“That’s why you allowed your men to take out their wax balls when you captured the sirens on The Sea Singer.”

I nodded. She didn’t need to know that my abilities had faltered when I’d been distracted the other day. I’d only just learned that myself.

“What effect does your song have on humans?”

“On large audiences, it’s more like a trance or hypnotic suggestion. I also can use my eyes or an instrument, rather than my voice. If I play to one or two people, I can control them, direct commands. Their minds become muddled, but they will obey. My eyes are my most powerful weapon, a combined gift from my father and mother.”

Lou’s hands pressed into the desk as she stood. Her knuckles whitened. Her amber eyes narrowed.

“Have you ever used your power on me?”

I swallowed, pulled back my shoulders and stood taller. “Yes.”

Chapter eighteen

Lou

The echo of his baritone lingered. Rylander had used his powers on me. The realization struck like a slender blade slipped between the ribs. All that had passed between us flashed before me. The moment we met, his struggle with the siren, the strange light outage at the royal dinner, the lyre he played, dropping my sword in our battle with the sailors, my unexplainable lapse in judgement outside the tavern, his disappearance after the arrival of The Black Hollow. How could I ever know when he’d used his powers or when he hadn’t? Fire burned through my veins, stoking the dwindling cinders of that old hatred. He took your father’s life, I reminded myself as the acidic loathing coated my tongue.

“Get out.” When he didn’t move, I pointed at the door. “Get out. Get out!” My voice rumbled like oncoming thunder, while my boot stomped a lightning bolt’s report against the floor. My shin protested, but I clenched my jaw.

Rylander stood from my trunk and left without a word.

I blinked in surprise. I’d expected him to fight, try to make me understand, or at least indulge in an argument as he had so many times before. His acquiescence only bolstered my anger into a more potent brew. I grabbed the brandy glass perched on my desk and hurled it at the wall. It shattered, shards littering my floor.

Several hours later, knuckles knocked against my door. I was sitting behind my desk, scribbling notes into my logbook with an ostentatious quill pen I’d confiscated from one ship or another. By the wafting aromas of dinner, I guessed it to be one of my crew. “Come in,” I answered.