Grayson Briggs muttered something Kelia could not quite get the gist of. She thought to her schooling and deduced it sounded like Latin, or some form of it, but she could not figure out what was actually being said.

Ash sprayed everywhere. Whatever Grayson did caused Benji to disintegrate. A chill shot up Kelia’s spine so fast her old scars panged in response. If he had the ability to do that, what was to stop him from doing the same to Drew?

Oh, right. The Queen. He was trying to get in her favor, and she clearly wanted Drew alive.

Just the same, the fact that he had that capability made him more dangerous than Kelia realized. Death controlled by a simple spell? Did Wendy, Emma, and Daniella possess such a power?

Suddenly, Kelia became painfully aware just how little she knew about this world. The witches were ruled by the elements—or, at least, their magic was. Were Mages different? Were they controlled by something similar, or could they use their powers limitless?

Surely there had to be some limit?

Whatever the case was, it was clear this mage, at least, was using some kind of dark magic, and Kelia wasn’t keen on learning the extent of his abilities first hand. She and her friends needed to escape. Immediately.

Kelia’s body tingled, and she realized she could move again. She took her arm holding the blade and jabbed it backward so it hit Grayson's stomach. There was a grunt behind her, and Kelia pressed deeper. His arm locked around her throat, closing off her wind pipes from taking in oxygen.

But he couldn’t harm her. Not if he wanted to take her to the Queen, which he couldn’t do if she was dead. As bleak as her current predicament appeared, she still had plenty of power.

His warm blood spilled over and slid between her fingers as something trickled onto her shoulder. Grayson's grip on her loosened only slightly, but with it, she was able to turn her head . Blood spilled down from his mouth and onto her tunic.

Strangely, in all this time, no one had come to see what was going on in the room. Certainly they were making noise, unless Grayson had the room enchanted, preventing sound from coming out. It would make sense for a businessman to ensure no secrets slipped passed the doors to eavesdroppers who might hope to take his them to the highest bidder.

Drew leapt from behind Grayson and ripped him away from Kelia. The force was so strong and so quick, Kelia fell back, too. Her blade clattered to the floor. Drew did not so much as spare Kelia a look. His focus was solely on Grayson.

Emma stepped forward and knelt down beside her, and for the first time since Kelia had known her, there was fear in the witch’s dark eyes.

"Are you hurt?" Emma asked, an urgency to her low voice.

Kelia shook her head and picked herself up, though Emma insisted on helping her. With shaking hands, Kelia bent back down to pick up her bladet. She couldn’t seem to process what had occurred. This whole evening was becoming too much for her to handle, but it didn’t appear that a moment to sit with her thoughts and breathe was anywhere in her near future.

After resheathing her weapon, she glanced over at Daniella, who was still in possession of the fireball. Sweat built up on Daniella’s brow, and a worry line ran down the side of her face. Her fingers shook. It didn’t seem she’d be able to hold the flames very much longer.

Emma stepped next to Daniella and gently squeezed her shoulder. Slowly, so slowly, the flames withdrew. They grew smaller and smaller, until there was nothing more than a single flame that would fit perfectly on top of a candle. Emma leaned toward it and blew it out.

The room was pitch black, bringing with it an unnerving calm. They were alive, and it was quiet, but being unable to see anything made Kelia’s stomach churn. What was Drew doing? There was no sound of struggle, at least, but then, right now, there was no sound of anything.

Although Drew’s Shadow senses allowed him to see perfectly even in darkness, Kelia couldn’t help but feel he might be in need of assistance. If he wasn’t, he would be trying to assist her by now, whether she needed him to or not.

"Drew?” Emma said into the darkness. Her tone held the same urgency, though this time there was a tremble in her voice, as though she was attempting to keep her concern hidden.

"We are not leaving until he is dead," Drew growled from the darkness.

"We need to leave now," Emma said. “So do what you need to do, but do it quickly.”

“What I need to do,” Drew said, "is set this whole fucking place on fire and watch it burn to the ground."

"You know that is not possible," Emma snapped, her first outward display of emotion. "Kill him, now, and get it over with. Don’t give him the chance to utter a spell that stops himself from dying."

"I want—”

"I know what you want, Shadow. I am asking you to forego your desire to watch the man suffer. I am asking you to end him now so we may leave. We cannot burn this building down. Certainly, you know that. You know Grayson will take precaution to protect his business. Drew."

