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

I'd been counting the minutes since Bones left me here. Three hours. Twenty-seven minutes. Forty-three seconds.

The iron shackles had stopped burning after the first hour. Now they just sat against my wrists like accusations, cold and heavy and impossible to ignore.

I could hear footsteps above deck. Voices raised in the aftermath of the mutiny attempt. Bones's low rumble giving orders. The crew scrambling to obey.

No sign of Kael.

Which meant he was either dead or dealing with the three men who'd tried to kill him while I was busy breaking my cover to save his life.

Brilliant work, Maris. Truly exceptional spy craft.

The door to the brig creaked open.

I didn't move. Didn't look up. Just kept my eyes on the water seeping through the hull planks, dark and steady and smelling of home.

The scent hit me first.

Leather. Gunpowder. Amber.

And underneath it all, rum. Enough rum to make my eyes water from six feet away.

"You're drunk," I said.

"Very observant." Kael's voice was rough, scraped raw around the edges. "That's what happens when you drink a bottle of rum in two hours."

"Is that what we're calling a healthy coping mechanism these days?"

He laughed. It was an awful sound, sharp and broken and wrong coming from him.

"Haven't been drunk since you came aboard," he said. "Did you know that? Six months. Not a drop more than it takes to keep steady in a storm."

I finally looked up.

He stood in the doorway, one hand braced against the frame like it was the only thing keeping him upright. His shirt was unbuttoned, hanging open over the lean muscles of his chest. Blood spattered across his knuckles. His hair had come loose from its leather cord and fell around his face in dark waves.

Those storm-gray eyes found mine in the darkness.

"Bones wants me to throw you overboard," he said conversationally. "Says you're dangerous. Says you appeared right after Finn died and that's too convenient to be coincidence."

My heart kicked against my ribs.

"Smart man."

"He is." Kael pushed off the doorframe and stepped into the brig. The space was tiny, barely six feet square. He filled it completely. "So why haven't I done it?"

"You tell me, Captain."

He moved closer. Close enough that I could see the muscle jumping in his jaw. Close enough to count the flecks of silver in those devastating eyes.

Close enough to smell the rum on his breath and the blood on his hands and something else underneath—something raw and wounded and desperate.

"I should," he said quietly. "I should chain you to an anchor and watch you sink and sleep soundly for the first time in months."

"But you won't."

"No." He crouched down in front of me, bringing us eye to eye. "I won't. And I can't figure out if that makes me smart or the biggest fool who ever sailed."

The brig was so small. He was so close. I could see the pulse beating in his throat, fast and hard despite the rum slowing his words.

"Probably the second one," I managed.

His mouth curved. Not quite a smile. Something sadder.

"Yeah. That's what I thought too."

He sat down heavily beside me, back against the hull, long legs stretched out in front of him. Our shoulders touched. The contact sent heat racing down my arm despite the cold iron at my wrists.

We sat there in silence for a long moment. Just breathing. Just existing in the same small space while the ship creaked around us and the ocean whispered through the planks.

"His name was Finn," Kael said finally.

I went very still.

"My brother. You've probably heard the crew mention him. They try not to around me, but..." He shrugged. "Ships are small. Secrets are smaller."

"I've heard," I said carefully.

"He was younger than me. Three years. Should've stayed on land, found a nice girl, had a dozen babies." Kael's voice was distant now, lost somewhere in memory. "But he followed me to sea instead. Said someone had to keep me from doing anything too stupid."

He laughed again, that broken sound.

"Didn't work."

I didn't say anything. Just waited while he gathered the words, the alcohol loosening his tongue in ways I suspected he'd regret tomorrow.

If he remembered this conversation at all.

"We heard about the artifact from a merchant in Saltmere. Said it was worth a king's ransom. Said whoever possessed it would have power over wind and wave." He tilted his head back against the hull, eyes on the ceiling. "We were going to be legends, Finn and me. Rich enough to buy our own fleet. Famous enough that no one would dare cross us."

