I briefly wondered why I wasn’t healing as fast here as I did in the other realms. I suspected that powering up that star drained me so completely that it was difficult for my body to catch up. I made a mental note to ask Mr. Kadam about it later.

Starving, I entered the wheelhouse, and a kind Nilima made me breakfast even though it was way past dinnertime. I sipped apple juice and carried my plate to the desk where everyone was working. The boys looked well-rested, but Mr. Kadam didn’t.

I had the Golden Fruit make Mr. Kadam a cup of his favorite orange blossom tea before I sat in a chair to eat my cream-cheese-and-strawberry-stuffed french toast. He winked at me gratefully and sipped from the cup before stretching out his bent back.

I accused, “You’ve been working all night, er, day, haven’t you?”

Mr. Kadam nodded and picked up his tea.

“When did you last eat?”

He shrugged, so I asked the Golden Fruit to make a hot blueberry scone with butter and honey to go with his tea. He smiled appreciatively and took a seat next to me. Ren and Kishan moved closer to the chart they’d been staring at, bumped heads, and growled at each other. I smiled and turned to Mr. Kadam.

“So what have you discovered? We’re moving again, aren’t we?”

“Yes.”

“How is that possible? Are we moving under our own power?”

“The satellite and some of our other instruments are still not functional but the engine has come back on, though that doesn’t help us much if we don’t know where we are. That’s where this comes in.”

He reached over and handed me a small book from the table. I flipped through the pages and saw columns of Chinese writing. “What’s this?”

“It’s, for lack of a better term, a dragon almanac.”

“Where did you get it?”

“I found it in a hidden compartment under the sextant. I’ve been translating it.”

Kishan moved to the wheel and made some adjustments.

“We now know the latitude and longitude of the next dragon. This very unusual sextant allows me to plot our course. All I have to do is look through the eyepiece and find the star of the next dragon. Our next scaly friend is the blue one. Once the star is in view, the sextant whirs and clicks, almost like a compass. It shifts and gives a longitude and latitude. It also tells how many hours it will take us to arrive, depending on our speed.”

“Then what do you use the almanac for?”

“The almanac tells where to find the star.”

“I see. So when do you expect to arrive at the blue dragon’s lair?”

“At our present speed and if the weather holds … around 8:00 a.m.”

Mr. Kadam picked up a notebook and a pen, and we spent an hour talking about the red dragon and its diamond palace. He’d already gleaned the details from Kishan and Ren but he wanted my version too. He asked me dozens of questions, including an awkward one about the golden light I’d used to rekindle the star. I hesitated and said, “Didn’t Ren tell you?”

“He only told me about pulling the star close using the trident and the Scarf. He said it was up to you to tell me the rest.”

“Oh.”

I bit my bottom lip and turned to see Ren had raised his head. He looked at me with an unfathomable expression, and then bent over the chart again, but I could tell he was still listening to the conversation. Kishan finished whatever he was doing at the wheel, sneaked his arm behind my shoulders, and kissed me on the top of my head.

I cleared my throat. “I, umm … must have hit a deep lava tube or something. I don’t know why the golden light came. Maybe it’s from being in this realm,” I lied.

Mr. Kadam nodded and scribbled some notes on a pad. Kishan squeezed my shoulders and began massaging them. I risked sneaking a peek at Ren, but he had quietly disappeared. I sighed guiltily. I wasn’t sure why I felt the need to keep what happened between Ren and me a secret. I knew it would likely hurt Kishan, but that’s not why I didn’t share. I just couldn’t. The experience was very …intimatebetween the two of us, and it seemed wrong to talk about it.

Kishan, Mr. Kadam, and I spent several hours together in the wheelhouse while a tired Nilima napped. They showed me all they’d discovered while I was sleeping. Mr. Kadam began to teach me the fundamentals of the boat’s instruments, but I could tell he was exhausted. Kishan noticed my look of concern and told Mr. Kadam he’d take over and finish instructing me. After some denial and protesting, we finally convinced him to go take a long nap. We told him we’d wake him if something went wrong.

Kishan spent the next few hours patiently teaching me how the ship worked. He didn’t have as much experience as Mr. Kadam or Nilima, but he seemed to have learned quickly. To pass the time, we played a couple of games of Parcheesi and shared another meal. While he played captain, I wrote in my journal and read for a while.

During a break, I joined Kishan at the helm. He seemed quiet as he stood watching the water. I bumped him with my hip. “Penny for your thoughts.”