“I will return,” she said fiercely in my ear. “I will want my sons and daughters to meet their cousins.”

And then she let me go, turned so quickly, her cloak whipped my body, and she made her way up the gangplank.

Chu came to stand in front of me.

“I’ll be assassinating a king if anything happens to her,” I decreed.

He shot me an audacious grin, bent in, touched my cheek with his lips then looked beyond me and jerked up his chin.

And then he was off up the gangplank.

Two arms circled me about my chest from behind.

“Are we going to stand here until we can’t see them in the horizon?” Cassius asked over my head.

“Yes,” I answered.

He chuckled.

The captain called out to push away.

He was a man I’d met whose name was Magnus, and who I knew was a lunatic, for he’d taken on this endeavor of delivering my sister and the man she loved to a place that, according to the Dragon’s Breath, wasn’t altogether stable.

As men rushed about the deck and the sails unfurled, Serena and Chu came to the railing.

And Gal and Brix walked down the pier as the galleon caught wind and started to make its way to the sea.

“You’ll wish you had taken us with you!” Brix shouted irately.

“Go home! Find women! Make many daughters!” Serena shouted back. “And name them all Serena!”

I shook my head, smiling, and closing my eyes.

I swiftly opened them so I would not lose sight of her too soon.

“Be smart!” Gal yelled. “Send word if you need us!”

“Yes!” Cassius boomed from behind me. “Send word if you need us!”

The ship had cleared the pier and was sailing away, but I did not think that was why my sister made no reply other than to lift her arm and wave at us.

I watched and watched, and she did not leave that railing.

And Chu did not leave her side.

Gal and Brix left the end of the pier to come and stand with Cass and me.

“She is a powerful witch and a mighty warrior,” Cass reminded me when the great galleon was naught but a dot on the horizon.

“She’s a pain in the arse,” Brix groused.

I burst out laughing.

I did it because that was funny (and true).

I also did it so I would not start crying.

King Mars

THE DEEP

It wasn’t the swimming.

Mars was Firenz.

Water was revered in Firenze.

If they could, and they were not nomad, everyone in Firenze had at least a small pool in which to frolic and bathe.

And even the nomads sought water, and not just to drink.

It was also not that they were in The Deep.