Page 22

It takes hours at sea to get to the library island, and I can smell it long before we see land. Great plumes of black smoke pour into the sky, even when it’s still raining. The sea feels angry, heavy waves smacking against the side of the ship as I struggle to sleep. I kept to my promise, climbing into his bed every night, and he is never there. For two nights, he has not come into the bed, but it still smells like him every morning I wake up alone. I’ve half convinced myself he is sneaking in while I’m asleep and leaving before I wake up, but I’d notice, surely.

“I haven’t seen the sunlight in days.”

Freckles yawns, her arms wrapped tightly across her chest. “I hate this part of the world. It’s horrid in every area.” She stops by the steps to the upper part where the wheel is, where I nearly fell off the ship and saw magic for the first time. “I’m going to stay down in my room and keep myself busy with work because I’ll worry otherwise,” she tells me as Wyatt walks past with a charming smirk.

“I can keep you busy down—” Wyatt says, but Chaos hits him across the back of his head.

“Keep fucking walking,” Chaos grumbles.

Freckles is blushing red as she watches Wyatt and Chaos walk off. “I’m sorry about him. He never turns the flirting off, but he isn’t a bad person underneath it all.”

“Well, I was telling you good luck.” She hugs me once, and I surprise myself by hugging her back. It almost feels natural and normal. “Don’t die. Not that I think Draven will let you die, but still, don’t die.”

I nod at her with a smile, and she walks off as I head up to the wheel. Draven is leaning against it and staring out at the island coming up. The sea is calmer around the island coming into view, and Draven hands me a spyglass to see better. I hold it up and look through, studying the land for a long moment. “It looks like a maze on fire.”

“Because it is in a sense,” Draven agrees, and it might be the first time he has ever agreed with anything I’ve said.

I keep looking at the island, seeing that it’s mostly covered by one giant, connected, black stone building. It’s all one flat level, straight across a massive plank of an island that looks like it’s a horseshoe shape. The building is plainer than I expected, no statues or carvings, nothing but smooth walls that nature has tried to claw back, with steps leading up to big stone doors at the front, dead in the center of the island where there is a small sandy beach. There’s nothing that different about the building except for parts of it are on fire and other parts are in ruins like a giant ball has smashed through it.

I hand the spyglass back and look away, a feeling of fear settling into my stomach that I can’t shift. My body is screaming for me to run in the opposite direction of that library, while my heart is begging me to go for Rowe.

“We’re going alone. I can’t risk anyone else, and I can protect you better if it’s just you I need to focus on,” Draven informs me. Tracker comes up the steps, and Draven turns to him. “Put the anchor down here. We don’t take the ship any closer to that place.” Tracker turns on his heel and goes to drop the anchor and stop the ship. Draven turns the wheel, turning the entire ship to the side softly as we cut through the waves.

The rain doesn’t stop as I watch him grabbing the wheel, his arms flexing and wet. Locks of dark hair wildly fall across his forehead, and his chiseled face only looks more defined thanks to the rain, thanks to how close I am staring. It’s unfair he looks like he was made by the gods for women to stare at. And want. If he weren’t so unreasonable…maybe I’d be happy to be in his bed. But any feelings swimming through my mind disappear as he speaks. “Remember not to run in there. I will be really, really fucking annoyed if you die at the first key. You would have given me a headache for no reason at all.”

“I’ll meet you by the boat, where I can’t hear you talk,” I snap before walking down the steps.

It takes half an hour for the ship to fully stop. Draven stomps over to me and holds out a waist clip made of leather, with a dagger hanging off it. He grunts, holding it out to me.

“Thank you.” I clip it around my waist, touching the hilt of the purple dagger. “What’s the catch?”

“Don’t stab me in the back with it,” he suggests.

I shrug. “Don’t piss me off, then.”

He grumbles something about the gods testing him as he grabs the ladder down to the boat and begins to climb down. I already feel seasick looking at the choppy waves, which are pushing the boat into the ship with a repeating smack, long before I actually climb down and sit opposite Draven, clenching the plank seat with my hands.

The rain is misty now, making it hard to see much through it, but Draven picks up the oars and unties the boat from the ship before pushing us away, through the waves that shake the boat. He rows, not speaking a word, as the sea settles more, the waves becoming calm, and I realize after a few minutes there is no noise here. No birds, no lapping waves, just pure silence. I can hear him pushing the oars through the water, and his breathing, mine too. That’s it.

I want to ask where the birds are, where the sounds of the fire are, but I don’t dare want the answer he might just have. I nearly jump when his deep voice fills the void. “You need to start talking. I can’t deal with the silence from you. It’s more annoying than when you talk.”

“I don’t like to talk when I’m scared. You talk,” I mutter, digging my nails into the bench.

He frowns. “Don’t be scared. They won’t kill you here. Anyone that dies on this island is said to be stuck here, haunting this place, and the ghosts already here are not going to want you stuck here. You will annoy them by begging the gods to bring you back to life.”

“You’re such an asshole.”

“Wow, it’s no wonder you think that when you’ve been around men like Wyatt. All ease and charm,” he deadpans, but his tone changes into indifference. “You’re in a relationship with him.”

“No.” I wince at how quickly I answer that. “See, you don’t know everything.”

“Then tell me everything between you two,” he commands.

I arch an eyebrow. “First, you worried about me and Tracker. Now you’re interested in my ex.” Draven almost flinches at the word ex. “Fine, he isn’t really an ex. I was curious about sex, and he was just there, easy and charming, as you put it.” And experienced in something I was not. “That’s why it happened and I sought him out, but it never meant more than that, and I never went back for a second night. I wasn’t interested again, and he went off to do his own training.”

“So you had sex once and he couldn’t even make you come back again? Stupid male.” He leans in, those breathtaking eyes fixed on mine, and I feel my breath stutter. “If it had been with me, you’d be begging for another night and crying out for the gods to stop time so we wouldn’t ever finish. I wouldn’t have you just once. I’d never fucking stop, and you’d never want me to.” I shiver, his words settling into me like fire licking up my spine.

“Well, there won’t be a once for us,” I whisper, trying to claw away his words and his new grip on my body.