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Because I don’t want to leave him, yet I’m not meant to be a part of his world. I’m meant for the one I was born into. And if we’re just destined to part ways at the end, then what good is it to have the feelings I’m feeling?

For I am feeling something. No, not something. I’m feelingeverything. Everything from all directions and it lights up the darkness inside me, gives me a different kind of hope, makes all my regrets worth it if it leads to him in the end. When I look at him now, I ache deep inside, this constant yearning and longing for him even when he’s right in front of me. I feel joined to him in ways I don’t even understand and it has nothing to do with him claiming me.

I think I’ve already claimed him.

I worry my heart has already thought of him as mine.

And now he’s opening himself to me and I’m drowning in his words, in our frenzied passion, in the way he makes me feel, and yet there’s a witch in his room. And yet I will have to say goodbye. And yet we can’t truly be together. And yet, and yet, and yet…

I don’t want to ignore him anymore though. If I leave his world in the end for the one I’m meant for, then that means we only have so much time left together. I could keep my distance from him, as I have been doing, just giving him passing nods on deck and averting my eyes when he gazes at me for too long. But then I wouldn’t be spending the rest of my time with him as I should.

I know now, no matter how I spin it, that whether I’m with him or not, it will hurt to say goodbye, cut me right down the middle. I can’t pretend otherwise.

So now I want to use all the time I have left. Being out here at sea, with these nice calm days, life easy and the crew back to normal, we’re covering a lot of miles and I know we’re getting close to land, should be seeing the shore of New Spain any day now.

The journey is coming to an end.

I head down the stairs and pause by the door to the captain’s quarters. If he’s in Sam’s cabin with the boys, then his chambers should be empty and I’ve been meaning to talk to Nerissa again.

I open the door and look around to see that no one is watching me, then I step inside.

Nerissa is standing up and leaning against the bars, staring right at me with calm eyes, as if she was waiting for me.

“I was wondering when you’d come back,” she says in a low voice. “Was starting to worry that perhaps you didn’t have a guilty conscience.”

I walk over to her and eye the bandage around her neck. I feel the pang of guilt as if right on cue. “You assumed I was like the bloodsuckers,” she goes on. “When I’m just a human. Well, a witch, but human still. And I bleed the same as they do, even though my blood is green.”

“You expect me to apologize?” I say stiffly.

She grins at me. She really is pretty in an otherworldly way. “No, I guess not. Though perhaps you will when you realize that I am not out to harm you, Maren. I’m here to make all your dreams come true.”

“Why?” I ask suspiciously.

“I know all about how you got your legs,” she says. “You see, my sister told me how she tricked you.”

My eyes go big. “Your sister is Edonia?”

She nods, her jaw going tight. “She is. Unfortunately.”

I blink at her in surprise. “Unfortunately?”

“We aren’t close. We never have been. I was closer to my sister Venla.” She reads the dawning look on my face. “Oh, you know the name. Has Bones told you about her? Well good then, that saves us some time.”

“Your sister was Ramsay’s wife?”

“Half sister,” she corrects. “When she died, it was like losing a part of my soul. When Hilla died, even more so. That was my niece, the closest that I’ll ever have to a child. I watched her from afar, watched over her, and never did I think that Edonia would do a thing like that with her Kraken. That’s when I knew that her appetite for evil really had no boundaries.”

This sounds too good to be true. I can’t for a moment believe that Nerissa isn’t close with her sister. She can’t be trusted. None of the sea witches can.

“Now I want what you want,” she goes on.

“Which is?”

“Justice.”

“For whom?”

“For Hilla. For you.”