The morning sun hadn't yet burned through the mist when Bones found me.

I was on the quarterdeck, ostensibly checking the rigging like the good little sailor I pretended to be. In reality, I was trying to figure out how much truth I could feed Kael tonight without choking on it.

"You're very dedicated for someone who doesn't know a bowline from a bloody sheet bend."

I turned slowly. Garrett Ashford stood three feet away, close enough that I could smell the tobacco and linseed oil that clung to him like a second skin. His brown eyes were watchful, calculating.

Not friendly.

"I'm learning," I said evenly.

"Are you." It wasn't a question. He pulled something from his coat pocket—a small leather journal, edges worn soft with handling. "See, that's interesting. Because I've been keeping track of what you're learning. And it's a very specific sort of education."

My heart kicked against my ribs, but I kept my expression bored. "Is there a point to this, or do you just enjoy lurking?"

"You appeared six weeks after Finn died." He opened the journal, though he didn't look at it. He had whatever was written there memorized. "Washed up on that beach in Saltmere with a convenient story about pirates and shipwreck. No cargo recovered from said wreck. No survivors but you. No ship debris matching your description found anywhere along that coast."

"Ships sink, Bones. It's what they do."

"Mm." He flipped a page. "You claimed to be a merchant's daughter. But you don't know the first thing about trade routes or cargo manifests. You can't tie proper knots, but you move across a pitching deck like you were born on water. You never eat the salt pork—only fresh fish. You disappear every night around the same time, always toward the stern rail where it's darkest."

Each observation landed like a stone in my stomach.

"You're watching me take evening walks? That's not creepy at all."

"I'm watching you hunt." His voice dropped, quiet and dangerous. "I don't know for what. But I know predatory behavior when I see it."

I laughed, and it came out sharp enough to draw blood. "You think I'm dangerous? To who, exactly?"

"To him." Bones stepped closer, and there was something fierce and protective in his eyes that made my throat tight. "I watched Finn's death nearly destroy Kael. Watched him drink himself half to death, take stupid risks, stop caring whether he lived or died. Then you show up, all mysterious smiles and convenient helplessness, and suddenly he's obsessed. Won't let you out of his sight. Made you his personal attendant for fuck's sake, when he hasn't let anyone in his quarters since—"

He cut himself off, jaw working.

"Since Finn died," I finished softly.

"You don't get to say his name." The words came out flat and cold. "You don't get to pretend you understand what Kael lost. What we all lost."

Something hot and guilty twisted in my chest. Because he was right. I didn't understand human grief, human love. I was a siren. We didn't mourn. We didn't keep shrines to the dead or carry their memories like open wounds.

We just survived.

"I'm not trying to hurt him," I said, and hated how true it sounded.

"But you will." Bones closed the journal with a soft snap. "That's what you do, isn't it? I don't know what you really are, Maris Tideborn—if that's even your real name. But I know you're lying. And I know that whatever you want from this ship, from this crew, from my captain—it's going to cost him."

"You're wrong." The words tasted like salt and desperation.

"Am I?" He studied my face with those too-clever eyes. "Then prove it. Tell me the truth. Right now. What are you really doing here?"

I opened my mouth.

Closed it.

The truth would destroy everything. Would get me killed or thrown overboard or locked in the brig until Thessa came for me—and Thessa's rescue would mean blood in the water and death for this crew.

But the lie was choking me.

"I thought so." Bones turned away, disgust written in every line of his body. "Stay away from him, Maris. Whatever game you're playing, whatever you're after—find it and leave. Before I make you."

He was halfway to the companionway when the shouting started.

It came from below decks, multiple voices raised in anger. Then the sound of something heavy hitting wood. A crash. A roar of approval from what sounded like half the crew.

Bones's head snapped up, every muscle going taut. "Shit."

We both ran.

The scene in the crew quarters was chaos. Twenty men crowded into the narrow space, split into two groups facing each other with murder in their eyes. At the center of it all stood Marcus Reed, a barrel-chested sailor with a knife scar across his throat and ambitions bigger than his brain.

And opposite him, stone-faced and deadly calm, stood Kael.

"Say it again," Kael said quietly. Too quietly. "I want to make sure I heard you right."

Marcus sneered. "I said you've gone mad, Captain. Lost your bloody mind over some slip of a girl who appeared out of nowhere. We all see it. Making her your personal attendant? Keeping her in your quarters?" He spat on the deck. "Finn would be ashamed."

The temperature in the room dropped ten degrees.

"Finn," Kael said, each word precise and sharp as a blade, "is dead. And you're about to join him if you don't stand down right fucking now."

