His jaw tightens, but he doesn’t argue. “This better not be a waste of time, Ashford.”
I get dressed, and we journey to the beach in a blur of golden trees and stumbling steps. My legs don’t want to cooperate. My brain keeps trying to slip back into that warm, peaceful haze. But every time it does, I think about Oliver—or Logan reminds me about Oliver—and the fog burns away.
Eventually, the boat appears through the trees, nestled in the cove where we left it. Jade’s pacing back and forth on the deck, and Callie’s slumped against the back mast, looking half-dead.
“He’s below deck,” Logan tells us. “Come on.”
Logan wades into the water first. Kieran and I follow.
The moment I hit the water, the cold hits me, and suddenly everything’s sharper. Clearer. And the second my feet hit the deck, my heat sensing ability flares back to life.
Five signatures. Mine, of course. Jade’s pulse is faster than usual. Callie’s is weak and sluggish. Logan’s is level and intense, and Kieran’s is hot as a furnace and steady as steel.
Five.Only five.
If Oliver was below deck, I’d feel him.
I turn to Logan, dread coursing through my veins. “Where’s Oliver?”
His heat signature remains steady and controlled.
“I lied,” he says, as if he didn’t just use two simple words to shred my world to pieces. “You needed a reason that would pull you out of the lotus haze. Oliver was that reason.”
Steel whispers against leather, and Kieran’s blade is out and pressed to Logan’s throat before I can blink.
“Give me one reason not to open you from ear to ear.”
Logan doesn’t flinch. “Because it worked.”
“Kieran,” I say, although it comes out sharp and flat. “Don’t.”
He doesn’t move the blade, fire blazing in his eyes. “He used your brother as bait.”
“I know what he did.”
“Evie.” Jade takes one step forward, quiet and careful. “If he hadn’t found a way to break through?—”
“I know.” The words come out hollow. “I just… wanted it to be true.”
Kieran holds for another beat. Then he withdraws the blade—not sheathing it, but lowering it to his side.
I sink down onto a bench and press my hands against my face.
I will not cry. I will not break down in front of everyone.
Eleanor wouldn’t cry. Eleanor would already be cataloguing data and forming a plan.
“I needed you off that island,” Logan says, closer now. “The lie was the fastest way.”
“I understand.” I lower my hands. “Logically, I understand. Just... give me a minute.”
He nods and steps back, moving toward Jade.
The lotus haze,I replay Logan’s words in my mind.
We’re on the Land of the Lotus Eaters.
Of course that’s where we are. Of course that’s why the fruit was so tempting. Of course that’s why I ate it and thennever wanted to leave.
