Another tentacle rises from the waves, slithering up the side of the boat. Well, this is very, very bad.

  Seven merrows and one monster. The thing with the tentacles doesn’t seem to have any particular cleverness. As far as Oak can tell, it can’t even see what it is grabbing for. If they can get rid of the merrows, there is a chance that without anyone commanding it to strike, the thing will go away. Of course, there is also a chance it may decide to rip the ship to teeny, tiny pieces.

  “Queen Suren,” the merrow says, spotting her. “You should have taken our offer and given us your prize. I see you lost your war. Here we find you in the hands of your enemy. Were you our ally, we would save you, but now you will die with the others. Unless…”

  “Your Highness,” Tiernan hisses at Oak. His sword is drawn and his jaw set. “Get below.”

  “And how will that help, exactly?” Oak demands. “Will waiting to drown make the experience better?”

  “For once, just—” Tiernan begins.

  But Oak has already come to a decision. “Hello there!” he says, striding toward the merrow. “Looking for a prize? What did you have in mind?”

  From behind him, he thinks he hears Tiernan muttering about how strangling Oak himself may be a kindness. At least it would be a merciful death.

  “Prince Oak of Elfhame,” the merrow says with a scowl. As though he is finding this much too easy. “We’re taking you to Cirien-Cròin.”

  “Wonderful plan!” says Oak. “Did you know that she chained me up? And now I’m supposed to marry her unless someone takes me away. Come aboard. Let’s go.”

  Wren’s expression has gone shuttered. She can’t possibly believe he’s serious, but that doesn’t mean his words don’t cut close to the bone.

  “You can’t mean to go with them,” Randalin says, because Randalin is an idiot.

  The merrow signals, and six of the sharks swim closer so that the merrows on their backs can climb onto the deck. One has a silver net in his hands. It gleams in the morning light.

  Six. That’s almost all of them.

  “Take the queen, too,” commands the merrow leader. “Leave the rest to Sablecoil.”

  Sablecoil. That must be the monster.

  “You’re not taking anyone,” says one of the knights. “If you board the ship, we’ll—”

  “Oh, let them come,” Oak interrupts with a speaking look. “Maybe they’ll take her and allow the rest of us to go.”

  “Your Highness,” says another knight, his voice respectful but slow, as though Oak is a greater fool than the councilor. “I very much doubt that’s their plan. If it were, I would hand her over in a heartbeat.”

  The prince glances toward Wren, hoping she didn’t hear. Randalin has caught hold of her hand and is attempting to drag her toward the stateroom near the helm of the ship, in what appears to be an act of actual valiance on his part.

  “Perhaps we can come to some arrangement,” the merrow commander says. “After all, who can speak of Cirien-Cròin’s might if all who witness it are dead? We will take the prince and the queen, then Sablecoil will release you while we treat with one another.”

  That’s a terrible deal. That’s such a bad deal even Sablecoil would know better than to take it.

  “Yes, yes!” Oak says cheerily. “I look forward to discussing this Cirien-Cròin’s wooing of Nicasia. I might have some insights to share. My half-brother seduced her, you know.”

  A nearby sailor makes a startled noise. None of them would speak of her that way while they crossed her waters.

  The merrow commander, still on his shark, smiles, showing thin teeth, like those of some deepwater fish. The six merrows on the deck split up, four heading toward Wren and two toward the prince. They don’t expect Oak to be difficult to subdue, even if he resists.

  As the merrows get closer, he feels a momentary spike of panic.

  Most of the people on this boat don’t expect him to be hard to subdue, either, or anything other than a fool. That’s the reputation he’s painstakingly built. A reputation he’s about to throw away.

  He tries to push that out of his mind, to concentrate on sinking into the moment. The merrows are perhaps five feet from him and seven feet from Wren when he attacks.

  He slashes the throat of the first, spraying the deck with thin, greenish blood. Twisting around, he sinks the edge of the cutlass into the second merrow’s thigh, slicing open the vein. More blood. So much blood. The deck is slippery with it.

  Arrows fly. The massive harpoons fire.

