“I can’t fight,” Petrina said. Her dark hair wound across her pale face like thick tentacles. “Look at me. I can barely keep my head above water.”
Selene had burned through all her reserves as well. “We have to try.”
“You’re a fool.”
“Maybe, but I’m not the one who snuck aboard a pirate ship.”
Petrina slipped further into the water as she worked the binding off her ankles. “At least I can say I didn’t board arm-in-arm with my captor.”
“I made the only choice I had. My people were dying.”
“They made a choice.”
Petrina’s head bobbed as if fighting unconsciousness.
Selene shook her, the move dipping her mouth back into the salty water. “Stay awake. I can’t hold us both for much longer.” They had to survive long enough for the rowboats to reach them. After that, she’d do and say whatever she had to to keep them both alive. “Keep talking. Tell me why you followed me.”
The woman’s one good eye fluttered wetly. “In the mountain temple… The walls were coming down, and you knew you’d never save that girl. I could see it in your eyes. And yet, you stayed so she wouldn’t die alone.”
Selene shut her eyes at the stinging memory. Noi followed her through that crack in the mountain wall, right into the viper’s nest. When the battle didn’t kill her, the failing temple did.
“Alexandra never would have done that for me,” Petrina continued. “For any of us. We did everything for her, and she still pushed me into that room. All so she could get to you. My life was worth the risk to her.”
“Alexandra never cared about anyone but herself.”
Petrina ground out a laugh. “And you care about too many. She’ll cross the wrong person and get herself killed, but you’ll die to save the world, won’t you? You’re both idiots.”
“Maybe. But you’re the idiot who came after me.”
Petrina coughed. “Fuck you, Marinea. Next time, I’ll just sit back with a cup of tea and a warm towel. Will that make you feel better?”
Three rowboats arrived and surrounded them.
Thorne peered over the side of one with raised brows. “How’s the water?”
“Very refreshing,” Selene said, teeth chattering.
“Pull them in.”
The pirates snatched Selene and Petrina up by their wet shirts. Selene let them drag her across the side, unable to move her frozen limbs properly. She and Petrina hit the plankboard bottom with athunk, a wet slap, and great, heaving gasps for air.
If Augustus were here, he’d already have half the crew bleeding, and the other half begging to join him. She hated how much she missed that chaos.
Thorne, seated next to her, rested an elbow across his knee and blinked down at her from above.
“Why not let us drown?” Selene asked from the flat of her back. She was too tired to face him properly. “You’re just going to kill us anyway.”
“There’s only one thing you should know for certain,” he said. “Doing so now would ruin my plans.” He turned to Petrina. “Maybe I should thank you.”
Petrina looked ready to pass out, but still managed to shoot a glare up at him. “You couldn’t have considered that before throwing me into the sea to die?”
His mouth twitched, then he returned his attention to Selene. “We’re going to be at sea for quite a while, you and I. And now I know how to—or rather,who will—keep you in line.”
Petrina let loose a string of curses under her breath, but one word rang clearer than the rest. “Idiot.”
Selene sagged further into the boat’s bottom. She’d been played. Worse, she’d let him see her weakness.
But if Thorne thought he’d broken her, he’d find out just how dangerous hope could be when cornered.
