The island of the Black Archives—Rel’donas, Yorl calls it—is the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen. But I said that about Vetris once upon a time, didn’t I? Maybe I’m just the sort of person to be easily impressed by shiny new places. Even taking that into consideration, Rel’donas does nothing but impress; Yorl leads us out through a door of the Archives that guards a staircase cut straight into the side of the black volcanic-rock mountain, zigzagging and switchbacking until it reaches a black sand beach at the very bottom, the emerald waves lapping at mollusk-eating birds with mind-bendingly long beaks and hordes of minuscule horseshoe crabs the color and texture of glossy pink confectionaries in a box. Thickets of mangroves guard the litmus between sea and sand, their roots like bark soldiers standing alert and waist-deep in gemlike water.

But it’s the sound I like most.

No one tells you the ocean sings. They say it’s there, and that it’s big and dangerous and deep, but never that it has its own orchestra, constantly playing a soothing symphony as the waves scrape across the shallows and back again. It’s almost like breathing, like the world of Arathess itself is breathing.

“It’s—” I pucker my lips, my hands wet with cupped seawater. “It’s salty!”

“Of course it’s spiritsdamn salty!” Malachite shouts from his place stalwartly far away from the water’s edge. “It’s the ocean! You were on a ship for like, three days! How’d ya miss that?”

“No one threw me overboard to taste it!” I shout. “That was your job!”

“Come in, Mal!” Lucien calls, his pants rolled up as he wades the shallows with me.

“So the two of you can pull me under and drown me?”

“With love!” I insist. “Drown you with love!”

“Ugh.” He wrinkles his nose. “Pass.”

Lucien shoots a sly look to me, and I to him.

“On the count of three?” the prince proposes.

“Absolutely,” I agree.

“One, two, three—”

We dash out of the water and make a beeline for Malachite, and he tries to run to the safety of the tidepool rocks, but with Lucien holding his arms and me grabbing his weak spot ever so slightly (ears), we manage to drag him down the beach.

“You little—” He quickly pulls his sword off and throws it in the sand as the water approaches, desperately trying to do the same to his chainmail. “The salt’s gonna ruin my armor—”

“And we’ve had quite enough of you ruining our fun!” I chide, helping him unhook his chainmail and tossing it in the sand. With his massive strength, he could fight us off anytime he wanted, ear-captured or not, and that’s how I know he’s all right with it. Secretly. Deep down. Where no one else can see.