He huffed an uneasy laugh. “All right. If you must know—I drank and I whored. Then after a few years, I took proper lovers. I was never without one. I felt worst when I was alone. It wasn’t until many years later that I took a friend as a lover. And he… he was good for me. He showed me care and helped me climb out of the low places that I’d made my home.”
“And you were happy in that time? With him? Without Agatha?”
Lachlan shook his head. “I’m sorry, Imogen. I was content. I was satisfied and enamored. But I was never happy like I was with her.” He gave me an apologetic shrug. “But you’re not me. Plenty of us fools move on to find better love. Perhaps there’s hope for you yet.”
I blew out a long breath. “I feel worse.”
“I tend to have that effect.”
I laughed, then glanced behind me.Herculewas carved into the nearest ship’s nameboard, the scrolling letters painted red. I moved toward its gangplank. “Tell Agatha I love her.”
“As soon as I can find her.”
I stopped. “What?”
He was unbothered, but an alarming prickle sped down my body. “Haven’t seen her since last night. She’s likely just taking some time to herself after everything that’s happened. You know how she is.”
The oddity of it struck me. Agatha would never have left my side. She would have refused to let me wake in that strange room alone—but I was being absurd. She was no longer my keeper, and I did not want her to be. Besides, Agatha was sharp claws and full of mettle, with a spine like steel. I had no reason at all to feel such foreboding. I gave Lachlan a pointed look. “Find her. The second you get back to the palace go search for her. Tell her I’ll come back safe.”
His brow knit like I was being ludicrous. “All right,” he said, flippantly. He sobered at my stern glare. Nodded. “All right. I will.”
“Good. Thank you.” I started for theHerculefeeling like my heart was close to rupturing. “Take care of them both,” I said over my shoulder. He flattened his lips, nodded his head, and disappeared into the crowd.
The gangplank bowed under my weight, and I held my skirt in my hands, studying the way the light shifted over the fabric.Purples and blues and greens swirling over its black surface. I made straight for the cabin the captain appointed me, locked the door, and tie by tie, I yanked the gown from my body, peeling away the vines and feathers like they were an old skin. A lump sat in my throat as I folded it carefully and set it safely at the end of the cot.
The twine burned my fingers as I tore it from the folded trousers and tunic. They’d been made to fit me. My fingers bumped over the little gold buttons down the back of the tunic. It was designed to be opened to make space for my wings.
I forced the tunic on, when clanging rang through the side of the ship. A tolling bell. A low, eerie horn reverberated through the air, pulling my muscles taut with its warning. I ran from my cabin, out onto the deck, where the crew was frantic. They hurried to retie ropes that they’d already undone. They looped the mooring line back around the cleat. Even the docks below were clearing, people running toward the cobbled streets of the island, away from the harbor.
The ship’s crew was starting down the gangplank. “What’s going on?” I asked a sailor, pulling her arm to halt her. Her cheeks were sun-weathered, freckled, and lined.
“Enemy ships,” she said, inclining her head out toward the horizon.
I had to squint, but I went deathly still when I saw them.
Those familiar smudges.
Those red sails.
Serafi warships.
Half a dozen Serafi ships sat on the line of the sea. The fleet moved toward the harbor quickly, their ominous sails full of a northeasterly wind. Beyond the breakwaters, Varian warships weighed their anchors and cast off. They moved at a clip, out to the open water. There were other warships docked too, hundreds of sailors on their decks, hurrying to get their vessels pushed away from their slips.
I felt an unfathomable responsibility for them all.
It was because of Theodore and me—joining our blood on the floor of that drafty chamber at the top of King Nemea’s crumbling fort—that they were now in harm’s way.
The rope above me bit into my palm as I gripped it and pulled myself up to stand atop the ship’s rail. I took in the whole of the docks. Another Varian warship was two slips away from theHercule.Sailors readied the ship to sail, climbing over the rigging as easily as spiders did the strands of their webs.
“Your Majesty.” TheHercule’s captain looked up at me from the deck. His dark red hair was cropped short. The sun had darkened his skin with a thick covering of freckles. He narrowed his light brown eyes as he reached a hand up, a silent order that I comedown. “Protocol states that the docks empty until the navy clears the threat.”
I pointed behind him, toward the warship. “I’m going with them.”
He spun to look at the ship. “Going where?”
“Toward the Serafi fleet. I’m going to sink them.”
He smiled, a patronizing twist to his brow. “The king and commander were very clear in their orders. You are under my protection till your task is done. You’ve set foot on my ship, you’re my responsibility now.”
