Stuck at sea with the two people he’d most wronged in his twenty-three years of life. Perhaps the gods were even more angry at him than Vee was, and this was their way of punishing him.

He’d caused this. He had to endure it.

With a long breath, he squared his shoulders and faced her.

She stood at the dressing table, shawl tugged around her shoulders. She was often cold since her ordeal.

Another stab of guilt in his gut. He clenched his jaw against it.

A small teapot sat on the dressing table, steam rising from the spout. The cabin boy must’ve brought it while they’d been playing cards.

Vee poured the hot water into a cup, then stirred in a spoonful of herbs. An open jar stood beside it, the green, brown, and purple herbs familiar.

Why would she have the preventative? And where from? He hadn’t presumed to pick the stuff up when he’d bought her supplies ahead of their escape.

Maybe it was a different tea. He cleared his throat. “Is that—”

“Yes. It is. It helps with our moons.” The teapot’s lid clattered off when she slammed it on the table, her shoulders square, back to him. “Get over yourself. I’m not about to jump on you. It’s not all about sex.”

Knigh winced. Two words. That’s all it took to set her off, like ill-treated gunpowder.

And he was the one who’d done the ill treatment.

It wasn’t as though he expected her to want him. Not after betraying her so badly. He’d hurt her too much. They’d so nearly had something, but now all that was left was this mangled wreckage.

He smoothed away the wince. Helping her get back to Arawaké wouldn’t repair things between them, but it was the only way he knew to even attempt to make amends. He had to endure this.

Stay the course.

With all the timing of a ship-killing wave in a storm, an all-too-familiar creaking began from the cabin next door. Rhythmic. A woman’s cry. A muffled grunt.

“Do they never stop?” Vee hissed.

The Pevenseys. Very happily married, by the sounds of it. Every night. A noisy, insistent reminder of what was missing from this cabin. From his life.

The air thickened.

Just a few months ago, he would have taken those two paces towards Vee, pulled the shawl away and replaced it with his own warmth. He’d have traced the lines of her back with his hands, lifted her into his arms, covered her mouth with his, and taken her to that bunk. Their cries would have put the Pevenseys to shame.

Now, those two paces may as well have been two leagues of rough sea for all he could walk across it.

She spun on her heel, eyes wide.

He froze, face hot. She couldn’t know his dangerous thoughts. Did she somehow want—