Blaze opened the door to leave. “Talk to her.”
He nodded. “All right. I will.”
The Ranger left without another word, and the clap of the door shutting made Augustus flinch.
He’d screwed up. He’d let one night of loneliness and worry take over his entire personality.
Sure, theEntiacould sail without his constant attention. No one needed him to chart a course or bark orders. The crew wouldn’t fall apart without him.
That didn’t give him the right to turn into a shadow wrapped in grief and drowning in booze. The right to disappear.
He dragged a hand through his wet hair and released a deep breath. “One setback, Triarius. That’s all you get.”
In the bed chamber, Augustus found an occupant already inside, curled up on what would have been Selene’s pillow. The dronsian stretched and yawned and fluttered its pearlescent blue-and-brown wings.
“Have you been here the entire time?”
The beast gave a raspy squawk in reply, then turned his head back into the pillow.
“If I have to wake up, so do you, scallywag.”
The dronsian’s body expanded on a deep inhale, then deflated. Then, nothing.
“You just missed Blaze,” he said on the way to his wash basin. “He’s running around with pails of water.”
The dronsian peered through one slitted eye, then closed it.
“All right, then. You go on and sleep. I can see you’ve been working really hard.”
Augustus caught the pull of his lips into a smirk just in time to stop it. Apparently, spending every day with the creature was turning him soft.
Selene was going tolovethat.
He did smirk then. The idea that she would be around again, speaking his name like a curse, loving him despite every flaw he carried, felt a whole lot better than living in a drunken stupor for days straight. Shewouldsurvive Thorne, because she’d survived much worse. Lifetimes of worse.
Washed, shaved, and mood slightly elevated, Augustus appeared above deck to a chorus of greetings, claps on the shoulder, and an abundance of wide smiles.
All but one.
The pale-skinned blond woman—a friend of Omar’s family, and the ship’s new surgeon—halted Augustus with a hand to the chest, and looked him up and down.
Augustus blinked down at the hand on his chest. “Good morning to you, too, Kelly.”
“Headache?” On his shrug, she nodded. “You need to hydrate. I’ll bring you something for the upset stomach.”
“I don’t?—”
“Have you eaten?”
“On this imagined upset stomach? No.” He smirked, though, to be honest, he didn’t think his stomach could take it. Hedidfeel a little green. He just didn’t wantherto know that. “I’ve been hungover before, doc. I’ll survive.”
“Keelheart!” Omar’s exclamation brought the two of them around. He and his family had taken to calling Augustus by this new nickname after the battle in Castona Bay. For “the one who holds the ship steady through storm and blood.”
The quartermaster approached with one of his grandsons, who barely reached the man’s hip. “I hope you’re fixing him right up, Patch.”
“I’m trying,” Kelly said. “The captain says he’s gonna tough this one out.”
“Nothing going on that a little sun and sea won’t cure,” Augustus said, then squeezed Kelly’s arm. “I’m fine. I promise.”