Kelia held her breath, even though her heart was racing and she wanted nothing more than to catch it.

"Fine," he growled.

From the same direction as his voice, footsteps thudded. Kelia heard the unmistakable sound of ripping flesh, of skin slicing open, that she’d become all too familiar with when she was part of the Society. Somehow, to be deprived of her other senses and forced to rely just on the sound of it made her really hear it for the first time.

Chills sliced up her spine as Drew’s victim, hidden in the shadows, made a loud gurgling sound. A pop echoed in the room, and she flinched.

Then, silence.

Her shoulders eased their tension. That was it, then. It was over.

"Let's go," Drew commanded.

As they left the brothel, Drew could barely utter a word. He was furious: with Emma, for bringing Kelia here; with Kelia, for leaving his ship when she should have stayed put; for Daniella simply for being Daniella. He wanted to run, to get to the ship in seconds. At least, that way, he would know the women were off this bloody island and safe.

Well, as safe as they could be.

But he could not carry them all. So instead of running, he fell into pace with them, ensuring they never left his sight. Granted, he was a few paces ahead of them, stomping around as though he was some spoiled child who did not get his way. The Queen had eyes everywhere. Just because her trio of inept Sea Shadows had perished did not mean she did not have other spies nearby.

"Drew," Emma said slowly. "Where are you leading us? You know I have other business I must tend to. The moon is only full one night each cycle, and since we are here, I want to make sure I purchase appropriate ingredients for any concoctions we might need."

Drew grunted. He stopped stomping and turned, only to see Emma whispering to Daniella. They both gave Kelia sympathetic glances before heading back toward the town. He didn’t even bother to stop them now that he knew they were safe. All he wanted right now was to take Kelia back to the ship.

She met his gaze, though it was difficult to decipher the look on her face. It almost felt as though she was studying him, looking for an answer to a question she had not even asked.

He cleared his throat. He didn’t like those curious eyes on him. They seemed to know too much, especially for someone as young as she was.

"What?" he asked, more abruptly than he anticipated. Hiding a wince, he turned back around and continued to head down the slope that led to the docks. "What is it you want to know, princess? And do not deny your curiosity. It is plain on your face."

"Where do I even begin?" Kelia murmured, hurrying her steps until she was beside him rather than behind him. "I have so many questions, none of which you'll answer, I'm sure. You've been alive for a century, so I suppose I cannot judge you for your poor taste. It is remarkable that it only took one hundred years before you learned your lesson."

His lips curled into a smile despite himself. The tension he held in his shoulders and upper back eased. The gentle lapping of the ocean and the groaning of the ships that lined the dock as they were moved by the water tickled his ears. This was home. These sounds. The crisp scent of salt in the air. Even the darkness that he loathed for years brought out the brightest stars, and the stars could always tell him where he was and where he needed to go.

Surely he could give Kelia one question. Answer her honestly one time, about one thing. Whatever it was that had her face all bunched up as they walked.

As silence hung in the air between them, he turned this idea around in his head. There was a part of him that feared she would ask about her mother, about the Sirens. He was afraid she would ask about the possibility of her survival. Because is she did, he would have to tell her that while he thought they were being their manipulative, lying selves, that yes, it was possible that her mother could be alive.

Possible, but still not likely. He did not want to have that conversation with her. Not now, and maybe not ever. Not if it might inspire her to go looking for more answers and getting herself into more danger. He’d let that happen at the Society, and look where that had lead.

Right now, he needed to take care of the Queen. Needed to kill that woman and ensure she would never be able to get Kelia. Maybe once he did that, he would tell her everything about Sirens. Maybe then they could look at searching for her mother together, without him worrying about the allegiance of the sea witches.

Maybe.

But then again, even without an alliance to the Queen, Sirens were inherently vicious, selfish things. They were more often than not everything people believed Shadows to be: heartless, soulless monsters. They did not care who they hurt, as long as they got what they wanted, which was typically more victims to feed their unquenchable thirst for blood

Another part of him worried she might ask about her time on this island, what he did here and why. He should not concern himself with what others thought—that was in the past, and today was much different than yesterday and the day before. Never had he cared what anyone thought of his past. Not his sister, not even Emma, despite his shame surrounding his inaction.

