To be stuck in foster care somewhere, to lose her freedom and her wildness. Even worse, to open her mouth and hear those thin, clacking squeaks humans called “singing” coming out of it.

Luce sat up and wrapped her arms around him, scattering soft kisses around his face. He was trying to be heroic, to risk death out of love for her. It was just a kind of heroism she didn’t want.

“Is it okay if you’re out late? Because I think I’d better tell you what happened, and it’s a really long story . . .”

“I don’t care about getting in trouble.” His breathing was labored, and Luce felt a tremor in his back. She desperately wished there was some way she could make it all easier for him.

Luce sighed. There were so many things she didn’t want him to know about, and she was going to have to start with some of the worst of them: her father’s death, her uncle’s beatings, and the attempted rape. Oddly, one of the things that worried her most was what he’d think of her father. Dorian gave the impression of being one of those kids from a big, elegant house, the kind with packed bookcases and a rose garden and art objects brought back from distant countries. And boys like that didn’t have anything to do with girls whose fathers were petty thieves, girls whose bedrooms were just a sleeping bag thrown in the back of a red van.

Maybe that was the real reason she hadn’t wanted to tell him the truth?

Luce kissed his mouth, and he tipped back to gaze at her with frantic eyes. Then she began at the beginning.

∗ ∗ ∗

As hard as it was for Luce to tell him, it was even harder for Dorian to hear it. He wanted to hurt her uncle somehow, so Luce refused to tell him what town she’d lived in or what her last name had been. Dorian had too many emotions that he didn’t know what to do with, and Luce was afraid they’d goad him to do something crazy. As the story went on she felt him falling into it, as if they were both sharing the same dream. How she’d sunk her first ship completely by accident, how Catarina had found her and saved her life, the living magic of tall gray waves and ferocious music . . .