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“You don’t have to,” she says. “But ask yourself why I’m here.”

“I have been. I have been asking you and you keep saying it’s destiny.”

“It is destiny. And you don’t need to believe me or believe in it, but destiny believes in you. In all of you.”

I run my hands over my face. I feel like she’s already getting in my head. Witches can’t be trusted, and Venla was the only exception to the rule. “I need to get some air,” I tell her, leaving the room. I can’t lock it behind me because someone, and by someone I mean Maren, shot the lock off with a musket at some point in time, but I hope that the magic continues to hold her in the cage.

I go up to the top deck and immediately feel my heart calm down, my breath returning to normal. The sky is big and dark despite the moon and stars with low clouds coming toward us in the distance. It’s quiet up here too, with only the murmurs of Remi and Horse at the helm, doing their middle of the night watch, thegaurdia de modorra. The steady beat of the wind in the sails and the sloshing waves are the only other sounds.

I sigh and stare up at the sky, feeling immensely helpless. It’s not a feeling I curate, indeed it’s a rare one. But I feel like there are complications in my life now where there weren’t before and I’m not so sure how everything is going to turn out in the end. After Venla died, but especially after Hilla died, I lost one of my greatest assets, which was my positive attitude. In the before-times I was always optimistic that everything would work out. Even after my father died I still believed that everything would be alright in the end if you just kept going.

But then Venla died and I started to lose some of that faith. It didn’t seem fair that she should die not long after my father, that I would have to deal with both.

Then Hilla died and I lost faith in the universe entirely. I lost the ability to assume that everything would be okay, because now I know there is no guarantee. Life doesn’t pull any punches just because it’s already beaten you to the ground. It doesn’t let you breathe just because you’re already drowning. There is no mercy there. I am an immortal and yet even I don’t get to escape death. At times it’s all around me.

The last few years, however, I finally felt a return to my old self.

But now…now…

I let out a heavy exhale, my gaze searching the stars as if I’ll find answers there and then…

I do.

Up high in the crow’s nest near the top of the mizzenmast is a woman framed by countless stars, her ink-black hair melting into the night sky.

“Maren,” I whisper, wondering what the hell she’s doing all the way up there. From the way she’s standing so close to the edge of the platform, one hundred feet up in the air, she seems close to toppling over to what would surely be her death.

I sprint over to the mast and start climbing up the ropes that lead to the top, the ropes swaying as I go, trying to cover a hundred feet as quick as I can.

Finally I reach the top, the wind whipping against my face.

“Maren,” I say, pulling myself up onto the platform.

She whirls around to look at me, nearly going backward over the low rail and I quickly lunge for her, pulling her back in.

“What are you doing?” I whisper, my hand going around her waist and pulling her close to me so there’s no space between us. She’s just in her chemise, her black hair waving around her shoulders, her eyes wide with fear.

“I couldn’t sleep and I’ve always wanted to come up here,” she says softly. “I’m sorry.”

I swallow hard, looking over her face. “No. Don’t be sorry. You just gave me a fright is all.”

“You thought I was going to jump?” she asks, her gaze resting on my lips for a moment.

I give her a small smile but it doesn’t feel very assuring. “I saw you with that shard of glass the other day and I…I guess I’m thinking of the way we met.”

“When I punched you in the face.”

“When I rescued you.”

She looks away with a wry smile. “You did notrescueme.”

“You were drowning,” I remind her, my grip tightening around her waist, one of my hands splayed at her back and keeping her pressed against me, as if letting her go now would result in letting her go forever.

“You were drowning and you weren’t trying to fight it,” I add. “And I don’t blame you for it. All the abuse you’ve had to endure, the regrets that still poison you. It can lead a woman to madness. It can lead anyone to madness.”

“Except,” she says slowly, a flash of pink tongue coming out to lick her lips, “except now, I truly have gone mad.” She glances up at me, a fierce look beneath her lashes. “Don’t you think? What is madness if not rage? If not a monster?”

With one hand still holding tight at her waist, I put my palm at her cheek, cupping her face. Her eyes fall closed at my touch, her chest rising with breath. “Then perhaps the both of us are mad, if madness and monsters are one of the same,” I murmur. “But we can be mad together. We can drown in our madness together.”