“Safira,” I called.
As expected, my navigatrix was waiting in the shadows of another cabin. Safira moved in to seize Sofie with the fluid grace of a siren, lulling her into a sense of calm she tried to fight.
It wasn’t worth the energy. Some things, even a powerful chaos sorceress could not resist.
Sofie’s features went slack. When her eyes softened, I tried not to notice how similar they were to the way she used to look at me.
“The crew have everything prepared,” Safira confirmed before I could even ask.
“Thank you, first mate.”
Instead of excitement over her promotion, there was a weariness in Safira’s eyes. “Are you sure about that, captain?”
“I’ve never been surer of anything.” I sidestepped around Safira and Sofie, leaving them behind without a second glance. The truth was, I couldn’t resist Sofie anymore than I could resist a siren’s allure.
I was almost as sure that, if I thought on this any longer, despite everything—despite what Sofie had done—I’d doubt myself, and soon after, I might even cave.
I was building something. I tried to remind myself of that. I was trying to rebuild what Sofie had so selfishly destroyed.
But the weight in my stomach told me that I was too quick to sacrifice her, my final bride, for what I needed.
That I wasn’t any better than her.
But as I made my way onto the deck, I knew that I would make this choice again and again. If that made me the villain in Sofie’s tale, then so be it.
The sea gods knew she’d been the villain in mine.
And the heart of it, too.
Chapter twenty-two
Jax
IhadneverseenDewspellAcademy this close before. Even asTemeritysailed into its harbor just before dawn, I still wasn’t certain I wanted to.
I expected to hate Dewspell. I hated what it stood for. I hated that talented, hard-working women like my mother never had the money or luck to study magic here—a place that all but guaranteed a comfortable life full of magic.
I hated that it turned people like Sofie into villains, too, and made her feel like it was herdutyto do what others wouldn’t. I’d meant what I’d said to her. Villainy should always be a choice.
For all her wicked power and steely demeanor, Sofie’s heart was too gentle to make a choice that would harm others without Dewspell’s pressure. The only time she’d ever taken lives was to protect others. I admired her for it. I admired that she was so strong, she could make the choices that hurt. I admired that she would always do what was necessary.
I hoped she would understand what I was doing, too.
So I wanted to hate it, this place that made her. But as I stared at the clay-roofed turrets, the stone bridges and arches and the collection of fortresses they called a school, still painted a faint blue by the dregs of the night, I saw that for all its magic, it was just a place. As flawed and promising as any. There was no magical aura about it. No sense of foreboding or power as we sailed ever closer to the quay.
The only thing that made it special? It was the place that madeher.My savior. My bane.
Within the hour,Temeritywas anchored in the harbor along with a surprising number of ships, and a rowboat was making its way out to meet us with a rather stern-looking sorcerer. With brown olive skin spotted by sun exposure, a long white beard and voluminous robes—not to mention a long silk hat that looked suspiciously like a night cap—it was as if they’d chosen the most stereotypical sorcerer they could find.
The old man took his time climbing aboard, then standing and adjusting his robes. It was hardly practical attire for boarding a ship. Two attendants scrambled up behind him, one with a harbormaster’s logbook tucked beneath her arm.
“Yes, well?” the sorcerer said after he’d fussed and cleared his throat several times. “Out with it, young man. Why are you here?”
That suited me perfectly well. If he didn’t wish to waste time with introductions and greetings, I wouldn’t, either.
“I’ve come to make an exchange. Sorceress Sofie Dar’Vester is in the captain’s cabin, under a siren’s thrall. The sorceress, one of your balancers, owes me a rather large debt. Staggering, in fact. One not even she can repay—not without the help of her school. But I’m a generous man, and willing to make a trade: Her life for the magic I seek.”
The elder sorcerer huffed, unimpressed with my demands or the threat to Sofie’s life. “Yes, yes, but why are youhere?”
