His eyes then flicked to Agatha and Elnora. ‘And embrace who we really are, and not let powerful people dictate our lives.’

Elnora paled. Agatha stepped back behind Circe.

Edington shrugged. ‘It appears I am babbling nonsense, but all nonsense has truth to it, I suppose.’

He turned, fully facing Bethan, and exhaled.

‘I see so much of your sister in you, but Bethan, you had something she didn’t; you must protect it.’ His eyes softened.

She heard Elnora fidget next to her.

‘I don’t think I follow, sir,’ Bethan said.

The mention of Dana stumped her; she never knew they had crossed paths before.

He waved dismissively. ‘Just my nonsense again.’

His stormy eyes gazed out to the remaining guests. A cackle broke from the silence. Tharin stepped back from the group who surrounded him, clutching his stomach in a fit of laughter. Bethan rolled her eyes, and Edington rumbled behind her.

‘I wish it was you that had his position,’ he whispered.

Bethan turned, opening her mouth to say something but left it alone.

After a while, he walked away from the girls. They all stared at him as he moved toward the remaining guests.

‘That was weird,’ Elnora said.

‘Why? He was being cute like—’ Agatha said. ‘Like a grandpa.’

Circe moved an arm around her and squeezed her tight. They all turned.

It wasn’t until then that Bethan noticed just how dark it had gotten.

The glistening water from Mermaid Harbour came to a slow end. The girls watched the sun descend beneath the city’s skyline, and the world turned to night. Bethan leaned her head on Elnora’s shoulder.

***

Bethan was alone for the first time since the funeral. The girls had all slept in the living room, on the emerald-green couches, since they found out about Lenovik’s death. It felt safer. But the introvert in her craved to be alone.

A glimpse of Lenovik in his office lying with a slit throat consumed her. She wished Circe never told her how he died; a slit throat said to her that someone not only wanted him dead. But wanted it to be painful.

She read her novel, but the tears in her eyes blurred the words.

Drops fell on to the pages, and she threw them in frustration, watching them fall like feathers. For so long, books had been her only comfort, the only way she could escape from whatever hell she was in. She knew it was terrible when she no longer found any solace in them.

She slammed her head on her pillow and sobbed.

She couldn’t remember her emotions when Dana died; she couldn’t remember the grief she would have felt. She caught glimpses of fractured memories of her funeral and saw her mother cry.

She woke up one day with the memory of her sister being dead. But she never remembered how she got there.