My stomach drops.
“What’s that?” Logan doesn’t turn around.
“The sirens.” Kieran pushes off the mast, moving closer. “Evie heard Oliver. Callie won’t say what she heard, but we knowshe heard something. Jade was halfway over the railing before you grabbed her. Even I felt the pull. But you were unaffected, fighting all of us off like you couldn’t hear a thing.”
He knows. Obviously not about the time travel, but he knows Logan’s using magic that’s beyond what witches should be able to do.
Out here on the dangerous seas, how long is Logan going to keep his time travel ability secret? Kieran’s clearly onto him. Evie likely will be too, assuming she isn’t already. Eventually he’s going to have to give them answers. The only question iswhenthat’s going to be.
Logan shrugs, looking almost bored. “Maybe the sirens didn’t have anything to offer me.”
“Everyone wants something.” Kieran’s tone sharpens. “They find your deepest desire and weaponize it. No one’s immune.”
“Apparently I am.”
“That’s not possible.”
Callie looks up from the charts, her chin raised, her eyes daring Kieran to push this further. “Logan saved our lives. If he hadn’t held us back, we’d be monster-fish food by now.”
Kieran’s eyes flick to her. “I’m not saying he didn’t save us. I’m asking how.”
“And he answered you. Everything doesn’t need a sinister explanation. Maybe some people are just stronger than others. Maybe Logan’s spent so long learning to control his mind that a siren song can’t break through.”
Kieran tosses his dagger in the air and catches it by the hilt, zeroing in on Logan the moment he catches it in his palm.
Logan doesn’t flinch.
Evie points to the horizon, where patches of night sky are peeking through the gray. “The clouds are thinning,” she says. “If they keep up, we could see stars within the hour.”
“Then we wait.” Kieran moves to the bow. “We’ll rest in shifts while we can.”
Callie bends back over the charts, murmuring something to Evie about constellations. Kieran settles against the railing, one hand resting on his dagger at his hip, his eyes scanning the water.
Logan stays at the helm. His back is to me, his hands gripping the wheel like it’s keeping him from falling apart.
I should go to him and tell him I still want him, even while I’m working through my feelings about what we talked about below deck.
But my feet won’t move.
So, I find a spot near the back mast, pull my knees to my chest, and wait for unfamiliar stars to guide our way forward.
JADE
In the hours that pass,it’s like someone keeps taking the night sky, shaking it like a snow globe, and scattering stars in places they don’t belong.
“There.” Callie points overhead. “The cluster of a serpent eating its tail.”
Evie leans over the charts, her finger tracing invisible lines. “That’s the Ouroboros formation that appears every one hundred and thirteen minutes. Which means we need to head...” She squints at the sky, then back at the paper. “Southeast. I think.”
“You think?” Kieran says dryly.
“The charts are three hundred years old and written in Latin.” Evie doesn’t look up. “I’m doing my best.”
“Latin.” He says it like he’s appraising a weapon. “I didn’t realize you were armed with a dead language.”
“It’s syntax, not steel.” She pauses for a beat. “Although both are capable of causing ungodly amounts of pain.”
They continue like that as I gaze at the ever-changing stars, trying and failing to make sense of them.
