I gnaw at my lip. I don’t like showing the king weakness, but I also remember the feel of that icy water in my lungs all too well. I’d been so focused on hiding from the Strayed when I followed Niko’s death into the lagoon, I hadn’t had the space to consider it too carefully. But now, a kernel of dread lodges in my throat.
“The sirens…do they drownanyonethat steps into the water?”
Niko laughs, the deep sound rolling over my skin like a shadow. “After last night, I believe you’ve made eternal friends of the sirens. A rare accomplishment, I must say.” He tilts his head thoughtfully, adding with a shrug, “Besides…they only drown people when they’re bored.”
At my incredulous look, he clarifies, “They used to have the entire sea to roam, but now they’re chained to this lagoon. I imagine it can get quite dull.”
His answer doesn’t soothe my worry of drowning, but it’s his other words that coil tightly in my stomach. “They can’t leave the lagoon?”
“They can swim upriver, of course, but generally speaking they’re as trapped in Letum as the rest of us. Though some of us prefer to pass the times in more…conventional ways.”
“You think idling away in a gothic palace, killing anything that comes near you is conventional?”
Niko only grins and holds out his hand, his fingers gloved once again. I’m distracted enough by his admission that I take it.
Trapped.
The word dives beneath my skin, pulling it too tight, making it itch. Even the cold water sloshing over my ankles as I wade into the lagoon isn’t enough to relieve it. I’d been held in the Amelioration camps for a little over ten years, shipped from one doctor to another, their desperation and hope thick in the air that something about me would lead them to a cure for the plague.
It never had, and though I’d eventually escaped, the feeling of being chained—of having no agency over my own body—is something now carved into the foundation of myself. It’s why I’ve never owned anything or allowed anyone too close: I couldn’t risk binding myself to anything ever again.
It makes sense now, why there were so many ships in the harbor. Like every vessel in the region had anchored there andnever left. Why everyone has accepted a life of unpredictability and violence living next to the nightmare of the Strayed. There’s nowhere else to go.
“How long have you been trapped here?” I ask slowly, Niko’s grip tightening on mine as my feet slip on the silt.
He doesn’t bother to look over his shoulder, his feet splashing in a steady rhythm as he wades toward the beach.
“How long since the plague started?” he replies with a tight shrug that tells me he knowsexactlyhow long.
I rip my hand from his grip and halt abruptly, momentarily forgetting my fear of the sirens. “You told me you control the wards. That you’ll open them if I help you.”
“Areyou agreeing to help me, then?” Niko asks lightly with another lopsided smile. I grimace, hating the way that smile so easily disarms me, slides under my skin like there’s no resistance.
“Tell me the truth, Niko.”
His ribbons shiver in pleasure as his name rolls from my tongue, even as he heaves an irritable sigh. “I’d advise you to be far more careful in the bargains you make in the future. I never promised to open the wards.” At my incensed look, hetsksin an amused manner. “Ah, ah. I promised they would open, Willa. I never said how. And it was your folly, not mine, for failing to demand the details of the terms.”
For a wild moment, I consider taking my chances with his ribbons and tackling him into the water. Maybe hold his head under until he decides to give up those ‘details’. Instead, I chew my lip until my fury has abated enough to form words.
“Does that mean I’m trapped here, too?”
I don’t know what I’ll do if he says yes. Probably something stupid.
His eyes devour the starlight. “The wards have been solidified by the death of dreams in your world and the death of magic inthis one. Just like the island, they’ve been decaying slowly since the beginning of the plague, until nothing could penetrate them. Not even me.”
Niko’s expression is unreadable as he peers at me, into me. A hint of madness, the only thing edging the darkness of his gaze. “As to whether you are trapped…well, that’s entirely dependent on you, Darling.”
Without explaining further, he turns on his heel and splashes the rest of the way toward the beach, his ribbons streaming behind him. Leaving me gaping after him, knee-deep in the lagoon, mulling over his words. The island, the wards…he’d said they were all anchored to him.
The man with death in his heart, with decay in his veins.
IsNikowhat’s causing the plague? Is it his power that’s killed the magic of Letum, that’s destroyed so many dreams?
I charge after him, determined to get the answers he hadn’t been inclined to give last night.
After laughing himself hoarse at my expense, Niko’s fingers had begun to twitch so furiously, it was clear he needed more rest. I told myself that’s why I didn’t press for more, but really, if I’d been forced to look him in the eye a moment longer, I probably would have combusted with mortification.
I’d watched the rise and fall of his chest for hours. I found him easier to look at with his eyes closed. His features were no softer in sleep, the sharp hewn angles and strong lines just as sharply cut. But without the manic black glint of his gaze, and with the soft way his lashes swept over his cheek, his beauty no longer felt like an attack. It felt warm—a mirror of the same thing still curling through my stomach now, hours later.