"That's the problem, isn't it?" Marcus gestured to the men behind him—at least a dozen, I counted with growing dread. "You can't let him go. Can't think straight. Can't lead. You're so obsessed with that girl you don't even see what's happening to this crew."

"And you think you'd make a better captain?" Kael's smile was a terrible thing. "You, who can't navigate worth shit and lost us half a prize cargo because you were too drunk to secure the rigging?"

Marcus's face went red. "At least I'm not fucking cursed. That artifact killed Finn, and you kept it. Brought its bad luck down on all of us. Men are talking, Captain. Saying maybe the girl's part of it. Maybe she's the curse made flesh."

Several of the crew made warding signs.

My blood went cold.

"Enough." Bones's voice cracked like a whip. "Stand down, all of you. This is mutiny, and you know the penalty."

"The penalty?" Marcus laughed, ugly and harsh. "What's he going to do, kill us all? He doesn't have the stones anymore. Not since—"

He didn't get to finish.

Kael moved like lightning, closing the distance between them in a heartbeat. His fist caught Marcus in the jaw with a crack that echoed off the low ceiling. The bigger man staggered back, and suddenly everyone was moving, shouting, reaching for weapons.

This was going to be a bloodbath.

I felt it building like a storm—the violence, the rage, the fear. Felt the way the crew's loyalty had fractured, split between their respect for Kael and their superstitious terror of the artifact, of bad luck, of me.

They were going to kill him.

Maybe not today, maybe not all of them. But enough. Marcus had at least twelve men behind him, and more who were undecided, waiting to see which way the wind blew. If Kael showed weakness now, if he lost this fight—

I couldn't let that happen.

I didn't decide to act. My body moved before my mind caught up, driven by an instinct that had nothing to do with my mission and everything to do with the man currently blocking a knife thrust with his forearm.

I opened my mouth and sang.

Not a full siren song—that would have been too obvious, too powerful, too impossible to explain. Just a thread of it, a whisper of influence woven into a single held note that sounded almost human.

Almost.

The effect was immediate. The men closest to me swayed, their anger dampening like a fire doused with water. The note slid into their minds, found the fear and doubt already there, and amplified it.

He is your captain. He has led you true. This is madness. This is wrong.

I didn't use words. Siren song doesn't work like that. It's pure emotion, pure instinct, bypassing thought entirely and speaking directly to the hindbrain where decisions are made in heartbeats.

Marcus's supporters hesitated, weapons lowering fractionally. The undecided crew members stepped back, suddenly uncertain. The note faded, but its effect lingered, spreading through the crowd like ripples in still water.

Kael used the moment ruthlessly. He had Marcus pinned against the bulkhead with a knife to his throat before anyone could blink.

"Anyone else?" Kael's voice was steady, but I could see the white-knuckle grip on his weapon. "Anyone else want to question my command?"

Silence.

Then, slowly, the mutineers lowered their weapons. Some looked confused, like they couldn't quite remember why they'd been so angry. Others just looked afraid.

"Brig," Kael said flatly. "All of you. Marcus gets irons. The rest get time to reconsider their loyalty."

Bones moved immediately, barking orders, organizing the arrest with the efficiency of long practice. The crew shuffled into motion, subdued and shamefaced.

But Bones's eyes found mine across the crowded space, and there was something new in his expression.

Recognition.

He'd been watching me when I sang. Had seen my mouth move, heard that impossible note. Hadn't understood it, maybe, but knew—knew—that something unnatural had just happened.

That I had made it happen.

Fuck.

The crew dispersed slowly, the mutineers herded below by loyal sailors. Kael stood breathing hard, blood on his knuckles from where he'd split them on Marcus's face. His storm-gray eyes swept the room once, cataloging damage and loyalty in equal measure.

Then they landed on me.

I couldn't read his expression. Couldn't tell if he'd noticed what I'd done, if he'd felt the siren song slide through his mind like silk and poison.

"Clear out," he said to the remaining crew. His voice was rough, scraped raw. "Now."

They scattered.

In thirty seconds, it was just the three of us. Me, Kael, and Bones.

The first mate looked between us, something complicated working in his expression. "Captain—"

"Leave us, Bones."

"Kael, I need to tell you something about—"

"I said leave." Kael didn't raise his voice, but the command in it was absolute. "We'll talk later. Right now I need... I need a minute."

Bones's jaw tightened. He looked at me one more time, and the warning in his eyes was clear as day: I know. And this isn't over.

Then he was gone, and I was alone with Kael in the aftermath of violence I'd helped prevent.