But something was different when it came to Kelia. He did not want her to know about all that he had been through, all the poor choices he had made, and the consequences as a result of those choices. For some strange reason, he wanted her to think of him as a particular sort of man, and his past would prevent her from doing so. He was not a compassionate, considerate person. He was not a person at all. And yet, when he was around her, that was what he strove to be. That was what he longed for her to view him as.

Human.

Just as they reached one of Drew's rowboats, bobbing up and down in the water, he stopped walking. He turned to face her as a slight breeze lifted a loose strand of hair from her braid, and without properly thinking about it, he stepped forward so there was minimal space between them and curled the strand behind her ear.

He could have imagined it, and maybe it was only because this night was particularly cold and she had been underwater a few hours before, but he swore he felt her shiver under his touch.

And not a shiver of fear. Those he knew too well. This was...different.

She made no move to step back, and neither did he. Not when the pull to be close to her outweighed any fears of what she might think regarding his sudden nearness.

"I'll give you one question," he said, turning from her and breaking the spell. The clunk of their booted feet hitting the wooden docks reverberated louder in the quiet than he was comfortable with. "Ask me anything you want, and I will answer it honestly.”

However, Kelia did not ask him about her mother. She did not ask him about this island. Instead, she tilted her head the side, her eyes—so blue and so green, he could not look away from them, like some sort of witch's curse—narrowed in on him.

"Do you ever get lonely?" she asked.

Her voice seemed lost to the breeze, but Drew heard it all the same. He forgot what it felt like to get cold and to get hot, but her voice elicited goosebumps up and down his arms and pinched the back of his neck. He had never felt this before, though maybe it had been too long for him to remember. Certainly, he did not feel that way about any woman he had been with over the years.

“Do I...what?" He perked his brow, but his eyes somehow remained at half mast, like he could not quite open them, like he really was under her spell. Perhaps she was a witch, a spell conjurer, but only when it came to him. How powerful she truly was, and it did not appear as though she knew it. "Lonely?"

She nodded. He picked up her heartbeat easily. It was faster than it usually was, indicating to him that she was nervous, perhaps fearful. The only thing he could think of that would cause such behavior was the nearness of them both. If he merely tilted his head downward, their lips would be touching and he would be kissing her, just as she had kissed him back on Port George, as arrows flew in the sky and nearly killed them where they had tumbled after she had knocked him off his feet.

The corner of his mouth quirked up as he remembered the feeling of her soft lips on him, how tentative she was. Nervous, but curious as well. He wondered if he was her first kiss.

The breeze ruffled the loose tunic on her body. It was his, one that had grown smaller with Emma's washing over time. It fit her nicely without overwhelming her petite frame. Flashes of skin peeked out as the cloth moved in the breeze, as though the weather was attempting to tease him.

"I imagine being alive for a hundred years would be more difficult than anticipated," she continued.

Her voice had grown even quieter. Was the sort of voice she would use in the bedroom? He stirred just thinking about it. He turned his head away and cleared his throat.

She was still talking. "—losing people you care about."

He tried for a warm smile. "I have not yet met anyone worth caring about for such an extended period of time.”

“Oh,” she said.

As he turned to read her expression, she moved her head away. He opened his mouth, unsure what he was even going to say, when a loud groan pierced the sky.

Kelia pointed at an oncoming boat. “We probably need to go.”

With a bounty on both his head and hers, he certainly agreed.

"Come," he said, taking a step back. He crossed the narrow dock to where his boat fervently bobbed on the surface of the water. "Let's get back to the ship."

Kelia made no move to argue, not even to suggest they collect Emma and Daniella first. Odd. She was always the first one with a smart comment, something saucy and slightly infuriating but nevertheless true. It was rare she was this quiet.

Then again, she certainly had endured a lot this evening without any time to process it all. He couldn’t blame her. And he was thankful she wasn’t arguing, because they didn’t have time to go chasing down the two witches with the incoming ship so close.

He stepped down into the rowboat, and Kelia quickly followed. From the corner of his eye, he noticed she stiffened as she sat down. Her hands were on the oars, and even through this darkness, his heightened vision picked up how white her knuckles were.

He took his seat behind her, pushed the boat away from the dock, and grasped the second set of oars. Though he could row this boat by himself with minimal effort, he decided to row at Kelia's leisurely pace instead. So long as they were out of the bay before the other boat arrived, he didn’t mind. He enjoyed this time with her, enjoyed the flash of flesh that peeked from her tunic, exposing her throat.