My stomach was sinking.

"So we stole it," Kael continued. "Broke into the temple where it was kept. Killed the guards. Took it right off its altar like we had any gods-damned right to it."

His hand curled into a fist.

"Finn touched it first. He was always faster than me, always one step ahead. He grabbed it and..."

Kael's voice cracked.

"He screamed. Just once. Then he was gone. Not dead—I could've handled dead. Dead I know how to deal with. But this was... different. His body was still breathing, still standing, but there was nothing behind his eyes. Nothing. Like someone had reached inside him and scooped out everything that made him Finn."

Horror was crawling up my spine.

"How long?" I whispered.

"Three days. He lasted three days like that. Walking. Breathing. Empty." Kael's jaw clenched. "Then his heart just... stopped. And I was holding my brother's corpse and the artifact was sitting there on the deck, glowing like it hadn't just murdered the only family I had left."

I couldn't breathe. Couldn't think past the image of Kael holding his brother's body while whatever cursed magic Thessa wanted me to retrieve finished killing him.

"I should've thrown it overboard," he said. "Should've let it sink to the bottom of the ocean and rust there for eternity. But I couldn't."

"Why not?"

He turned to look at me then, and the grief in his eyes was so raw it hurt to witness.

"Because he's still in there."

The words hung between us like a confession.

"I can hear him sometimes," Kael continued. "When the ship is quiet and the moon is full. Hear him calling my name. Begging me to let him out." His hand went to his chest, pressed over his heart. "I asked every witch, every mystic, every two-bit fortune teller from here to the Shattered Isles. They all said the same thing."

"What?"

"That his soul is trapped inside the artifact. That the only way to free him is to destroy it completely. Unmake it at the source." He laughed bitterly. "And the only thing powerful enough to do that is siren magic."

The world tilted sideways.

Siren magic.

Thessa had sent me to retrieve an artifact that required siren magic to destroy. Had given me strict orders to bring it back intact, no matter the cost.

Had never once mentioned that it was serving as someone's tomb.

"So you keep it," I said slowly. "Even though it killed him. Because destroying it is the only way to free him."

"And I don't have a siren to do it." Kael's smile was sharp and self-loathing. "Ironic, isn't it? I need the one thing that would kill me faster than any blade. The one thing that's never touched these waters because we're too far north for their hunting grounds."

Unless one of them came aboard disguised as a shipwreck survivor.

Unless one of them spent six months lying to your face.

Unless one of them was sitting right next to you with iron on her wrists and guilt crushing her lungs.

"Where is it?" The question slipped out before I could stop it.

Kael's eyes sharpened slightly, some of the rum-haze clearing.

"Why?"

"Just curious. Something that powerful, I'd expect you to keep it close."

He studied me for a long moment. I could see him weighing the question, weighing me, weighing whether the alcohol had lowered his guard too far.

Then he shrugged.

"My quarters. Behind a false panel in the wall beside my bed." His mouth curved in something almost like a smile. "The same bed I've imagined you in about a thousand times since you came aboard."

Heat flooded through me, sudden and devastating.

"Captain—"

"Kael." He shifted closer, and suddenly there was no space between us at all. His shoulder against mine. His thigh pressed along the length of my leg. His breath warm on my cheek. "Say my name, Maris."

It should've been easy to refuse. Should've been simple to maintain the distance I'd kept so carefully for six months.

But he was looking at me like I was the only real thing in a world gone strange, and his grief was a living thing between us, and I was so tired of lying.

"Kael," I whispered.

He closed his eyes like the sound hurt him.

"I know you're hiding something," he said quietly. "I've known since the first day. The way you move when you think no one's watching. The way you smell like salt and jasmine even when we haven't seen land in weeks. The way you look at the ocean like it's calling you home."

My heart was hammering.

"I know," he continued, "and I don't care. I should. Bones is right—I should throw you overboard and sail away and never look back. But I can't." His hand came up, fingers ghosting along my jaw. "I can't, because you're the first thing in six months that's made me feel anything other than grief and rage and guilt."