For a long moment, neither of us moved. The crew quarters smelled of sweat and fear and the copper-penny scent of blood. Kael's breathing was still uneven, adrenaline working through his system.

"You defended me." His voice was quiet, almost wondering.

"Of course I did." The words came out before I could stop them. "Did you think I'd just stand there and watch them gut you?"

"I think I don't know what you'd do." He turned to face me fully, and the intensity in his gaze made my breath catch. "I think that's the problem. I can't predict you, can't figure you out. You're terrified of me one minute and defending me the next. You flinch when I get close, but you look at me like—"

He cut himself off, jaw working.

"Like what?" I whispered.

"Like you want me." The words fell between us like stones into deep water. "Like you want me and it's killing you."

My heart was a trapped bird, frantic and desperate. "Kael—"

"What did you do?" He stepped closer, and I smelled leather and gunpowder and amber. "During the fight. I felt... something. Like a hand on my thoughts, gentle but firm. And suddenly they all just... stopped."

Oh gods. He had felt it.

"I don't know what you mean." The lie tasted like ash.

"Don't." Another step. We were inches apart now, close enough that I could see the flecks of silver in his gray eyes. "Don't lie to me. Not about this. You did something. Something impossible. And I need to know what."

I should have run. Should have deflected, denied, done anything except stand there drowning in his scent and the heat radiating off his body.

But I was so tired of lying.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," I said softly.

"Try me." His hand came up, fingers hovering just beside my face, not quite touching. "I've kept a cursed artifact that killed my brother because I don't know how to destroy it. I've got a woman on my ship who appeared out of nowhere, who I can't stop thinking about even though every instinct says she's dangerous. I've lost half my mind to wanting her. What's one more impossible thing?"

The air between us was electric, charged with everything we weren't saying.

His fingers brushed my cheek, feather-light.

I stopped breathing.

"Tell me," he murmured, and his voice was rough velvet, dark honey, everything dangerous and addictive. "Tell me what you are, Maris. Tell me why I can't get you out of my head. Why I'd rather keep you close and paranoid than safe and ignorant."

I could feel my control fracturing, could feel the truth rising in my throat like a tide. One word. One confession. That's all it would take to end this aching tension, this terrible wanting.

I'm a siren. I was sent to steal from you. I'm going to betray you.

I don't want to.

My lips parted.

"Captain!" The shout came from above deck, urgent and afraid. "Captain, you need to see this!"

Kael's hand dropped. He closed his eyes, jaw tight with frustration. "What?"

"There's something in the water, sir! Something big!"

Every drop of blood in my body turned to ice.

No.

Not now. Not yet.

Kael was already moving, taking the stairs two at a time. I followed on numb legs, dread pooling in my stomach like lead.

We burst onto the deck into chaos. The entire crew was at the rails, pointing at the water. The sea had gone flat and glassy, unnatural in its stillness. And cutting through it, straight toward the ship, was a wake.

Something massive moved beneath the surface. Something that made the water go dark and cold.

"What is that?" someone whispered.

I knew. Gods help me, I knew.

The temperature dropped. The scent of ozone and deep ocean cold rolled across the deck like fog.

And then she surfaced.

Thessa Depthcaller rose from the water like a nightmare given form. In the sunlight, she looked almost human—a beautiful woman with silver-white hair and skin like moonlight. But her eyes were black pearls, utterly inhuman, and when she smiled, her teeth were just slightly too sharp.

"Maris," she called, her voice carrying effortlessly across the water. Musical and terrible. "It's time to come home."

The crew erupted in panic. Men scrambled for weapons, for holy symbols, for anything that might protect them from the creature in the water.

Kael stood frozen beside me, his face gone pale. "What—"

"A siren." Bones's voice came from behind us, flat with certainty. "That's a fucking siren."

And then his eyes found mine.

I watched the pieces click together in his expression. The strange behavior. The impossible song during the fight. The way I'd appeared from the ocean with no explanation.

"Oh gods," he breathed. "You're one of them."

Kael turned to me slowly. So slowly. And the betrayal in his eyes was a knife between my ribs.

"Maris?" His voice broke on my name. "Tell me he's wrong."

I couldn't speak. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't do anything but stand there as my two worlds collided with the force of a hurricane.

Thessa laughed, and it sounded like breaking glass. "Did you really think you could hide among them forever, little one? Did you think they'd accept you if they knew what you were?"

"Get below deck," Kael said to his crew, his voice hard and commanding despite the shock written across his features. "Now. All of you."

No one moved.

"I said NOW!"

They scattered.

