He nodded at the nearest man, a towering figure, muscles wound like coarse ropes around his frame. “What can you do?”

A chuckle went through the group.

“Well,” said the broad man. “I’m decent at lifting.”

“Can read any map,” offered another.

“A thief,” said a third. “The best you’ll find.”

Each and every man aboard was more than a sailor. They each had a skill—some had several. And then Alucard Emery had looked at Lenos with that storm-dark gaze.

“And you?” he’d said. “What can you do?”

Lenos had looked down at his too-thin form, ribs protruding with every breath, his hands roughened only by a childhood playing on rocky banks. The truth was, Lenos had never been very good at anything. Not natural magic or pretty women, feats of strength or turns of phrase. He wasn’t even terribly skilled at sailing (though he could tie a knot and wasn’t afraid of drowning).

The only thing Lenos had a knack for was sensing danger—not reading it in a darkened dish, or spotting it in lines of light, but simply feeling it, the way one might a tremor underfoot, a coming storm. Sensing it, and steering to avoid it.

“Well?” prompted Alucard.

Lenos swallowed. “I can tell you when there’s trouble.”

Alucard had raised a brow (there was no sapphire winking from it, then, not until their first outing in Faro).

“Captain,” Lenos had added hastily, misreading the man’s surprise for insult.

Alucard Emery had flashed another kind of smile. “Well, then,” he’d said, “I’ll hold you to it.”

That was another night, another time, another ship.

But Lenos had always kept his word.

“I’ve got a bad feeling,” he whispered now, looking out to sea. The water was calm, the skies were clear, but there was a weight in his chest like a breath held too long.

“Lenos.” Alucard chuckled thinly and got to his feet. “A piece of magic is parading as a god, a poisoned fog is destroying London, and three Antari are sparring aboard our ship,” said the captain. “I’d be worried if you didn’t.”

II

Bloody hell, thought Lila, as she doubled over on the deck.

After hours of practice, she was dizzy and Kell’s skin was slick with sweat, but Holland barely looked winded. She fought the urge to hit him in the stomach before Hano called out from the crow’s nest. The ship needed a breeze.

She slumped back onto a crate as the others went to help. She felt like she’d gone three rounds in the Essen Tasch, and lost every single one. Every inch of her body—flesh down to bone—ached from using the rings. How the other two Antari had the energy left to put wind in the sails, she had no idea.

But the training seemed to be working.

As the ship sailed through the first fingers of dusk, they’d reached a kind of equilibrium. They were now able to balance and amplify their magic without over-drawing from each other. It was such a strange sensation, to be stronger and weaker at the same time, so much power but so hard to wield, like an off-weighted gun.

Even still, the world blazed with magic, the threads of it tracing the air like light, lingering every time Lila blinked. She felt as if she could reach out and pluck one and make the world sing.

She held her hand before her eyes, squinting at the silver ring still wrapped around her middle finger.

It was control. It was balance. It was everything she wasn’t, and even now Lila was tempted to chuck it in the sea.

She’d never been one for moderation. Not when she was just a street rat with a quick temper and a quicker knife, and certainly not now that she’d struck flint against the magic in her veins. She knew this about herself, she liked it, was convinced it had kept her alive. Alive, but also alone—hard to keep an eye on others when you were keeping both out for yourself.

Lila shivered, the sweat long cold along her scalp.

When had the stars come out?

She dragged herself upright, hopped down from the crate, and was halfway to the hold when she heard the singing. Her body ached, and she wanted a drink, but her feet followed the sound, and soon she found its source. Hastra sat cross-legged with his back against the rail, something cupped in his hands.

Even in the low light, Hastra’s brown curls were threaded with gold. He looked young, even younger than she was, and when he saw her standing there, he didn’t shy away like Lenos. Instead, Hastra grinned. “Miss Bard,” he said warmly. “I like your new eye.”

“So do I,” she said, sliding to the floor. “What’s in your hands?”

Hastra uncurled his fingers to reveal a small blue egg. “I found it on the docks in Rosenal,” he said. “You’re supposed to sing to eggs, did you know that?”

“To make them hatch?”

Hastra shook his head. “No, they’ll do that anyway. You sing to them so they hatch happy.”

Lila raised a brow. They were roughly the same age, but there was something boyish about Hastra—he was young in a way she’d never been. And yet, the air was always warm around him, the same way it was with Tieren, calm sliding through her mind like silk, like snow. “Kell tells me you should have been a priest.”

Hastra’s smile saddened. “I know I didn’t make a very good guard.”

“I don’t think he meant it as an insult.”

He ran his thumb over the brittle shell. “Are you as famous in your world as Kell is here?”