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***
I spent the entire day in bed. Night fell and no one had come to visit me the entire day, thankfully. I couldn’t face anyone. But after an entire day of thinking, I had no conclusions about anything. I only had questions, and I couldn’t handle it anymore.
I threw off the covers and stepped over to Adrian’s bookshelves. Adrian wasn’t back yet, still preparing for our arrival to the Eros. He had been out late for the past few days, and if he was going to stay out as late as he normally did, it would be a few hours before he arrived. It gave me time.
Adrian had been borrowing books from Henrik’s room about mythological creatures of the spiritual realm. He must have had some books lying about that would confirm or deny this incarnate nonsense.
I could believe Luc was a siren. Fine. But I couldn’t be a siren. I couldn’t accept that this body wasn’t mine or that I had some sort of power to manipulate people.
I searched through the shelves, finding books about star alignment, religious traditions, and historical accounts of sightings and interactions with fortune tellers and astrologers. There were maps and myths and stories, but nothing about incarnates. Barely any mention of sirens or merfolk, for that matter.
Everything in Adrian’s shelves were unsatisfying, so I went to his desk. There were piles of books and papers here (that had not slidden off despite how rocky the seas became some days), and with how much Adrian was studying recently, it was bound to have something important.
I went through the stacks, only finding more history on explorers and maps. I wasn’t skilled at map reading, however, so I had no idea what I was looking at. Most of the things on Adrian’s desk were about navigation and sailing, not about mythological creatures or whether or not I was one.
With a frustrated grunt, I threw one of the books back on the desk, only to topple over the pile of books next to it. They spilled on the ground, papers flying out of them. I swore to myself.
“Adrian is going to kill me,” I whispered.
I leaned over to pick them up and stack them back on the desk. A small black book lay face down on the floor with its pages crumpled, so I opened it up to smooth them back out before closing the book.
It was a journal. Despite my ethics, I found myself looking at the pages as I smoothed them out. Adrian’s handwriting was messy and nearly impossible to read. How could he read his own notes? I’d never seen someone with such poor penmanship.
I stopped, the next page stealing the breath from my lungs. It wasn’t writing at all, but a drawing. It was a woman, sitting ona bed with her knees tucked in at her side, her hair matted and falling over one shoulder. Her long-sleeved blouse hung off her shoulder, her collarbone accenting a small jeweled necklace. I looked closely at the design of the necklace and gasped, my hand coming to my throat.
I flipped through a few more pages, the same woman sketched on multiple pages. One leaning over the side of a ship, another picture of her making soup over the stove, and yet another picture of her sleeping. My heart pounded harder with each page.
It was me.
“I told you to stay out of my things.”
I dropped the notebook. I was so lost in its pages that I hadn’t even heard Adrian open the door. He licked his lips before shutting the door behind him, taking slow steps toward me.
“It looks like you saw something you weren’t supposed to,” he said, his voice low.
His voice was cool, his face emotionless as he came to me. I stepped back, more afraid of his emotionless demeanor than his angry one. If he had yelled or teased, it would have been more comfortable than the serious stare he was giving me.
He leaned over, picking up the notebook and tossing it on the desk.
“I didn’t mean to,” I started. “It fell off the desk, and I went to pick it up—”
He leaned against the desk, trapping me between his arms. I looked away when his face came in close to mine, but he ducked down to meet my eyes anyway.
“Don’t act shy on me now, princess,” he whispered.
“W-what are you doing?” I asked.
His eyes darted down to the notebook. “You saw my drawings.”
I scratched at my collarbone, feigning innocence. “You can draw?”
He smirked with a small ironic laugh, bringing his hand up to move a strand of my hair from my face. A chill shot down my neck as his fingertips grazed my skin, the air becoming too thick to swallow.
“You know you’re beautiful, don’t you?” he asked as if he didn’t expect me to answer. “There are many beautiful women, of course. They always know it. They make it a point to smooth out their hair and straighten their clothes…same as you. You aristocrats are all alike.”
His fingers moved to my cheek, his eyes soft and vulnerable. He was never like this. He was never so completely open.
“The problem is,” he continued, “beautiful women have no idea when they’re breathtaking. They know when they feel beautiful, but they have no idea when a man can’t take his eyes off them.”
