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Austrian. Almost pleasant and it disturbs me, so I say nothing.

He smiles. “Very good. Silence becomes you when it is chosen wisely.”

My fingers curl beneath the table. He walks to the opposite chair, then pauses, the dark candles barely illuminating his features. “Before you consider anything theatrical with the cutlery, understand this; If you use one object in this room as a weapon, one of your men will suffer for it.”

My breath stills and his smile widens by a fraction.

He sits as the ship rocks gently beneath us. We are only two people seated across a fine dinner table by candlelight. Then he removes one glove finger by finger, slowly enough to make the act obscene. “I have waited a very long time for this evening.”

I stare at him, release words dripping with irritation and mustered courage, “If you mean to kill me, get on with it.”

A chuckle, warm and wrong.

“Kill you?” He places the glove beside his plate. “No, no. I did not cross countries, years, and disappointments merely to kill you at dinner.”

“Then what do you want?”

He studies me with eyes too pale in the candlelight. “To look at you.”

My skin prickles.

“To see whether the stories were true.”

“What stories?”

“The Widow. The beautiful little executioner. The woman who marries monsters and buries them beneath charity.” His smile turns almost fond. “How proud your mother would be.”

The room falls away.

My mother?

The word should not sound in his mouth. I lean forward slowly. “Do not speak of her.”

His expression brightens. “I wondered if you had her eyes,” he says. “You do, somewhat. Though yours are colder.”

“You did not know my mother,” I hiss.

He laughs softly. “Oh, Olive.”

My blood chills.

No title.

No Widow.

My name.

“I knew her screams.”

I am across the table before thought forms or I try to be. The chair crashes backward. My hand reaches for the knife and he does not move. Not even when the door opens behind me and a pistol cocks against the back of my head and I freeze.

The Collector sighs. “Sit.”

The pistol presses harder. Slowly, I lower my hand. Slowly, I sit and he watches with pleased patience. “Excellent. You are learning already.”

“I will kill you,” I promise.

“Yes,” he says. “I imagined you would say something like that.”