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“Three!” he exclaimed. “You’ve been carrying around three demonic relics this whole time?”

“What else was I supposed to do with them? I couldn’t leave them at Kemp Manor. They’re family heirlooms.” I let out a breath and stared back out the window. “It is a burden to carry this much power around, which I quickly discovered after leaving Devonelle.”

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat as they continued to buzz.

“When I reached Old Town, I decided it was time to sell one of my relics. To Della’s great chagrin,” I admitted with a huff. “But I didn’t know what else to do. I was running out of money, and my family didn’t leave me with a lot of options.” I shook my head. “When I met Hartley, he told me he knew a dark relic buyer.”

“That’s how you ended up at The Drowned Goose,” he guessed.

I nodded. “I thought if I could sell one quickly, I could finally move on from what happened that night. That I could put the past behind me. But it all fell apart. And you know the rest.”

He was quiet, then said, “I can’t imagine how hard that must’ve been for you.”

“You’re right. You can’t,” I snapped back. “The relics come from the Twisted Sisters. They are incredibly powerful.”

Their father, Gorrath, was more than just our patron demon. He had lain with one of my great-grandmothers centuries ago, and now his demon blood was part of our line.

“Which one were you going to sell him?”

I set a hand on my ribs, remembering I’d decided to sell Dominique’s obsidian stone because she’d been causing the most trouble, but that I’d told Hartley something else.

“The Demon of Torment.”

He smiled. “Amarielle?”

“Do not say her name out loud! Don’t you know anything about demons?”

He placed an apologetic hand on his chest. “Not as well as you, apparently. But every sailor knows the Demon of Torment,” he said, although there was nothing boastful in it.

It was his turn to look out the window as if he could feel the pull of the tide beyond the buildings in the same way he could hear the blood moving through my veins.

“Torment is a part of life at sea,” he said quietly. “Everyone assumes the storms are the worst. They aren’t. The quiet is worse. The body begins to ache for proof that you still exist. That you are more than a shadow moving across endless water.” He drew in a breath. “The cruelest part is that every sailor chooses it. He leaves again and again because the sea calls to him in a way nothing else does. He loves it, even knowing what it will cost him. And sometimes,” he said, his gaze entwining with mine, “he returns to find the quiet has followed him home.”

His gaze dropped for the briefest moment. I knew he was no longer speaking only of sailors.

“That is torment,” he continued. “To leave a man suspended between the freedom of the sea and the comfort of home. Desperate for both, but not entirely satisfied by either.”

His gaze returned to me, and I realized I had been holding my breath, clinging to his words as though they explained something about my own restlessness.

I had once known a house filled with voices, warmth, and belonging, as long as I didn’t put a toe out of line. The rules that brought me comfort had eventually revealed themselves as conditional, dependent upon how faithfully I served Mama’s purpose.

When I refused to join her madness, she destroyed everything. Now only silence remained where my family had been. I hadn’t grown used to it, despite insisting I wanted to be alone.

I shifted, wringing my hands together. The movement drew Yves’s attention.

“I’ve never been a sailor,” I said, “but I know what you mean.”

“You do?”

I nodded. “I miss Devonelle and the cool mountain air. I miss the life I used to have, even if it wasn't perfect. It makes you long for anything to numb the pain.”

“You are allowed to miss what was good,” Yves said, “without forgiving what was done to you.” He reached for the side of my face, brushing his cold fingers against my skin. “Something tells me you know a thing or two about tormenting a man,” he said. “Perhaps even better than the sea.”

After what had happened between us, there could be no mistaking his meaning. We had already crossed every boundary I had promised myself I would maintain.

I pulled his hand off my face, realizing I’d said too much. “You seemed perfectly satisfied when you left my room.”

“I was.”