“I am sorry,” he said.
“I just wasn’t expecting you here, sir. In the galley.”
“No. I came to apologize.”
I blinked at him.
“For what?”
“Your shoulders,” he said. “The doctor said the talons went deep and you lost blood.”
“Oh,” I said. “That.”
“You went over the side,” he said. “I caught you just before you hit the water.”
I had almost no recollection of that night.
“It is dangerous in the Halls,” he said. “The waters of the Silence are deadly, and there are creatures that you see nowhere else. If we lost you, I’m sure we would never find you.”
Almost as if he thought I was worth saving.
“Thank you for catching me, then,” I said, my cheeks warming.
Almost as if I was important.
He flashed me a smile, but it was gone in a heartbeat, and I swallowed, looked at the boards. I needed to distract myself from the fact that he was here, in the galley, with me barely dressed, bloody and bandaged, and foot bare on the floor. As if hearing my thoughts, he spied my other boot, snatched it up, and passed it to me. I pulled it on and straightened, reached a hand to still the hammock that was swinging beside me.
Suns. So soft. So awkward. Wayward woman swum out to sea.
He cocked his head like a bird. Like a bloody winter hawk.
“What were you doing that caused you to fall?”
“I think…”
I released a breath and frowned, trying to remember.
“I think I made anAuctorus,” I said. “That’s what Dev and I were working on. AnAuctorus Circulaia.”
“That was noAuctorus Circulaia,” he said. “At least, not one I have ever felt. And, on this ship, I feel them all.”
I believed that.
“I was trying to lean into the wylde, like you said,” I muttered. “But I can’t control it. It’s too much. It’s too hard.”
“It was glorious,” he breathed.
Something passed between us then, as quick and unpredictable as a squall. Not captain to ensign. Not orders or rank. Just a man. Just a woman.
And between us, the truth of it: Both of us runechasers. Both of us drowning in it.
The Worldrune a net. It gathers and binds.
She was right.
And both of us always wanting more.
There were things I could’ve said. More I could’ve asked. But neither of us moved. The air had shifted—thick, heavy, sitting between us like a rope we were both too stubborn to pull.
