She didn’t look at him, and when she spoke, it was almost lost to the wind. “I killed him.”
The words didn’t register at first, just sounds that wouldn’t quite resolve. When they did, Gabe took an involuntary step back. “Wait…”
“Threw him over the side.” A tremble began in Alie’s hands. “He wasn’t going to change. He was still set on creating the Empire, maintaining it with lies. So I pushed him.”
Gabe’s fingers flexed in and out, unsure of what to do. Finally, he settled his hand on her shoulder. She tensed but didn’t move away. “Alie…”
“Don’t. I can’t… just don’t.” A tangle of negations, thick in her throat. She swallowed, forcing them back down. “You did what you had to do, and so did I. I daresay I got the better time of it, since my solution didn’t involve inviting the god in my head to take over further.”
Gabe stared at his hands, still char-marked.
Alie sighed, squared her shoulders, putting the matter to rest. She turned to him. “I saw Lore.”
Despite the impossible situation she’d just thrown him in themiddle of, Gabe’s heart jerked in his chest. “On the beach? Was she all right? Did she say—”
“I think it’s safe to say she’s not all right,” Alie interrupted. “She was flickering in and out, not all there. And Gabe, she was… she was screaming.”
So was Gabe, internally, everything in him feeling like it was about to burst into flame. “We need to go faster.” He whirled around, as if there were something he could do to make that happen, like he could direct his own nervous energy into the ship somehow. “We have to get therenow…”
“I’m working on it.” And for the first time, he felt the wind, stiffer and more solid than it should be, pressing his shirt against his body and filling the sails. Alie’s fingers twitched, a tremble running through her from both pent-up emotion and the channeling of air magic.
“I’m trying to be careful,” she said, a line of concentration between her brows. “I don’t want to accidentally capsize the damn thing. But we’re making progress. We should be there in an hour or two, I think.”
He glanced toward the prow. The vague shapes of the islands were closer than they’d seemed even moments ago.
“I…” He trailed off, peering out over the ocean, toward the Burnt Isles. Surely, he was seeing things, his perspective warped by having one less eye than average. “Is that…”
Alie’s eyes narrowed at the small shapes on the water, dark and spiking against the morning sun. “Warships.”
The shapes were hard to make out, still too far away to be much more than smudges on the horizon. They’d moved fast.
“Caldien,” Gabe breathed.
“I thought they were sailing on Auverraine?”
“They were until Malcolm and I defected.” Finn must have altered course moments after Gabe and Malcolm left, knowing where they would go, and gotten far enough ahead while theyplanned in the Citadel to keep from being seen until morning light. “I have to go tell Bastian.”
“They might help us,” Alie said uncertainly.
“I admire your optimism.” Gabe disappeared below.
Bastian was still asleep. Gabe hated to wake him, but between Alie’s news about Lore and the fleet led by an angry pirate, he didn’t see a way around it. Gently, he smoothed back the tangle of Bastian’s dark hair. “Bastian.”
He’d been sound asleep, but his name in Gabe’s mouth was enough to wake him without any further prodding. Bastian grinned, dark eyes sleepy, and took hold of Gabe’s hand, bringing his lips to the tattooed candle on his palm. “Do we finally have the brig to ourselves?”
“The brig is something different. This is the hold, I think.”
“Whatever you want to call it.” Bastian stretched languidly, tugging at Gabe’s hand.
And there was no time, but he let himself be pulled atop Bastian, their chests pressed together. Kissed him slow and easy, like they had hours instead of minutes, like the world wasn’t falling down.
Bastian reached for his belt, and for a moment, Gabe let him. But then he sighed, rested his head against Bastian’s forehead, and moved away.
Gabe sat on the edge of the bed as Bastian sighed dramatically. “Should have known we wouldn’t get lucky.”
“I have news,” Gabe said. “Alie saw Lore in her dreams.”
Like it had for Gabe, Lore’s name seemed to snap something in the King to attention. He sat up, suddenly wide awake. “She’s alive, then. We have to move fast.”
