“I’m to be a lure?” said Rhy, pretending to be aghast.

“What?” teased Kell. “You’ve always liked people fighting for you.”

“Actually,” said the prince, “I prefer people fighting over me.”

Kell’s grip tightened on his sleeve, and the humor died on the air. “Four days, Rhy. We’ll make it back in that. And then you can get yourself into trouble, and—”

Behind them someone cleared their throat.

Kell’s eyes narrowed. His hand fell from Rhy’s arm.

Alucard Emery was waiting in the doorway, his hair pinned back, a blue traveling cloak fastened around his shoulders. Rhy’s body ached at the sight of him. Standing there, Alucard didn’t look like a nobleman, or a triad magician, or even the captain of a ship. He looked like a stranger, like someone who could slip into a crowd, and disappear. Is this what he looked like that night? wondered Rhy. When he snuck out of my bed, out of the palace, out of the city?

Alucard stepped forward into the room, those thin silver scars dancing in the light.

“Are the horses ready?” asked Kell coolly.

“Almost,” answered the captain, plucking at his gloves.

A brief silence fell as Kell waited for Alucard to leave, and while Alucard did not.

“I was hoping,” the captain said at last, “to have a word with the prince.”

“We need to go,” said Kell.

“I won’t be long.”

“We don’t—”

“Kell,” said Rhy, giving his brother a short, gentle nudge toward the door. “Go on. I’ll be here when you get back.”

Kell’s arms were a sudden circle around Rhy’s shoulders, and then, just as quickly, they were gone, and Rhy was left dizzy from their weight, and then the loss of it. A flutter of black fabric, and the door was swinging shut behind Kell. A strange, irrational panic rose in Rhy’s throat, and he had to fight the urge to call his brother back or run after him. He held his ground.

Alucard was watching the place where Kell had been as if the Antari had left his shadow behind. Some visible trace now lingering between them.

“I always hated how close you two were,” he murmured. “Now I suppose I should be thankful for it.”

Rhy swallowed, dragging his gaze from the door. “I suppose I should be, too.” His attention fell on the captain. For all their time together in the last few days, they’d hardly spoken. There was Alucard’s delirium aboard the ship, and the flickering memories of Alucard’s hand, his voice a tether in the dark. The Essen Tasch had been a flurry of witty quips and stolen looks, but the last time they’d been together in this room, alone in this room, Rhy’s back had been up against the mirror, the captain’s lips against his throat. And before that … before that …

“Rhy—”

“Leaving?” he cut in, straining to keep the words light. “At least this time you came to say good-bye.”

Alucard winced at the jab, but didn’t retreat. Instead, he closed the gap between them, Rhy fighting back a shiver as the captain’s fingers found his skin. “You were with me, in the dark.”

“I was returning a favor.” Rhy held his gaze. “I believe we’re even now.”

Alucard’s eyes were searching his face, and Rhy felt himself flush, his body singing with the urge to pull Alucard’s mouth to his, to let the world beyond this room disappear.

“You’d better go,” he said breathlessly.

But Alucard didn’t pull away. A shadow had crossed the captain’s face, something like sadness in his eyes. “You haven’t asked me.”

The words sank like a stone in Rhy’s chest, and he staggered under the weight. A too-heavy reminder of what had happened three summers ago. Of going to bed in Alucard’s arms, and waking up alone. Alucard gone from the palace, from the city, from his life.

“What?” he said, his voice cool, but his face burning. “You want me to ask you why you left? Why you chose the open sea over my bed? A criminal’s brand over my touch? I didn’t ask you, Alucard, because I don’t want to hear them.”

“Hear what?” asked Alucard, cupping Rhy’s cheek.

He knocked the hand away. “The excuses.” Alucard drew breath to speak, but Rhy cut him off. “I know what I was to you—a piece of fruit to be picked, a summer fling.”

“You were more than that. You are—”

“It was only a season.”

“That’s not—”

“Stop,” said Rhy with all the quiet force of a royal. “Just. Stop. I’ve never cared for liars, Luc, and I care even less for fools, so don’t make me feel like more of one. You caught me off guard on the Banner Night. What happened between us, happened …” Rhy tried to steady his breathing, then sliced a hand through the air dismissively. “But now it’s done.”

Alucard caught Rhy’s wrist, head bowed to hide those storm blue eyes as he said, under his breath, “What if I don’t want it to be done?”

The words landed like a blow, the air leaving his lungs in a jagged exhale. Something burned through him, and it took Rhy a moment to realize what it was. Anger.

“What right have you,” he said softly, imperiously, “to want anything of me?”

His hand splayed across Alucard’s chest, a touch once warm, now full of force as he pushed Alucard away. The captain caught himself and looked up, startled, but made no motion to advance. Alucard was standing on the wrong side of the line. He might have been a noble, but Rhy was a prince, untouchable unless he wanted to be touched, and he’d just made it clear that he didn’t.