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A blunt laugh. ‘I’m trying to warn you. Your imagination will be the death of you.’

I faltered. He was right – living in a world that didn’t exist would get me nowhere in the real one. But I wasn’t about to admit that. I straightened my spine, pushing my shoulders back.

‘I’d rather die of my own imagination than at the filthy hands of a pirate,’ I said, following him towards the door as he shoved Tales of the Sinking Cities into the inside pocket of his cloak.

He turned to face me in the doorway. ‘You’ll thank me later.’

I glowered up at him. ‘I promise you, I won’t.’

My heart hammered in my chest, half from anger, half from something else. Something unrecognisable. I didn’t concede.

The King’s chest rose and fell sharply, rhythmic as the rain that battered the ship’s hull. Then he moved, making my lungs seize in my chest.

I watched warily as Sebastien extended a hand slowly, almost hesitantly, and grazed a knuckle down my neck, tracing the faint wound left by Cullen’s man. A strange shudder fell through me at his touch. It wasn’t cold, like I’d expected. It was scorching. Pure heat.

He dropped his hand, his voice depthless. Hypnotic. ‘We’ll see.’

Sebastien smirked as he stepped out into the hall, hooded figure melding into the darkness beyond. The gesture, twisted as it was, was unnervingly human.

‘You’re sick,’ I snarled, unsure why my blood was suddenly blistering with heat.

He paused, turning to look back at me. ‘Sicknesses can be cured, blackbird. What I am is forever.’

I slammed the door in his face with a hiss.

12

For six nights, I didn’t dine with the King.

I spent my days on deck with the crew, listening to their shanties and letting them laugh at my terrible singing whenever I joined in. They taught me the rules to card games we never managed to finish without an argument breaking out, and, all the while, I couldn’t shake the stories of the Sinking Cities from the back of my mind.

I tried distracting myself with other books, but on every page I found myself searching for some mention of those forgotten isles, some reference to crumbling citadels of tide-swallowed stone. I found none.

A storm rolled in that lasted for three days and I spent the entirety of it immersed in worlds far from my own, far from the truth of whatever was coming. I scoured history books, poems, novels so ancient and close to dust the words were practically fading under my fingertips. Nothing.

I wouldn’t be able to rest until I knew the fate of that fabled kingdom, of that little prince. The King’s actions had only made me hungrier for the truth. I didn’t know what would happen to me, to Bane, to any of us, but that story had an ending. If I couldn’t control mine, I could at least take comfort in someone else’s.

So, when the rain finally let up, I took my chance.

I ventured outdoors and found myself a place on the sterncastle deck, positioned carefully out of the crew’s way as they bustled about, chipping rust and soaking up the sunlight. They chattered as they worked, their voices a symphony against the surging waves.

I propped myself against the ship’s wheel – which I’d never actually seen manned – and listened through the din for signs of movement in the navigation room below.

Days of frustration and longing held my patience firm as I waited for the King to emerge. The afternoon sun sank slowly into dusk and I was almost ready to give up when the muffled sounds of an argument reached me from the room beneath.

I crept closer to the edge of the railing, ears focused intently on the two voices. Neither was hard to recognise and I didn’t have to listen long to realise the cause of Mors and the King’s argument.

‘. . . know it was you . . . playing at?’

‘She deserves . . .’

‘Don’t tell me what she deserves, you’re the one—’

‘Evenin’, lassie.’

I gasped and whirled around, coming face to face with Aron – dangling upside down. He dropped lithely from the ratlines, flipping to his feet with a grin that split his craggy face.

‘Up to somethin’, I hope?’