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Skip mews again, tilting its head at me.

“Mew to you too,” I say, tipping my imaginary hat.

Ships are great for cats, Sedge explains, his fingers moving so fast that it’s hard to keep up. They take care of the rodents.

Do you have a lot of rodents? I try to ask, though my attempts are awkward.

Sedge nods gravely. The blood.

Ah. The blood.

I look back down at the food he’s preparing, chopping up fresh-caught tuna into steaks. No wonder it caught the cat’s attention.

We eat well on the ship, even though we don’t need to eat food. Sedge is a good cook, and he has to make meals for Maren and Thane’s son, Lucas, who hasn’t become a Vampyre yet and won’t need blood until he’s thirty-five, so Sedge often insists on cooking for all of us blood-drinkers, plus the humans in the hold.

Suddenly, the back of my neck prickles, and I breathe in a scent that reminds me of Larimar, making my heart skip a beat.

The cat mews, and I swear it raises its paw in greeting.

I turn around to see Maren standing in the doorway to the galley.

“Aragon,” she says in a clipped voice with a tight smile. “Might I have a word with you in private?”

“Of course,” I say. I nod at Sedge and walk with her out of the galley. From behind, I hear the cat drop to the ground and follow us.

“It’s really good of you to use your sign language with Sedge,” she says to me, her hands clasped at her front, but I don’t believe the demure act.

“I learned it at the monastery. We had to live in silence for many years as part of our training. It’s nice to be able to use it again.”

“Mmmm,” she hums as we walk down the stairs to the lower deck, her gold dress sweeping behind her. “I have to say, most of us were…apprehensive about having a man of the cloth on board. A Vampyre one, no less. But the fact that you haven’t tried to tell any of us that we’re bound for hell has been refreshing.”

“As you know, I was a priest. I’m not anymore.”

She glances at me over her shoulder. “Ah, yes. Why is that?”

I frown at her. “Because I’m not fit to be one. You know what I did to my congregation.”

“I do,” she says, facing forward again as we walk toward the back of the ship, both of us listing to the side as we do. We’re a level above the hold, and the ship groans and creaks in its own eerie song punctuated by the slap of the waves. We are somewhere off the coast of Southern Chile, and the weather has taken a turn for the worse. Any day now, we’re supposed to enter the strait, which should give us some relief.

“I find it peculiar that you were more concerned about me being a priest than about me being a turned Vampyre. A monster.”

“I suppose a monster is something we all have to grapple with deep inside.”

“But not you,” I point out. “You’re just a human.”

She comes to a stop outside the closed door to the jail cell and quirks up her dark brow. “Even humans have the devil inside them.” Then she opens the door and shows me into a room where a large, human-sized cage stands in the corner.

My mouth goes dry, and I’m on high alert. Is this a trap? No doubt I could fight her off, but if the rest of the crew joined with the intention of locking me in there, there’s not much I could do.

“Don’t worry,” she says. “This is our jail. It’s not for you.”

I step inside the room and look at it from a distance. There are a few other items of interest in here—chains hanging from the wall and ceiling, a long, empty glass box with a lid.

She adds, “Well, I should say, it’s not for you yet.”

I frown at her. “Have I done something to offend you, my lady?”

“Possibly,” she says. Then, she gathers her black hair and piles it on top of her head, showcasing her gills. “I know you’ve seen these. I know you know what they are. They said you have experience with Syrens, so you must know that I am one.”