Then Brendan’s voice is in my ear saying, “Her cousin is a champion. Pump her for information.”
Not literally.
Then, as Sarabell glances awkwardly from me to Fred to her entourage to fill the void of Tristan Hart’s ultimate choke moment, I tell myself this is for the greater good.
“Why don’t we go out?” Smooth. “I’ll tell you about it. Later. When we’re out.”
I have the sudden urge to seppuku myself and spare us all the indignity.
“Tomorrow afternoon?” Her mouth is so sweet. “We can go for a swim?”
“Sure,” I go. “Sounds good.”
Sarabell shakes off the confusion and takes my fumble for sheer adoration. She dips in a girly bow and takes my hand, looking up at me with her amber eyes. “You won’t regret it.”
At once, they’re gone, and I throw myself against the fence behind us.
Frederik is staring at me. “I was under the impression that you were skilled with the fairer sex.”
“Were,” I say, “is the key word. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
Layla, Thalia, and Kurt hop off their white steeds, and as they walk back to us, Frederik glances from me to Layla and says, “I think I know.”
Layla is holding Kurt and Thalia’s hands. “Aww, look. Tristan got himself a date.”
“She’s Adaro’s cousin, you know,” Kurt says. “Perhaps you can find out if he saw the oracle at the cove.”
I grit my teeth. “I know.”
Layla’s face is beet red. “Are you guys going to an underwater drive-in? Park on the back of a shark-drawn chariot?”
Frederik takes one step closer to her and smells her. Layla leans back but not without blushing at his dumb vampire perfection. “Jealousy suits you,” he says. “Your blood is boiling.”
Kurt crosses his arms over his chest. “We don’t have chariots.”
Then Frederik turns to the boardwalk, nose up in the air. “Ahh. Early sunrise. My least favorite part of the summer. I’m sure we’ll see each other soon.”
I reach out to take his hand. He stares at me as if I’m holding a wooden stake and a hammer.
“Don’t forget what I’ve told you tonight,” he says.
As he stalks away through the flickering red archway, the first ravens take flight.
My sleep is restless.
Full of sharp teeth and claws and screaming. Frederik standing under the Brooklyn Bridge saying, “Hurry.” He faces away and then I’m back on Arion’s ship. Archer calls to me and I drive my dagger through his heart. He melts away and Nieve rises from inside him.
When I open my eyes, my whole face is swollen. Morning-after pain is always the worst. In the shower, my muscles unknot, and bruises bloom all over my skin where the tentacles sucked on me going down the well. After I get dressed, I take out a bag of frozen peas and hold it over my right knuckles.
Kurt comes in and grabs a stool beside me. “You have to use both hands.”
“I’ll just add ‘become ambidextrous’ to my to-do list.” I wince when I stretch out my fingers. “Get any sleep?”
“Hardly.” He stares at me for a bit, starts to say something, but changes his mind.
I hate when people do that. “Just spit it out. What?” “You were talking in your sleep.”
I chuckle. “What did I say?”
“Brother.” Kurt takes the frozen peas from me and presses the bag to his cheek where a merrow got a really good hit. “You kept saying, ‘Brother.’”
“Yeah, well. Archer’s not easy to forget.”
I get up and stand in front of our Command Central wall. While we were gone, my parents added a calendar, crossing off the days to the championship. It’s Monday morning. I can hear my dad in the shower getting ready for work. My mom gets up just after he does and makes breakfast. On a regular day, I’d swing by Layla’s house and we’d take the train, picking up the rest of our team on the way.
The marker bleeds through the white paper and I think of the merrow blood dripping. “Why hasn’t she killed me?”
Kurt returns the soggy peas to the freezer. “I would think you’d be glad she hasn’t.”
I laugh, straining against the pinch in my abs. “I just—I hate that I can feel her. That for some reason she wants me. Her magic…it’s like this force. Like the nautilus maid. Like she could turn me into a puppet with just her will, but she’d rather toy with me instead.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Kurt says darkly. “That was part of her seduction. She