I tap my fingers against the wood and bite down on my lip.
I have no idea where we are or how we got here. But the kiss unsettles me even more than that. Not the kiss itself, but the way he left afterward. He opened up to me about the curse, about how he feels about me, only to pull away again. I don’t know where that leaves us now, caught somewhere between a kiss, or rather two, and him telling me I deserve better than him. He seems to have given up on himself, yet he is still searching for a way out for his crew. Everything he has done these past few weeks has been leading to one thing: following the Glim to break the curse.
I sigh, annoyed with myself for being unable to control my emotions.
A shout from above cuts through my thoughts.
“Lass!”
I look up to see Nightglass waving down from the crow’s nest.
“I will not climb up there again,” I call back.
He grins. “No need. There’s nothing to see. Looks like an endless bloody mirror. Tell that to the captain, will ya?”
I frown. Of course.
I briefly consider telling him that the captain probably does not want to see me, but the thought of announcing our… issues to the entire ship is enough to make me clench my teeth. So I give Nightglass a short nod instead and cross the deck as slowly as is physically possible.
If Sable isn’t at the helm, then he must be in his cabin.
My hand hovers over the familiar iron handle. I am not ready to see him. An hour has passed, perhaps two, since he pressed his lips to mine and shattered the careful distance we had kept between us. I draw in a breath, then another, before finally pressing down the handle and stepping inside.
The cabin is crowded with unlit lanterns. They hang from the ceiling, line the walls, and sit in clusters on the floor. They are everywhere. The sight of them sends the memory of last night flashing through my mind. The hollow stares of the crew. The way Lark’s body was shaking.
I feel his gaze on me before I see him. He and Grim stare back at me from either side of the wooden table, and his eyes fall from mine as soon as I look directly at him. He clears his throat, refusing to acknowledge my presence.
I lift my chin and cross the room with deliberate strides, stopping at the wooden table in the center. Sable and Grim lean over an ancient-looking map I have not seen before, marking points with pins only to remove them again and turn the parchment in frustrated increments. I watch them silently, trying to figure out what exactly it is that they are doing.
“It must be the Sea of Dreams,” Grim murmurs under his breath, tapping a stretch of water on the map.
I furrow my brows, leaning into the table until the wood bites into my hips. The sea he points out lies beyond a thin black line, the Sea of Shadows, I assume—the one we have somehow survived against all odds with little struggle.
“What do we know about it?” Sable asks Grim quietly, his eyes not leaving the map, pointedly ignoring me.
“Not much,” Grim replies, rubbing his chin with his hand.
Then both of them look up at me.
“Do you?”
“No.” I shake my head, keeping my focus on Grim. “Why would I?”
Sable shifts his weight from foot to foot. “You’re from here. Aren’t you?”
“No,” I lower my eyes on the deck, on the worn wood behind the table. “I mean, I don’t know where I’m from. I told you I was abandoned when I was seven.”
Silence stretches, and neither of us dares to look at the other.
“What is wrong with you two?” Grim’s eyes flit between us, confusion forming a deep line between his brows.
“Nothing,” we answer in unison.
I roll my eyes as Sable turns away and takes a book from the shelf tugged against the wall. I allow myself to look at him while his back is turned. When he returns, I avert my gaze again, folding my arms over my chest. Paper rustles as he flips through a book, then places it on the table in front of me.
The pages are filled with tight, careful handwriting, observations recorded with methodical precision. My eyes skim until they catch on familiar words woven into the title, something about sirens and dreams. Now is not the time to admit that I can't read. On the opposite page is a watercolor. My pulse stutters at the depiction of a siren.
She looks like me.