“You don’t know how you got here?” There’s skepticism in his eyes, and my hackles rise at the sight of it. “A little hard to believe.”
“Believe what you want.” The words come out vaguely snappish.
His lips twist upward. “I always thought faeytes were cold.”
I raise my hand. “Touch my skin, inritus. I assure you, I’m as cold as any other faeyte.”
His head tilts, his expression changing into something that makes my stomach churn. “Do you know any other faeytes? Perhaps I’ll find some lounging up in the galley? Asleep in the bays? Dancing across the deck?”
His words are light, a direct contrast with the shadows that dance over his expression. As if he knows something I do not.
My blink is slow. “I know many faeytes. How many do you know?”
Nyx. Celeste. Kamaria. Aylina. Deva.
Other faces. Other memories.
Maiden. Mother. Crone.
The longing is a sudden, vicious tug thathurts.They still dance across my mind’s eye.
The male sighs. “My name is Callan Edgeborn.”
We stare at each other in the lantern light.
“It would be polite to give yours in return,” he says calmly.
My heartbeat sounds again. Louder, this time. The name sits awkwardly on my tongue, as it always has. “Selene Amaris. You didn’t answer my question.”
I stare up at him as those shadows flicker again. When he speaks, his voice is heavy.
“There are no more faeytes, Selene Amaris. Not in Asteria, at least.”
The words threaten to buckle my defenses, to smash them, to scatter them to the ends of the world. “You’re wrong.”
The pity in his face only makes it hurt more. “For whatever reason, you are on my ship.Volatusreturns to Asteria. I assure you, you’ll find no faeytes there. The Caelumnai wiped them out ten years ago.”
“Clearly not.” My words are icy. Emotionless. “For I am here.”
“Yes, you are.” His eyes sweep over me again. Assessing. “And you are the last, it seems.”
The last.
Gone.
All of them, gone to Ellas, to join Hala in the sky.
I knew it to be true. In my heart, I had known. But knowing and understanding are two very different things.
They’re gone.
And they left me behind.
Chapter eight
Callan
She watches me with cold eyes of pure starlight. There is no hiding those eyes, deep pupils of pure black that flicker with the light of falling stars—eyes that mark her as exactly what she is.
