“Aisha!” A scream erupted from my throat.

In the short time that Uma and I had had our backs turned, she had abandoned the group of Bloodless that she had been working on near the wheel and had approached the siblings. Colin, Frederick and Arletta. They… they lay on the ground, decapitated. With blows so quick her hands were almost a blur, she was in the process of hacking the rest of their bodies into chunks.

I leaped from the safety of the mast, down to the blood-encrusted deck with a crash. I hadn’t even considered the danger I was putting myself into. The witch also hurtled forward, but we were both too late.

No.

No!

I gazed with stunned eyes from the twitching pieces of the siblings’ mangled bodies to Aisha. The jinni wiped sweat from her brow with the back of her hand, a look of satisfaction on her face.

“Did you call me?” she asked in an innocent voice, cocking her head to one side.

“You killed the wrong ones!” I screamed like a banshee. I fell to my knees and gazed in horror, barely believing my eyes.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Aisha drawled. “I didn’t realize…”

“You were supposed to start with those over there!” I bellowed, thrusting my finger toward the Bloodless she’d abandoned by the wheel, even as tears streamed down my cheeks.

I was blowing my cover, but I couldn’t even care anymore. She already knew about what I’d planned. Somehow, she had figured it out.

I could no longer contain myself. I’d been through too much in too short a time. This was the final straw for me. I exploded. I barely even registered the words spilling from my mouth as grief consumed me. I hurled every curse word I knew at her before lunging toward the jinni with my sword drawn.

She swept up into the air, dodging my advance.

“So, the witch was going to save those three for you, was she?” Aisha asked as she hovered above me.

I lost the strength to even continue my attempts to attack her any more. I dropped the sword and sank back to the floor. My head thrust back, my face toward the heavens, I howled.

“Why did you do this?” the witch asked the jinni. “I was to take these three back with me. That was the deal.”

The jinni stiffened. “Do you really think I’m that stupid? You’re only choosing these three as a favor to Julie.”

How did she find out? I could only guess that I’d underestimated her hearing.

Aisha swooped down on me, gripping my throat. She hauled me to my feet and then lifted me up into the air. Her eyes sparkled malevolently.

“I told you what would happen if you stepped out of line,” Aisha hissed.

“Let go of her,” the witch spoke up. “What harm has she done to you?”

Still retaining her grip on me, Aisha turned her glower on the witch.

“Oh, I’m afraid that she has done much harm. More harm, I suspect, than you’re aware of. Clearly, the little snake didn’t inform you of the destruction she almost brought upon the supernatural world.” Aisha’s thick jaws clenched hard. “And of what she did to a dear friend of mine.”

The witch faltered. She frowned, her eyes falling on me, and raised a brow.

“Don’t believe her!” I gasped, trying to pry myself free from the jinni’s grasp. “She’s lying. Please, help me!”

“Speaking of dear friends,” Aisha continued, making my blood run cold, “she also murdered one of yours. Arron.”

“Arron?” Surprise flashed in the witch’s eyes.

“She murdered him on your very own beach.”

“She’s lying!” I screamed.

“She’s the only liar here,” Aisha replied, her fingernails digging into my flesh.

“You have to believe me,” I breathed, looking desperately at the witch. “Please. Would you really trust a jinni over a vampire?”

There was doubt in Uma’s eyes as she looked at me. Then, to my horror, she took a step back. Arron must’ve meant a lot to her for her to take a jinni’s words so seriously. It seemed that the girl had shaken Uma enough to want nothing more to do with me.

But she still has Braithe in her castle!

“Wait! Please!”

“I-I’m sorry, Julie,” Uma said, her voice deep. “I don’t know which of you is telling the truth. You two clearly have—”

Her voice faltered as a violent tremor ran through the boat. While Aisha had by now pinned me against a mast, Uma had still been planted on the deck. The shudder made the witch lose her footing, and she fell to the floor. The boat tilted sharply and abruptly, sending the witch crashing along with several Bloodless against the railing of the ship. The next thing I knew, several gargantuan, reddish poles with speared tips thrust down from above. One pierced right through Uma’s gut. I gasped, too stunned to scream. It had all happened so fast, I doubted she’d even had time to realize what was happening to her before it was too late.

The spell of shade the witch had cast to protect me from the sun vanished, plunging me into agony as rays touched me. The witch was dead.

Squinting through the sunlight and trying to get a handle on the burning sensation that erupted in my skin, I followed the poles upward with my eyes, only to realize that they weren’t poles.

My heart stopped and my eyes bulged. I gaped up at what looked like a colossal crab, hanging over the edge of the ship. The middle of its body was a furious red, with two glossy black eyes set wide apart on either side of its head and terrifying pincers that clicked together. Three of its freakishly long, spear-like legs had crashed down over the side of the vessel as it clung on—one of which had ended the witch, while the others had speared through two Bloodless. The monsters’ feet splintered the wooden floorboards as it heaved itself onto the deck, revealing a full set of eight such deadly legs. It let out a nasty screech that made my eardrums ache and raised its forelegs in the air. The legs that had pierced the witch and the Bloodless still had their bodies attached to them.