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“I don’t.” My throat narrowed. “The only piece of me that has found a true home is my heart.” A breath trembled through my lips.

“But I am more than that, aren’t I? You want this to be tidy and painless.

You want things to stay as they are, but I fear everything must be undone before either of us can hope to have what we want. ”

There was a war within him; I could see it in his eyes. Halla shook in my grip, and I hauled her up, so her face was mere inches from mine. “I will see an end to your saint. ” Unceremoniously, I released her. She fell with a shriek below the surface, and I sent a wave to carry her back to the sand.

Theodore helped collect her from the tangle of sodden silk that she lay in.

The effects of the spell she’d performed had slowly worn off.

Her color had returned. The red had left her eyes.

Her legs shook, and she let herself lean into Theodore’s chest. “She said she was your queen,” she whimpered, looking up at him, distressed and needy.

Theodore looked to me, then back to Halla. I’d been foolish to speak so plainly, to reveal that I was a threat to her claim on him and her title, but I could only hope that Theodore would neutralize it. He took a full breath. “She is.”

I stared at him, dumbstruck.

There was a note of promise in his voice, as if telling Halla the entirety of what sat between us might let him keep me. “Imogen is the Siren heiress. We share a blood bond, and as a result, she can use my power. Our bond will keep her safe as she travels to find… to find Eusia.”

Halla stood leaning against him for a long moment, stunned. Slowly, she raised a trembling hand to Theodore’s cheek. When she spoke, her voice was once again sweet and smooth. “My mother will crush us all for this.”

Theodore’s face went stony.

“You gave your word, did you not? That I would be your queen.” Her thumb traced the line of his cheekbone. “And isn’t the word of a king as binding as a scratch of ink from his pen?” Her words turned cutting, menacing. “See your bond broken, Your Majesty. Our wedding is in one week.”

Her threat stung me, sent my need to protect him surging.

I clamped my jaw against the impulse and reached into my pocket for the severing draught.

I stopped when I felt something through the water.

The plucking in my chest sped faster. Cold fingers brushed my ankle. Broken talons scratched up my calf.

“Not fucking now.” I sent a command shooting through the waves.

The nekgyas rose up at my behest, breaking the surface with empty eyes.

Halla screamed and scurried out of the water completely.

Lachlan, Eftan, and Agatha all reared back too.

Three Siren corpses stood before me. Their blue-gray flesh was knit through with seaweed and rot.

They spoke in unison through their black mouths, as Eusia’s voice echoed through my skull. “ Home. Home. Home. ”

Eusia had sent them to mock me. To tell me once more what she’d been trying to tell me from the start. To tell me what I’d tried so hard to ignore.

“I know.” I hoisted my clinging skirt and turned toward the shore.

The water curled up my shins as I strode out of the sea.

The nekgya still chanted their taunt, even as my wet slippers met dry sand.

Everyone gaped, Theodore included, as I kept moving up the beach.

When I reached Lachlan, I stopped. “I’ll need a ship to escort me to Seraf when I wake. ”

“When you wake?”

“Yes.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out the severing draught so only he could see it.

He gave me a grave nod. “I’ll see it done.”

Head hung, I moved past Eftan and Agatha, clutching my dripping skirt in my hands. Eftan made a sound of protest as Theodore crossed the sand after me. “Your Majesty, leave her.”

Theodore had left Halla drenched and shaking behind him. “We need to speak.” He reached for me, and though it cracked me in two to do it, I stepped back from his touch. “Will you come with me, Immy? Please.”

“Go to your fiancée.”

“Eftan will look after her.”

“She’s yours to look after,” I said. “See to your duty, Theo. And I will see to mine.”

Theodore flinched like I’d struck him across the cheek. “Imogen… I refuse to lose you—”

“You were meant to lose me from the start.” My voice was shredded and weak. “I gave you my word in Nemea’s fort. Please, let me keep it.” I clutched the draught in my fist and turned away from him, hurrying toward the stairs to put distance between us.

This isn’t the end, I lied to myself as I wrestled the cork from the vial.

We’d have more time. We’d tease one another again, and fight, and I’d feel again the deep timbre of his voice reverberating through me when we lay chest to chest. I told myself he was still mine, even as I set the bottle to my lips and tilted my head back.

“Imogen?” There was anguish in Theodore’s voice. “No.”

I picked up my speed. The sludgy draught slid over my tongue and stuck in my throat.

At the stairs that led up to the garden I fought to swallow it down.

It tasted like rot, black and thick as tar.

The pain came a beat later. A hot dagger that sliced slowly through the middle of me.

My knees buckled on the first step. My vision blurred.

My head rocked like a club had struck it.

There were strong hands on me. Sounds that were muffled by a high ringing in my ears. I could only focus on the rushing ache in my chest. The liquid that was filling my lungs.

I tried to breathe in and a gurgling sound came from my throat. “I can’t… I can’t breathe.”

“Imogen.”

I knew that voice. It pierced through the pain, through the heartache.

My chest burned and swelled. You cannot drown, I told myself, trying to ease my panic, but I was drowning.

Someone carried me and I gasped and gasped.

There was a blur of color in my periphery—flowers.

Bubbling in my throat. Metal on my tongue.

Liquid, hot and thick, rolled over my lip and down my chin.

It filled my nose. I blinked and I could feel it, sticky in the corners of my eyes.

My body jostled, cradled within those strong arms. I coughed and felt the liquid spray and fall over my cheeks. As my vision left me and my lungs scorched with the anguish of drowning, I felt the sun.

Theodore.

His power.

Hot and unwavering, it poured through me like molten gold. It tried desperately, determinedly to beat back the darkness.

But the darkness won.