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“There’s another way to the Still Blue, Hess. ” She leaned forward. “You have the advantage. You have the ships. You don’t need Sable for the coordinates—”
“I have the coordinates. That’s not the issue. Control over the boy is the only thing we lack. ”
“Cinder is Peregrine’s . . . not Sable’s. ”
Hess drew a slow breath. She could almost hear his mind opening to other possibilities, fanning out like a deck of cards.
He wanted to believe her. She could do this. She could convince him.
“Peregrine’s tribe is roughly the same number as Sable’s. Four hundred. Think about it. Anything you need to know about being out here, about the outside world, Peregrine can help you—and you can trust him. You don’t have that with Sable. Think about afterward. When you get to the Still Blue, what do you think will happen? Do you think the two of you will suddenly become friends?”
Hess scoffed. “I don’t need friends. ”
“But you don’t need an enemy, either. Don’t fool yourself into thinking Sable is anything other than that. As much as I hate you, I won’t double-cross you and neither will Peregrine. Sable will. ”
Hess thought for a long moment, his eyes holding steady on her. “Tell me,” he said. “How is it that you’ve come to trust the Outsiders, and they you?”
Aria shrugged. “I started with the right one. ”
Hess stared at his hands. She knew he was imagining how he could cut Sable out. She needed to convince him, but she had to be careful. Her fear of Sable dug deep into her bones, but Hess couldn’t be underestimated.
Hess lifted his head. “I want my son to come with me. I want you to help convince him that he should. ”
Aria shook her head. “You need to help me this time. Not the other way around. This is your chance to choose right. ”
“I have. ” Hess stood and moved to the door, stopping there. “I’m not under any delusions. I know the kind of man Sable is. But I also know he won’t cross me. He needs me or he goes nowhere. ”
“He needs you like he needs a meal. ”
Wrong thing to say; she’d pushed too far.
Hess stiffened, sucking in a breath. Then he turned his back on her and left.
Later, with Soren snoring in the opposite cot, Aria told Roar everything. She started with what had been done to Perry.
Roar sat up and pushed his knuckles into his eyes. Long minutes passed and he didn’t say a word.
Watching him, Aria remembered the days after Liv had died.
She had considered not telling Roar. Did he really need to hear that the same man who’d killed Liv had tortured his best friend? But she’d needed to talk to him. She’d needed to release some of her anger or her mind woul
d explode. And they were good at this, she and Roar. They had practice handing their worries back and forth.
She broke the silence herself, telling Roar about Loran, and that brought him back to her. He moved to her side and took her hand. He was careful. Gentle as he curled his fingers into hers.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
She knew he wasn’t asking about her injured hand. “Like I finally got what I’ve always wanted, but it’s not what I actually wanted. ”
Roar nodded, like she’d made sense, and stretched his legs out in front of him. “Perry and I,” he said after a while, “neither one of us had the best luck with parents. ”
Aria peered at him. She found him looking at her from the corner of his eye too.
She knew little about Roar’s past, considering how close they were. When he was eight, he’d come to the Tides with his grandmother, hungry and homeless, the soles in his shoes worn through. From the way Roar had always spoken, that was the moment his life began. He had never mentioned anything prior to that day—until now.
“My mother wasn’t the most monogamous of women. I don’t remember very much about her, other than that. Which makes us very different, considering Liv is the only girl I’ve ever been with, and she was going to be . . . I wanted her to be . . . ” He sucked on his bottom lip, lost in his thoughts for a moment. “I never wanted anyone else. ”
“I know. ”