  Oak runs across the deck toward the four bearing down on Wren. A pair of her falcons match blades with one merrow. A lone falcon flies up in bird form and lands behind another, transforming in time to stab a knife into his back. Wren herself has thrown a knife at one fleeing across the deck. Oak gets there in time to dispatch the last by cleaving his head clean from his shoulders.

  There are a lot of screams.

  From the top of the mast, Bogdana descends on black wings. Oak glances toward Wren.

  In that moment of inattention, he is knocked off his hooves by a sinuous tentacle that wraps around his calf. He tries to pull free, but it yanks him across the deck fast enough that his head slams against the wooden boards.

  He kicks out with a hoof at the same time he stabs the blade of his cutlass deep into Sablecoil’s rubbery flesh, pinning the tentacle to the deck. Writhing, it drops the prince. He stumbles to his hooves.

  Tiernan hacks at the tentacle, trying to sever it from the body of the monster.

  With a shudder, it rips free from the deck. The cutlass is still stuck in it when it wraps around Tiernan. Then it hauls him backward into the sea.

  “Tiernan!” Oak runs to the gunwale of the ship, but Tiernan has disappeared beneath the waves.

  “Where is he?” Hyacinthe shouts. There’s black blood smeared across his face and a bow in his hand.

  Before Oak can get any words out, Hyacinthe has dropped the bow and jumped off the side. The ocean swallows him whole.

  No, no, no. Oak is wild with panic. He can swim, but certainly not well enough to haul both of them out.

  All around him, there’s fighting. The fleeing merrow is cut down. The Ghost slashes at another enormous tentacle, battling to save one of the fallen falcons. Three more tentacles curl around the prow. From everywhere, there are cries. From some places, screams.

  Oak wants to scream, too. If Tiernan dies, it will be because of Oak.

  This is why he never wanted a bodyguard. This is why he should never have been given one.

  The prince loosens a rope from a cleat, wrapping one end around his waist and knotting it there. Once tied, the prince gives a hard tug to test whether it can bear his weight.

  He looks into the waves. This close, he can see shapes moving in the deep.

  He sucks in a breath and prepares to join them when a crack of lightning draws his attention back to the deck. Fog is rolling toward the ship, along with higher swells.

  Bogdana has brought a storm.

  Well, that seems completely unhelpful.

  Taking another breath, Oak drops himself down, rappelling off the side of the boat. As his hoof hits the water, Hyacinthe surfaces, Tiernan limp in his arms. Oak reaches for him automatically, afraid it’s too late.

  “Highness,” Hyacinthe says, relief in his voice. Tiernan’s head lolls against his shoulder.

  Waves splash Oak’s face as he grabs hold of his bodyguard. The sky overhead has darkened. He hears a crack of thunder behind him and sees another bright streak of lightning reflecting in Hyacinthe’s eyes.

  Tiernan’s body is heavy in his arms. He tries to find a way to hold him securely enough that he won’t slip, tries to find a way to haul them all back up onto the deck.

  He lifts himself upward, one-handed. He gets a few inches higher, but it’s slow and he’s not sure his strength will hold.

  And then Garrett is there, peering down.

  “Hold on,” he calls. “Hold him.”

  Swells roll against the side of the ship. The Ghost is stronger than he seems, and yet Oak can see how hard it is to pull them up. As soon as he’s over the gunwale, the prince rolls himself and Tiernan onto the deck. A sailor is already tossing another rope over the side to Hyacinthe.

  Tiernan coughs up water, then lies still again.

  When Oak looks up, he sees one of the tentacles slide across the deck toward Wren. The wind steals his cry of warning. He tries to rise to his hooves in time, but he is too slow and has no sword anyway. Hyacinthe, just making it over the side, shouts in horror.

  Wren lifts her hand. As she does, the skin of Sablecoil peels back from the muscle, the tentacle going limp and shriveled. A horrible shuddering goes through the ship as all the tentacles detach at once. The boards creak.

  The last of the merrows disappears beneath the waves, whatever last taunt he may have spoken dying on his lips.

