Page 39 of Liar Witch

“He dove into the sea after you fell,” Noster adds. “But he tried to bite you the moment you both surfaced. He’s obsessed with your blood.”

“Because I’m his mate?”

“Yes.” Cas doesn’t bother lying to her.

She stands, abandoning her stew as she heads straight for the door. “Then he can have it.”

“Are you mad?” The galley door slams shut, Valorean’s fury on full display. “He’ll drain you dry and hate us all for letting it happen. Just the scent of you on the ship is driving him mad.”

“Then how do we fix it?”

“Last time it took weeks, and that wasn’t even a full relapse. The last time he came out of the Pits it took even longer.” Valorean looks at me as he speaks and Nilsa notices.

“How did you do it?” she asks.

I grimace, remembering the years I’d spent keeping Rysen locked away in a cave like a mad beast.

“I starved him.” My wings are the only outward sign of the pain the words send through me. They shiver under the onslaught the words bring, but the others won’t see that past my glamour. “Six years.”

“Sixyears?” She flops into her seat, the wind disappearing out of her sails. “Then what? Gradually let him drink again?”

I nod, grinding my teeth against the urge to say more.

I always want to talk more around Nilsa. There are so many things I wish I could say. So many truths I want to tell her. I want to beg her forgiveness, plead for her mercy and swear myself to her service for life all in the same breath. I want to vow never to harm her, and prove that I’ve grown from the stupid boy seeking his family’s approval. I want to tell her how much I admire her steel, how brave she is and how her eyes remind me of the cool glaciers of my homeland.

But I’d never make it past the first three sentences with this stupid curse.

All I can do is hope my actions speak for me.

“No. There’s got to be a better way.”

Her stubborn refusal makes me smile sadly. If Nilsa can find a way, I’m all for it.

I’m not going to get my hopes up.

“Even if there is,” Casimir replies. “What is it you need to get in Marisang? The sirens aren’t exactly on speaking terms with us.”

“You’ll have safe passage,” she says. “I have a sixth mate. A siren. His name is Klaus.”

“Niklaus,” Valorean says the name like a curse. “You’re his fucking mate too?”

Evenmyeyebrows shoot into my hairline at this latest revelation.

“You know him?”

“Barely! There wasn’t exactly a good time for introductions while he was trying to spear us on the other end of his trident.”

Noster cuts in. “He’s going to be one of us. He needs Nilsa just as much as we do, and there are import…”

His face goes slack, the vision taking him mid-sentence.

Some part of me has long wondered if Fate doesn’t time the Seers’ visions to prevent them speaking too much of what they know.

Every Seer I’ve ever met has been just as cagey with their knowledge as Noster is. Some more so.

I’ve never understood why a Goddess would bless someone with the ability to see the future, then stop them from revealing what they see.

Then again, I’ve also never understood a fertility Goddess who requires her witches to be celibate.