Bones didn't. He stood his ground, one hand on his pistol, eyes locked on me like I was a viper about to strike.

Kael looked between me and Thessa, and I watched him putting it together. The timing of my arrival. My strange behavior. The fact that I'd been in his quarters, near his things, searching for—

"The artifact," he said quietly. "You're here for the artifact."

It wasn't a question.

I wanted to deny it. Wanted to tell him it was more complicated than that, that I'd never meant to care about him, that everything had gone so horribly wrong—

But Thessa spoke first.

"Of course she is. Did you think she stayed for you, pirate?" Her smile was cruel. "She's been playing you from the beginning. Every smile, every blush, every moment of carefully calculated vulnerability. My clever girl, doing exactly what I taught her."

"No," I whispered. "That's not—"

"Bring me the artifact, Maris." Thessa's voice hardened. "Your mission is complete. It's time to stop playing human and remember what you are."

Kael's hand moved to his sword. The betrayal in his eyes had crystallized into something harder, colder.

Dangerous.

"Is it true?" he asked me. Just me, like Thessa and Bones and the whole world had fallen away. "All of it?"

I could lie. Should lie. One more deception to add to the pile.

But I was done with lies.

"Yes," I said, and the word tasted like blood. "I was sent to steal from you. To get close to you, gain your trust, and take the artifact."

Something shattered in his expression.

"But—" I took a step toward him, desperate, drowning. "But it's not like she says. I didn't mean to—I never wanted—"

"To what?" His laugh was broken glass. "To make me care about you? To make me think you might actually—" He cut himself off, shaking his head. "Fuck. I'm such an idiot."

"Kael, please—"

"Don't." He backed away like I'd struck him. "Don't say my name. Don't look at me like that. Just... don't."

"Enough of this." Thessa's voice cracked like a whip. "Maris, you have your orders. Retrieve the artifact and return to the sea. Unless you've grown too fond of your pet humans to remember your duty?"

The challenge in her words was clear. This was a test. It had always been a test.

Prove my loyalty to siren kind, or prove her right about my weakness.

I looked at Kael—at the man I'd been sent to betray, the man I'd somehow started to care about despite every warning, every instinct. His hand was on his sword, his face a mask of betrayal and rage.

He would fight me if I tried to take the artifact. Would probably die fighting, because that's what humans did. They clung to their principles and their pride even when it killed them.

I looked at Thessa, cold and beautiful and utterly inhuman in the water.

I looked at Bones, his pistol half-drawn, waiting to see what I'd do.

And I realized with perfect, terrible clarity that there was no right choice. No way out that didn't end in blood and betrayal.

I'd been a fool to think I could belong anywhere.

"I need time," I said to Thessa. "To get the artifact. He keeps it locked—"

"You have until moonrise." Thessa's smile was sharp enough to cut. "After that, I come aboard myself. And I won't be as gentle as you've been."

She sank beneath the surface without another word, leaving only ripples and the scent of deep ocean cold.

The silence on deck was deafening.

"Kael," Bones said carefully. "We need to—"

"Lock her in the brig." Kael's voice was empty, hollowed out. He wouldn't look at me. "Iron chains. I want guards posted every hour. And someone find me a way to destroy that fucking artifact before sunset."

"Wait—" I started.

"You don't get to talk." Finally, finally, he looked at me. And the pain in his eyes was worse than any anger. "You don't get to explain or justify or whatever the hell you think you're going to do. You used me. You lied to me. You made me—"

His voice broke.

"Get her out of my sight," he said to Bones. "Before I do something we'll both regret."

Bones grabbed my arm, and I didn't resist. What was the point? I'd already lost.

As he dragged me toward the brig, I looked back once.

Kael stood at the rail, staring at the water where Thessa had disappeared. His shoulders were rigid, his hands clenched into fists.

And I knew, with the certainty of a siren who'd spent months learning to read this particular human, that I'd just broken something in him that might never heal.

The brig was dark and cold and smelled of bilge water and old fear.

Bones shackled my wrists with iron—cold iron, the kind that burned against my skin and dampened my abilities. Smart. He really had figured out what I was.

"I hope it was worth it," he said quietly. "Whatever your people promised you. I hope it was worth destroying him."

Then he left me alone in the dark with my guilt and my racing thoughts and the iron counting down to moonrise.

Six hours.

Six hours to figure out how to save Kael from Thessa without betraying everything I was.

Six hours to find a truth that wouldn't destroy us both.

I pulled against the chains, felt them bite into my wrists, and laughed.

Because the truth was, I'd already destroyed us.

I'd just been too much of a coward to admit it until now.