More hair loosened from her braid, and he let go of one oar, ready to place his hand on her shoulder to offer some comfort. But he stopped before he could touch her.

Who was he to offer comfort when his own selfishness had gotten her in this predicament in the first place?

His hand slapped his thigh. She tilted her head, as though she was trying to see what he was doing, before straightening and looking forward.

"You all right?" she asked, pulling on the oars.

He picked up the oars to help.

"I'm Drew Knight, princess," he said, conjuring up as much arrogance in this phrase as he could. "What sort of question is that?"

Simply by the way her shoulders hunched forward, Drew knew she was rolling her eyes.

"You know," he said, "for someone who used to be quite good at behaving as a Slayer, you constantly disrespect your captain. My crew would be thoroughly punished if they exhibited such behavior."

"Oh?" She tilted her head, and he imagined that she was arching that left eyebrow. "And how would you dole out this punishment, Captain?"

His mouth went dry, like he was some sort of foolish boy clamoring for the attention of a desirable woman. And yet, the way her voice lowered, the way it slithered down his spine, only enhanced the goosebumps and caused his heart—whatever was left of it—to palpitate.

"Perhaps you need more time to consider the question?" She chuckled, her back arching as she rowed the boat farther into the ocean. She did not seem affected by the sea at all. Or, at least, she was not showing if her nausea was causing her any trepidation. "How disappointing. And here I assumed you were thoroughly experienced in the matter of... punishment."

"Let me tell you, darling," Drew said quickly, forgetting he was all right with slow rowing and kicking his strength into gear, "I am well-versed in punishment to the point where I would punish you so well, you would beg me to do it again."

Kelia looked over her shoulder, and this time, she locked eyes with him. Something passed between them, something deep but meaningful. Something more.

Something that had her cheeks flushed redder than he’d ever seen them.

At that moment, the boat hit the ship. They had reached the Wraith.

Kelia blinked, dropping the oars, and then stood slowly. Drew cursed under his breath. Whatever that moment had been, it was gone now. Vanished, like his breath dissipating into the air on a cold, bitter night.

"Ladies first," Drew said as he stood, steadying the ship.

Kelia walked over to him, one hand on her blade, as though it was her anchor, something to root her in the moment, before releasing it so she could climb up the ladder. Drew followed up as one of his crew began to pull up the boat.

By the time he was firmly back on the ship, Kelia was already heading across the deck portside. The moon was large, full and round, emitting a pale glow that only emphasized the shining stars.

"Do things like this still catch you off-guard?" Kelia murmured as she learned her forearms on the side and gazed up at the sky. "Or are you so used to the stars and the moon that it doesn't affect you anymore?"

"That's a silly question," he chided lightly, coming up next to her. He wanted to be closer to her, but he didn’t want to push it, didn’t want to overwhelm her. "When something is truly beautiful, it is never something that remains the same. The moon is full every cycle, but even she is different each time. Just like the ocean. The ocean is never the same every second of every day of every week of every month of every year. True beauty is timeless because it’s always changing. Or, perhaps, the change comes from me. Perhaps I am changing so the way I view beauty changes as well."

Kelia gave him a long look before she smiled and glanced away.

"Very pretty words, captain," she said.

"Darling," Drew said, turning toward her and resting his elbow on the side of the ship. "If it's just the two of us, you can call me whatever you like. Captain, lover..."

Her mouth dropped open, and he leaned forward, overwhelming her be damned.

"Call me whatever you want, and I'll gladly respond," he whispered.

She shuddered under his gaze, and he reflexively licked the bottom of his lip before he’d realized what he’d done. Her eyes widened, and she followed his tongue with her penetrating gaze.

She opened her mouth, and Drew was ready for whatever she would say next. Something was going to change. He could feel it in his bones.

"Captain!" a voice called from behind him.

Drew curled his fingers into tight fists, dropping his arm that rested on the ship back down to his side. He whirled his head at his crew member, not bothering to hide his frustration.

"What?" he snapped.

"The boat is secured," Bryson replied. He did not seem to realize how annoyed his captain was. "May I take my leave?"

"Aye," Drew growled. Ten minutes ago!

When he turned back to finish his tantalizing conversation with Kelia, she had already descended belowdeck.