Volur was looking at Liz, slightly confused. For the past two hours, he had been diligently working the paddles, trying to get them as far from Frey as he could, and now seemed like the best time to ask.
"What happened there?" he said in his raspy, tired voice. Then he gave himself a much-needed break, releasing the paddles and signaling for her to start talking.
"How am I supposed to know?" Liz answered, visibly annoyed. She felt like she was being implicated in crimes she hadn't committed. She turned away, noticing the burning city shrinking into the distance, like a smoldering cigarette.
"If you didn't do it and I didn't do it— hmm… Come to think of it, what was it? Yes, I think it was last year. All sorts of people were saying they saw some supernatural things, like some people were bending metal with their minds, or they were flying like birds. All this time, I thought they were just drunk idiots who were just talking nonsense, but now it all makes sense." Volur was rambling to himself, and then for the rest of the voyage, he didn't say a word.
Meanwhile, Liz couldn't stop seeing images of her mother being killed and eaten by those things. It gave her a headache. She tried thinking about anything else, but she was stuck in a repeating pattern of gruesome thoughts.
Not far ahead, they saw a shoreline crowded with all the ships and boats from the city. People were unloading their belongings, and it looked like some strangers were directing them.
"It seems everyone else is there. Should we join them?" Liz asked, unsure if it was a good idea. But Volur murmured agreeably and gave her a thumbs up. She didn't feel reassured by that response, but what else could they do? It wasn't like she was going to live with him now. He had only promised to bring her to safety. He's probably thinking, Finally, I can get rid of her. He'll leave me too, just like they all do.
Volur docked his small boat and began examining what was useful among the things he had hastily packed. Liz disembarked, then quickly realized she didn't know what to do next. She studied what everyone else was doing and noticed that the people from the city were being assisted by relatively small groups of strangers, around fifty or so total. They all looked different from one another. It seemed that they came from different parts of the world. Some were tall, others short, some pale, some not, with a whole palette of hair colors. Their clothes looked like they were made of materials she had never seen before, and the designs were so new compared to what she was used to seeing.
It didn't take long before one of them approached with a clipboard in his hands.
"Hello, my name is Polo. Can I get your name and your father's name, origin, and age?" he asked politely but emotionlessly, as if he had done this so many times he'd forgotten he was speaking to real people.
"He is not my father," Liz frowned. But it didn't seem to bother Polo at all. He just looked at her for a second and then tapped on his clipboard with his pen.
"I don't know you. Why should I tell you anything?" Liz was not ready to give up her anonymity just yet; she wanted to gather more information. At the end of the day, this was exactly why they had stopped here.
"You are a piece of work, aren't you? Okay, let me explain. We are here to help evacuate the city of Frey because, as you know, it was under attack. All of us are from the city called Zayah, or The Last Hope, and that's where we're hoping to take you all. Anything else, young lady?" Polo was surprised by how much he'd explained without giving them information they weren't ready for yet.
Liz looked back at Volur to see if he had anything to say, but he looked like he wasn't even listening.
"How do we know that you're not working with those monsters?" She thought she had asked a tough question that would catch him by surprise, but instead, he just smiled.
"Well, for one thing, we're all humans. And why would we bother asking questions and trying to trick you when we could just kill you all if we were with those monsters? Is that it? There are way too many people who need our help, and I'd much rather finish this fast and help them instead." Polo smiled slightly and made his face as kind and reassuring as he could.
"My name is Elizabeth, I'm eleven years old, and what else did you ask? Oh, I'm from the city of Frey," she answered, though she began to think she should have given him a fake name.
"Okay, one last question: has anything weird happened to you? Do you feel like something has changed with your body?" Polo asked as he wrote down her previous answers.
"N-N-No—" Liz stuttered, her voice betraying her. Even Volur, who tried to keep his composure, seemed nervous, though he kept pretending to look for something among his belongings. Liz had nothing else to do, so she just stared Polo straight in the eyes and smiled like a child trying to charm someone into buying them something.
"Are you sure?" Like a shark smelling blood in the water, he stared her down. But then, all of a sudden, he just let it go.
"And this gentleman?" Polo asked, annoyed that it had already taken so much time. He didn't want to speak with someone who clearly didn't want anything to do with him, but it had to be done.
Polo approached the man and asked him the same questions as before. Volur wasn't bothered by Polo or his questions. He simply ignored him and continued sorting through his belongings. But Polo was determined to finish his job properly. He walked up to Volur and tapped him on the shoulder.
"Excuse me," he said, but Volur only shrugged him off like an annoying bug trying to bite you on a hot summer day.