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Emerald raised a brow at Ruby, who turned red. Pearl cleared her throat.
“We were planning to visit you. I was worried when you called me and told them that perhaps visiting you would ease everyone’s minds. Then we found out that Ruby spilled it to Silver—”
“Accidentally!” Ruby blurted out.
“—and let’s just say our trip had to happen quicker than we planned. I’m sorry, honey, for stressing you out, and for our brother’s behavior. But he heard the news first and didn’t listen to the rest. He acted out of instinct and concern for you. It was our lapse for not correcting him fast enough.”
Silence. Sapphire glanced at Silver, who had gone mute and was leaning against Rosa’s touch. It was odd seeing them be so openly intimate, especially when Rosa had been nothing but a hard, unflinching stone around him. It was also odd to find her here when she had fought him tooth and nail not to leave her island, but a look at Sapphire confirmed that every single person who stood here had one purpose: her. Worry for Sapphire, concern for her health and happiness.
“Okay,” Sapphire finally responded to Pearl. “I appreciate you guys traveling a long way to come here. But I’m also not pleased that you resorted to trespassing instead of contacting me and in doing so, you disrespected this island’s security and the people’s safety.”
“We understand,” Pearl said.
“So, it’s Klaus’s decision whether to accept your apology or not.”
No one expected that, not even Klaus. He searched her gaze, wondering what she was up to before it dawned that this was her way of apologizing to him, too, for her family’s trespassing and attack. She didn’t say anything to reveal her stand, but he could read those blue eyes too well and detected just a hint of soft hope in them…and really, who was he to resist such a look and to dash that hope?
“I will forget about this incident as long as no more trespassing occurs via the use of magic or any other means,” he announced.
The sisters relaxed and Sapphire grinned. Rosa eyed him curiously while Silver continued looking perturbed. Then Sapphire took Klaus’s hand and Klaus forgot all about being offended by it.
“Now that that’s out of the way, how about dinner in the castle so we can catch up?”
Dinner was an awkward affair, mostly because the women had it in their minds to sit at the smaller dining table in a different hall where they could sit more closely to each other. While that made it easier to reach out to Sapphire and take her hand, brush her shoulder, and do a little bit of physical touch here and there, it put Maddox on Klaus’s other side, with the warlock seated in front of him, glaring at him from time to time. Pearl and Emerald were alternating between stories to keep everyone entertained, but all Klaus could think about was the vampire close to his neck and the warlock with the easiest access to hit him with that powerful magic. If he lowered his guard, would they dare?
“—and then Silver thought it would be a good idea to just go with it and proceeded to ice the sea and trap the ship that the pirates had to use to make their getaway,” Pearl recounted, rolling her gray-white eyes and trying to keep her laughter in. “If they were stealing from ordinary civilians, it would have been fine, but they were also stealing from Ruby’s pirate friends.”
“Ex-pirates,” Ruby corrected. “Merchants now. Silver helped the bad guys from getting away and the merchant crew held them down and brought them to Centro.”
“That’s the only part I don’t agree with,” Emerald said. “Why bring them to Centro, where they might end up escaping and doing it all over again?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, would you have been more agreeable with killing them?”
Emerald sighed at Pearl’s teasing tone, then shook her head. “Of course not. Killing is worse. I just think there could have been better punishments.”
“Good logic, except we don’t have prisons for average troublemakers like them,” Sapphire piped in. “It’s too harsh to toss them in the Wasteland, where they would rot away. Bringing them to Centro seems fair, as long as warnings were put in place.”
“Oh, there were warnings,” Pearl assured with relish. “All kinds of threats that would make skin shrivel and the lesser mortals think twice before they stole again.”
“I would have thrown them to the Wasteland,” Klaus found himself saying, then staring at the heads that whipped toward him. He shrugged, then tried to organize his words. “We’ve had our fair share of pirates bringing trouble and a majority of them had been pardoned or given multiple chances. But they never learned and continued to kidnap people, mess with islands, steal what wasn’t theirs…oh, and torture innocents. I say all of that warrants a permanent residence in the Wasteland.”
Silver breathed in sharply. “So, that’s your solution? Just toss someone in the Wasteland and be done with it?”
Klaus shrugged again. “Why not? It’s not like they haven’t been warned over and over again.”
“And what if one of them was just lost and influenced, and it was a mistake? What if you found out that that person was innocent, and you put him there? It’s close to impossible to get a person out of that island.”
A thrum fluttered over Klaus’s shoulders when he detected the fury in the warlock’s tone and realized it was personal. The sisters and Maddox tensing was another indication, and he tried to recall what he knew about the Wasteland. It was an island where prisoners and those who have offended clans were thrown onto. There were hybrids and mistaken experiments from breeding added in there, too, making it a very dangerous place, where no creatures could escape, and the survival of the fittest was taken literally. But he still couldn’t find its connection to the warlock.
“Then he or she shouldn’t have been compliant to those destructive ways and aligned himself or herself with a bunch of—”
“It’s that simple to you, isn’t it? Punishing others who go against you and kidnapping people for fun?”
Thatwas personal, too, and had Klaus’s hand fisting as his gaze bored into the man. Silver orbs looked back, gleaming with magic held back—only because Rosa was holding tight to this hand and the warlock probably didn’t want to hurt her.
“Don’t,” she said softly.
“Yeah, don’t,” Ruby pleaded. “You know we can’t stop you.”
