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The crowd parts, and Maren stumbles forward, holding on to Ramsay for support as the ship slams into another wave. She looks exhausted but triumphant, and when she spots me, she has a keen gleam in her eye.

“Aragon,” Maren says to me before she steps out of the way, showcasing Larimar as Thane carries her. The volcanic fury inside me flares, wanting to erupt. She belongs in my arms, no one else’s.

Easy, Abe says, just in time for me to hold myself back. Easy, now.

“This is my sister, Larimar,” Maren says, eyeing me closely. “I request that you do your magic on her.”

“My magic?” I repeat.

I can’t keep staring at Larimar. She absolutely devastates me. Right here, as I stand, I see her, and I might as well be on my knees.

And she won’t look at me.

That one glance as she was hauled up the side of the boat was all I got.

Instead, she rests her head on Thane’s shoulder, staring at nothing.

Your reaction will determine our fate, Abe reminds me quickly.

“Yes, your magic,” Maren goes on. “I know your powers are strong, Aragon, strong enough to turn a Syren’s tail into legs.”

By now, the crew has gathered around us, eyeing me with this new information, whispering to each other.

I turn my fury to Abe, my eyes burning into him.

“It wasn’t me,” Abe says out loud with a display of his hands. “I didn’t tell her.”

“He didn’t,” Maren explains. “Sometimes, our seeing stone tells us a lot about what happens in the future…and in the past. It’s always nice if we can clarify what we see when we can.”

“And your stone told you I worked my magic on the Syren I caught?” I ask carefully.

She nods. “There’s a reason you were brought on board, Aragon. I knew you were a witch and a monster. I knew you had powers stronger than any of this crew could ever conjure. When the crystal let me glimpse what happened at Nombre de Jesus, I knew we had to have you. Abe’s correspondence with us was the sign we needed.”

I swallow hard, running my fingers over my rosary beads, not caring if the action seems anxious to some. I am anxious. I am wild.

“I won’t do it,” I say.

Everyone gasps, and Maren looks like I slapped her.

Then, Larimar raises her head and looks at me.

She really looks at me.

Her gaze no longer holds a blank stare; instead, those beautiful violet eyes brim with pain and anger and shame.

“It’s best you throw her right back in the ocean,” I say, switching to Spanish so she can understand me, the words like razors in my throat. “Seems that’s where she belongs, not in the world of men and monsters.”

Not in the world of men and monsters like me.

“Priest,” Larimar says reproachfully, hurt simmering in her voice.

She might have been told I was a priest, but it’s the way she says it, with so much weight behind it, that makes Maren frown.

“Wait but a moment,” Maren says, looking between the two of us. “Do you two know each other?”

“Seems your stone doesn’t tell you everything,” I say.

Chapter Thirty