She watched the ripples form around her as she settled, leaning against the copper tub. She thought about what the folk had said to her, and she remembered the way Jack’s voice had melded with the music her mother had written years ago. Her chest ached, and she didn’t know if it was from grief at hearing Lorna’s music reborn or if it was frustration. Adaira had believed the spirits of the sea could help her find the girls. She had hoped to bring an end to this madness and the misery of vanished children.

But the truth was that she was nowhere closer to solving the mystery. In fact, her mind was only more scrambled now.

She covered her face with her hands and pressed her fingertips into her closed eyes, exhausted.

It is her, the folk of the tides had said. Even now, their voices echoed through her hollowness.

No, Adaira should have said to them. No, I am nothing like my mum.

Beware of blood in the water, mortal woman.

She let her hands drift away and opened her eyes, gazing at the water that embraced her. She thought of Jack again, of how he had come after her despite his own fear of the night sea. He had looked so angry breaking the surface with her—for some odd reason he had reminded Adaira of a cat that had been dunked in a rain barrel. But he had also looked content the longer he beheld her, as if he had finally remembered who he was. That he was isle born. And Adaira had done the most ridiculous thing. She had laughed, and it had felt like birds taking flight within her.

She stared at her wavering reflection in the bath and wondered what it would take to provoke a stoic man such as Jack Tamerlaine to laugh with her.

“Enough,” she whispered to herself, reaching for the sponge and a bar of soap. She began to scrub her skin, but it did nothing to the memories she wanted to keep at bay.

The last time she had swum in isle waters had been with Callan Craig, years ago. She had been eighteen, searching for something to fill her loneliness. That keen, endless loneliness was magnified by her mother’s recent passing, and Adaira found a remedy for those feelings in Callan.

She had been smitten with him and spent many stolen hours with him sparring on castle grounds, riding the hills, tangled in bedsheets. Adaira winced when she thought about how naïve she had been, how eager and trusting. After their relationship ended, she hoped that time would dull the heartache, but it flared every now and then, like old bones in wintertime.