I shot him a look over my shoulder. “You’re a bastard, you know that?”
He grinned like it was a compliment. “Yes.”
I walked to the desk. The drawer stuck before giving way, revealing the Eye of Nareth glinting in the lantern light.
His eyes lit like a cat spotting prey. “You’d really try to keep it from me?” He tilted his head. “After I gift-wrappedit for you, no less.”
“I never asked for your help.”
“No,” he said, leaning a hip against the desk, “but you didn’t say no, either. You didn’t have to walk out of that tavern with me. Do you have any idea what I had to do to distract Séraphine that night? The risks I took so you could walk away with this pretty little bauble?”
I met his gaze, my voice steady. “I’m sure you enjoyed every second of it.”
He chuckled low, stepping in until the edge of the desk pressed into the back of my thighs. “Maybe.”
Veyrion’s fingers closed around the stone before I could stop him. He turned it over once, twice, lips curling like he’d just won a game no one else knew they were playing.
“Such trouble for such a little thing,” he murmured as he pressed it to his right eye.
I held my breath, waiting for the Eye’s reaction. Instead—nothing.
Veyrion stilled. A low hum of confusion escaped him before he let out a bark of laughter that cracked through the cabin.
“Oh, Neri…” He pulled it back, turning it toward the lamplight. “Do you know what this is?”
My stomach sank. “It’s—”
“—a rock,” he finished, grinning wide enough to show teeth. “A veryordinary, veryboringpiece of obsidian. Not a drop of magic in it.”
He threw it, caught it, and shook his head. “Clever. Very clever. Almost had me.” His attention moved over me, keen and amused. “Tell me—was this your idea, or does your brooding captain have more brains than I remember?”
Veyrion rolled the stone in his palm, thumb dragging over its dull surface. That easy smirk of his thinned into something cold. “Stop playing games, Neri.” His voice dropped, silk over steel. “Where’s the real one?”
I kept my chin high, even as my pulse thudded in my throat. “Thatisthe real one.”
He stepped closer, close enough that I caught the faint scent of salt and iron clinging to him. His eyes, pale as ice under moonlight, locked on mine.
“Do you think I can’t tell the difference between a relic and a river stone?” he asked, almost gently—almost. “I didn’t claw myway across half the damn sea, bleed and bargain with things better left in the deep, just to be handed a child’s trick.”
I swallowed hard. “Maybe you should’ve asked better questions before you started making deals.”
His smile returned, slow and dangerous.
I folded my arms, the weight of his stare pressing down like the deep. My pulse quickened. “You think I’d risk my neck for a rock?”
Veyrion tilted his head, studying me like a card player weighing the odds. His smirk was lazy, but there was a spark of calculation in it. “You lied about your name. Why should I believe you about this?”
I stepped forward, refusing to give him ground. “You shouldn't”.
That's what he said to me in Shadeau, it only felt right to echo it back now.
He closed the distance anyway, stopping just short of brushing against me. “You don’t know me well enough to realize—I’m very good at taking what people don’t want to give.”
Veyrion’s eyes flicked past me toward the deck, where the clash of steel still rang out like a drumbeat. “Pity,” he said, tossing the fake Eye onto Alaric’s desk with a careless clink. “I was hoping you’d be smarter than this.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning,” he drawled, stepping closer until I could see the faint flecks of gold in his irises, “I won't leave this ship empty-handed.”
