Chapter 30: The Summons

Mei was awake before he was, in the gray hour before dawn on the last day of the fourth month, and she saw the light. The lamp on its pole had burned low and blue. Fish was asleep in the cabin doorway, sitting up against the frame with his knees drawn up and his hands in his lap and his head tipped back, which she had never once seen in forty-four days. He didn't sleep. He sat in the bow and watched the water. But he was asleep now, with his mouth a little open and his blue-black hair fallen over his face, and he looked younger asleep, and tired, and she lay on her bedroll and watched him so as not to wake him. She had not slept. She had come back down the steps at the second watch and said nothing, and Fish had looked at her face…