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A grin slid over his face.Yes.

‘So what do we do? Land on the deck, get rid of the crew, andthencut a hole in the bottom?’

Sounds like a plan.He knelt and slid his knife into his boot, where two others were already cleverly hidden in their sheaths; three more hung at his belt, and I knew his sleeves contained a blade or two as well.How much faith do you have in your iridescent magic?

‘Faith is too big a word,’ I said wryly, ‘but I’ll probably get the hang of it if I need to.’

Probably.He did not look at all disconcerted; if anything, that was a deadly sort of amusement gleaming in his eyes.Are we ready, then?

I wasn’t ready, of course. This entire plan was nothing but a desperate leap of faith. My magic was a gamble. Once again, I was doing this only becausesomeonehad to do it, and no pile of pastel shells could change the fact that every single soul on that ship would be vying to kill me from the moment they saw my face.

But I’d been there before, and the Golden Court had taught me none of that mattered much as long as I could pretend I was fully prepared for the madness.

‘Ready,’ I said, and it felt almost true.

With the smallest smile, Creon held out a hand to me. Perhaps I jumped into his arms a little too enthusiastically; a gasp or two rose from the foliage.

Nymph spies, indeed.

But Creon’s wings swept out wide, the solid earth sank away beneath us, and we soared into the open skies, leaving Tolya and its watching eyes behind.

It had been ages since we’d flown together. I’d forgotten how that particular combination of fright and excitement felt, the perfect safety of his arms contrasting sharply with the sensation of my stomach slamming into my throat at every sudden descent. We soared just over the surface of the waves, the wind whipping through my hair and carrying that briny tang of the sea I knew so well – towards the first of those ships that looked almost equally familiar, and far less comforting.

I’d learned to recognise them as omens of death before I could speak in full sentences. There was a grim kind of justice to it now, sneaking up on them with magic brimming under my fingertips.

We were close enough to hear the billowing of the sails when the first cry of warning rose from the ship.

Two winged silhouettes launched from the deck a moment later, surging towards us with blades gleaming in their hands. The same bastards collecting human tributes, I reminded myself at the flash of doubt that rose with the memory of Zera’s bag, the kind of fae who would happily burn down an innocent nymph isle to make the Mother’s points … Reasons didn’t make them harmless. My fingers wrapped themselves around Creon’s dark sleeve, hungry for red. Just a few more seconds. Just a few feet closer …

I knew the exact moment they recognised the male carrying me. In a flash, their triumphant approach faltered, their swords sagged – and my magic bloomed bright and crimson in the air between us, cutting a clean slash through the wing of the nearest fae warrior.

He plunged towards the sea, his cry of pain smothered immediately by the icy water.

His companion got a single shout of alarm over his lips. Then Creon’s wings slapped against the air behind me and we shot forward; I fired my next bolt of red the same moment. The second fae went down, shrieking all the way until he hit the waves with a painful-sounding splash.

‘They may just realise something’s wrong, now,’ I said, peering at the ship while I flexed and unflexed my fingers.

Creon chuckled against the crown of my head, his wingbeats accelerating. We tore through the open skies so fast I could barely breathe against the wind slamming into my face; the muscles of his shoulders rolled in the rhythm of his flight, every inch of his body straining with pent-up tension. Closer and closer to the copper-plated ship we soared, close enough now to distinguish the sun symbol Tared had already noticed, close enough to make out the ropes and the lines and the handful of fae sprinting around the deck in sudden alarm …

A voice shouted, ‘Hytherion!’

‘They’ve noticed,’ I concluded dryly.

Creon laughed again and dove at the ship. Red magic flashed towards us. He whirled aside with a lightning-quick slap of his wings, avoiding the attack without slowing down; again a burst of scarlet lit up the sky, and with the speed and grace of a trained dancer, he darted out of its way. More fae were pouring onto the deck now, more voices shouting for help. A handful of them came flying towards us, their barely contained bloodlust visible even from dozens of feet away.

I swallowed a sting of fear and fired three quick, sharp attacks at the easy target of their wings. Two avoided my magic. One went down, still flinging red at us as he fell. Creon spun away from another bolt of destructive magic, and this time the flash of light only barely missed us.

His arm under my knees didn’t budge, but the one he’d curled around my torso shifted so his fingers could tap against one of my bulging pockets. Shells tinkled in reply.

‘Alright,’ I whispered breathlessly, grabbing for the smooth mother-of-pearl. ‘I’ll try.’

He kissed the crown of my head, then shot towards the boat again, straight through the swarm of armed fae separating us from the safety of the deck. Red blazed around us and I swung wildly, an instinctive reflex ofplease don’t let me dierather than any deliberate application of the magic I pulled from the shells under my fingers.

Beams of ruby red exploded into sparks. We flew through a firestorm of destruction, magic dwindling and sizzling out around us. The flickers of red left pinpricks of pain on my face and hands before they died away – not enough to draw blood, but enough to know I could have gone about this better. Did I need more iridescence? But no, explosions had always been a sign of too much power … Perhaps I’d be wiser to hold back a little?

I barely had time to finish the thought before the next attack lit up the air around us. I drew on instinct, this strange new power just familiar enough to cling to reflexes I’d ingrained deep into my bones for months. Not the brightly lit iridescence I’d drawn before, with rainbows blooming everywhere in the surface, but a softer, milder sort, like the dark feathers of starlings …

Again my magic collided mid-air with the aggressive flare of red, and this time there was no explosion. Instead, with nothing but the quietest sizzle, the colour just … vanished.