  The storm hag, in vulture form, makes a guttural sound as she flies. The wind rises higher, blowing all around them, as though she is conjuring a shield of rain and wind.

  Wren stumbles, reaching for Oak’s arm. He puts it around her waist, holding her upright.

  “I killed it.” Already, her skin has a waxy appearance.

  He thinks about Bogdana’s story. About how if Wren’s power really works like matches, she keeps taking handfuls of them and setting them alight. “Killing is my thing,” he tells her. “You should get your own thing.”

  Her lip quirks. Her gaze seems a little unfocused.

  The wind lifts the sail, snapping ropes that were already frayed. The hull of the ship seems to rise above the slap of the waves.

  Oak’s gaze goes to Tiernan, still as stone, with Hyacinthe bent over him. To the blood washing the deck. To the wounded falcons and knights and sailors. Then to the purpling cast, not unlike a bruise, creeping over Wren’s pale blue skin.

  The ship rises higher. Abruptly, Oak realizes that it’s above the waves. Bogdana has used her storm to make their ship fly.

  If she devoured the remains of Mab’s bones, perhaps she really did have a large portion of her old power back. And perhaps she really was first among hags.

  Wren leans more heavily against him, the only warning before she collapses. He catches her in time to swing her up into his arms, her head lying against his chest. Her eyes remain open, but they are fever bright, and though she blinks up at him, he’s not sure she sees him.

  A few of her guards frown, but not even Straun tries to stop Oak from pushing the door of her room open with one hoof and carrying her inside.

  Her sofa and the small table have been tipped over. The rug beneath them is wet, and shards of pottery are scattered over it—the remains of her teapot have joined her broken teacup.

  Oak crosses the room and places Wren down gently on her coverlets, her long hair spreading over the pillow. Her deep green eyes are still glassy. He recalls what Hyacinthe said about her power. The more she unmakes, the more she is unmade.

  A moment later, her hand comes up, running over his cheek. Her fingers push into his hair, then slip over his nape to his shoulder. He goes very still, afraid that if he moves, it will startle her into pulling back. She has never touched him this way, as though things could be easy between them.

  “You must stop,” she says, her voice little more than a whisper. Her expression is fond.

  He frowns in puzzlement. Her hand has dipped down to his chest, and even as she speaks, she opens her palm over his heart. He has barely moved. “Stop what?”

  “Being kind to me. I can’t bear it.”

  He tenses.

  She withdraws her hand, letting it fall to the coverlet. The blue stone in the ring he gave her glints up at him. “I’m not… I am not good at pretending. Not like you.”

  If she is speaking of her coldness toward him, she is far better than she believes. “We can stop. We can call a truce.”

  “For now,” she says.

  “Then today, my lady, speak freely,” he tells her with what he hopes is a reassuring smile. “You can deny me tomorrow.”

  She looks up at him, her lashes falling low. She seems to be half in a dream. “Is it exhausting to be charming all the time? Or is it just the way you’re made?”

  His grin fades. He thinks of the magic leaching out of him. He can control his charm, sort of. More or less. And he can resist using it. He will.

  “Have you ever wondered if anyone truly loved you?” she asks in that same fond, unfocused voice.

  Her words are a kick to the stomach, the more because he can tell she doesn’t mean to be cruel. And because he hadn’t thought of it. He sometimes wondered if gancanagh blood meant Folk liked him a little better than they might have otherwise, but he was too vain to think of it affecting Oriana or his sisters.

  Oriana, who loved his mother so well that she took Liriope’s son and raised him as her own, risking her life to do so. Jude and Vivi, who sacrificed their own safety for him. Jude, who was still making sacrifices to ensure he would someday be the High King. If magic is the cause of that loyalty, instead of love, then he is a curse on the people around him.

  A part of him must have suspected, because why else keep himself so apart? He told himself that it was because he wanted to repay them for all the sacrifices they made, told himself that he wanted to become as great as they were, but maybe it had always been this.

  He feels sick.

  And sicker still when his mouth curves unconsciously into a smile. It has become such an automatic reaction to pain, for him to mask it with a grin. Oak, laughing all the time. Pretending nothing hurts. A false face hiding a false heart.