"Kael—"

"I'm not asking you to trust me," he said. "I'm not even asking you to tell me the truth. I'm just asking you to stay. To let me have this one thing that isn't broken. Can you do that?"

I should've said no. Should've pulled away. Should've kept every wall firmly in place between us.

Instead I leaned into his touch, felt his palm cup my cheek, and let myself pretend for just one moment that I was the woman he thought I was.

"I can't promise that," I said honestly.

"I know." His thumb traced my lower lip. "But you're still here."

"The iron shackles might have something to do with that."

He smiled, and it was real this time. Tired and sad and achingly genuine.

"You saved my life tonight," he said. "During the mutiny. I saw what you did. Saw how you moved. Saw that bastard's eyes go blank when you looked at him."

Panic spiked through me.

"I don't know what you—"

"I don't care what you are," Kael interrupted. "Human, witch, demon, ghost—I don't care. You stood between me and a blade. You bled for me. That's all I need to know."

His forehead dropped to rest against mine.

"Stay," he whispered. "Please. Just stay."

And gods help me, I wanted to. Wanted to stay in this moment with his hands on my face and his breath on my lips and the weight of his grief pressing us together in the dark.

Wanted to tell him everything. Wanted to explain about Thessa and the mission and the fact that I'd been sent to steal the one thing he needed to save his brother's soul.

Wanted to be someone worthy of the trust in his eyes.

Instead I lifted my shackled hands and let them fall against his chest, felt his heart beating strong and steady under my palms.

"I'm here," I said. It was the only truth I had left to give.

He made a sound low in his throat and pulled me closer, awkward with the chains between us but determined. His arms came around me, strong and sure, and I let myself fold into him.

Let myself breathe in leather and gunpowder and amber and rum.

Let myself feel the solid warmth of him against me, alive and real and trusting me with his grief.

We sat there in the dark while the ship rocked beneath us and the ocean sang through the hull. His breathing slowed gradually, the rum and the emotional confession pulling him toward sleep.

"Maris," he murmured against my hair.

"Yeah?"

"Don't leave."

It wasn't a command. It was a plea.

"I won't," I lied.

His arms tightened around me, and then his breathing evened out completely, sleep claiming him despite the uncomfortable position.

I held him while my mind raced.

Thessa had sent me to retrieve an artifact that served as a tomb. Had ordered me to bring it back intact when destroying it was the only way to free the soul trapped inside. Had never mentioned siren magic was required for its destruction, which meant she'd known all along what Kael needed and had chosen not to tell me.

Had chosen to send me after the one thing that would destroy him completely if I succeeded.

The pieces were falling into place, forming a picture I didn't want to see.

Thessa didn't want the artifact retrieved.

She wanted it kept intact. Wanted the soul trapped inside to stay trapped.

Wanted me to steal it from the one person desperate enough to find a siren to destroy it.

But why?

The question circled through my mind while Kael slept against me, his weight warm and trusting and utterly damning.

Because I was going to have to choose.

The mission or the man.

My people or my conscience.

Everything I'd been raised to be or everything I was becoming.

I looked down at Kael's sleeping face, peaceful for the first time since I'd met him, and felt something crack open in my chest.

Felt the careful distance I'd maintained for six months shatter completely.

Felt myself fall into something I couldn't name and couldn't stop and couldn't survive.

Above deck, a bell chimed. Three hours until dawn.

Three hours until Bones came back and found his captain asleep in my arms.

Three hours until I had to face what I'd become and what I was going to do about it.

I pressed my lips to Kael's hair, breathing him in one last time.

"I'm sorry," I whispered to the darkness. "I'm so sorry."

The ocean whispered back through the hull, and I could've sworn I heard Thessa's voice in the waves.

Calling me home.

Demanding her prize.

Reminding me exactly what happened to sirens who forgot their place.