She turned the vial slowly, watching the silver and crimson swirl like a storm brewing in a bottle. "Tell me somethin’, Cap’taine—don’t it strike you as strange? How somethin’ like her ended up in your hands? You ever stop to wonder if that was fate, or somethin’ darker watchin’ the tides?"
I clenched my jaw, unwilling to rise to whatever game she was playing. But deep down, I already knew the answer. At first, I’d believed Nerina was some twisted punishment—Meris’s final laugh, the ocean’s way of mocking me. Something impossibly rare and impossibly fragile, placed in my hands just so I could fail to protect it. But now... now I wasn’t so sure. Maybe she wasn’t a punishment at all.
I’d told myself it was all strategy—use her, use the artifact, break the curse, live happily ever after. If she couldn’t help me, she was nothing but a distraction. I’d been using her. That’s all.
Séraphine exhaled slowly, savoring the weight of our conversation. Then, with a flick of her wrist, she moved toward a low wooden table at the center of the room. She reached for a kettle resting over smoldering embers, the scent of steeped herbs thick in the air. She poured the dark liquid into three small cups, her movements slow and deliberate, as though the act of making tea was its own kind of ritual.
I hesitated, watching as the steam curled upward, carrying notes of jasmine, cinnamon, and something bitter I couldn’t place. Nerina, still tense from the ordeal, cast a wary glance at the cup placed in front of her and made no move to touch it.
Séraphine took her own cup, lifted it to her lips, and let a sly smile curl. "Got a feelin’ that pretty head o’ yours is brimmin’ with questions, cher."
I leaned forward, my fingers curling around the ceramic, but I didn’t drink. 'Who has it?'
Séraphine let the silence hang like a storm cloud, "Maitre Vesper."
The name landed like a stone in my gut. I set the cup down without drinking. "Of course."
Nerina frowned. "Who is Maitre Vesper?"
Séraphine chuckled low, stirring her tea slowly. "A collector, a warlock, a broker of power—depends what kinda mask he wearin' that day."
'Where is he?'
'Ahhh,' Séraphine drawled, black eye glinting. 'Now that right there’s the real question, ain’t it? Maitre Vesper don’t never stay still in Shadeau. He move like the tide—here one day, gone the next. You don’t find him ‘less he wantin’ to be found."
Nerina crossed her arms. 'Then how do we find him?'
Séraphine set her cup down, tapping a single finger on the wood like she was knocking on fate’s door. "He comin’ to you—just you wait."
Nerina spoke again. "And what does he want with the Eye?"
Séraphine shifted, eyes fixed on Nerina.
“That Eye of Nareth,” she said, voice low. “Come from a Seer long gone—one who ain't just seen the world, but seenthroughit. Past illusion, past memory, past time itself.”
She dragged a finger along the rim of the cup. “Ain’t no crystal ball. Naw, it show whatwas—what been taken, buried, or twisted. Things folks don’t want seen.”
Something flickering behind her gaze. “But it don’t hand you answers tied up neat with ribbon, non. It’s a mirror, not a map. You look into it, you best be ready to see what truth been hidin’. Might not be the truth you want—but it’s the one you get.”
Her voice dropped to a hush, grave now. “An’ the price? Ain’t just steep—it’s soul-deep. The Eye never gives more than it takes.”
The first warning came as a flicker—heat rising under my skin like fire licking through old scars. I gritted my teeth, but it spread fast, curling up my spine in searing pulses. My breath caught. Black veins spread across the back of my hand, pulsing like the curse had been waiting—watching—and now, it wanted back in. The hunger I kept buried stirred deep in my gut, coiling cold and vicious behind my ribs. It spread to my soles—a needling pain that climbed my calves like creeping fire. The potion was wearing off.
We were out of time.
My vision blurred for a heartbeat. A pulse of nausea rolled through me. We need to go.Now.
Another flare—hotter this time. The skin at my ankle cracked, just slightly, but enough to smell blood. My blood.
“We’re out of time—” I said through clenched teeth. I didn’t finish the sentence.
The next surge nearly brought me to my knees. Séraphine smiled—not kind, not cruel. Just knowing.
“Bye Cap’taine,” she said softly. “I got a feelin’ we gon’ cross paths againreal soon.”
26
Nerina