  He can’t blame her for saying what she did. Probably someone should have said it to him much sooner. And how could he have ever supposed she would come to care for him? Who can love someone who is empty inside? Someone who steals love instead of earning it?

  The prince recalls lying on the ground after drinking several cups of liquor laced with blusher mushroom, back in the troll village. That was the last time he felt Wren’s hand on his flushed cheek, her skin cool enough to ground him in that moment, to keep him hanging on to consciousness.

  I am poison, he told her then. And he didn’t even know the half of it.

  Oak sits with Wren until she falls asleep. Then he spreads a blanket over her and stands. Inside, the horror he felt when she spoke those words—have you ever wondered if anyone truly loved you—hasn’t faded, but he can hide that. Easily. For the first time, he hates how easily. He hates that he can fold himself up so tightly in his own skin that there’s nothing real about him on the outside.

  He climbs the step. Standing on the deck, he looks at the ocean far below. It seems as though they’re sailing through a sea of clouds.

  Soldiers are attempting to repair the gunwale, shattered by tentacles. Others are trying to smooth out the raw, splintered bits of wood where spearpoints gouged the deck, a faint spatter of blood marring the light color of it.

  The ship flies high enough for sailors and soldiers to trail their fingers through clouds and let the mist wet their skin. High enough for seabirds to soar beside them; a few even rest on the mast and rigging.

  Bogdana stands at the helm. Her expression is strained, and when she sees him, her eyes narrow. Whatever she wishes to say to him, though, it seems she cannot move away from directing the storm that propels them in order to do it.

  Scanning the ship, Oak spots Tiernan near the mast, beneath the netting running up to the base of the sail. His head is pillowed on a cloak, his blackberry hair still damp and stiff with salt. His eyes are shut, his skin gone very pale.

  Hyacinthe sits beside him, long fall of dark hair over his face. When Oak squats nearby, Hyacinthe pushes it back to reveal his pained expression. He looks as though he is losing blood from some invisible wound.

  “She woke up enough to speak with me,” Oak tells him so at least he doesn’t have Wren to worry about. “Told me some very unpleasant things about myself.”

  “He’s breathing,” says Hyacinthe, nodding toward Tiernan.

  For a long moment, they watch the rise and fall of Tiernan’s chest. Each inhalation comes with what seems like a lot of effort. As he watches, the prince doesn’t trust that one breath will follow the next.

  “His loyalty to me might cost him his life,” Oak says.

  To his surprise, Hyacinthe shakes his head. His hand goes to the other man’s chest, coming to rest over his heart. “It was my lack of loyalty to him that was the problem.” His voice is so soft that the prince isn’t sure he heard the words correctly.

  “You couldn’t have—” Oak begins, but Hyacinthe cuts him off.

  “I could have loved him better,” Hyacinthe says. “And I could have better believed in his love.”

  “How could that have helped against a monster?” the prince asks. He’s in the mood for an argument and beginning to hope that Hyacinthe might give him one.

  “You don’t think what I said is true?”

  “Of course I do,” Oak says. “You should better believe in his love—you should beg him for another chance. But that wouldn’t have saved him from drowning. You jumping in after him did save him.”

  “And you being there to pull us back onto deck saved us both.” Hyacinthe shoves his hair behind his ear and gives a shuddering sigh. His gaze snags on Tiernan as he shifts a little. “Perhaps I have had enough of vengeance. Perhaps I need not make things so hard.” As Oak begins to stand, though, the former falcon looks up at him. “That doesn’t mean I release you from your promise, prince.”

  Right. He’d promised to cut off someone’s hand.

  As afternoon moves toward night, Tiernan finally wakes. Once he understands what happened, he’s furious with Oak and Hyacinthe both.

  “You shouldn’t have gone after me,” he tells Hyacinthe, then turns to the prince. “And you certainly shouldn’t have.”

  “I barely did anything,” says Oak. “While it’s possible that Hyacinthe battled a shark for you.”

  “I did not.” For all Hyacinthe’s talk of love, the evening finds him sullen.