The captain’s room on the Blessing was almost identical to Vivia’s on the Iris. A slight rearrangement of furniture, slightly rougher floors, and slightly brighter lighting. Otherwise, all was the same—for which Vivia was grateful. She had been asleep in the captain’s bed for several hours, and there was a comfort in waking to familiarity.

“This is becoming a most inconvenient habit.” Vaness shifted in a chair and leaned out of a shadow. Lantern light warmed her face. “I thought I was the one with a sickness.”

Vivia offered a weak laugh and pushed herself upright. Vaness leaped forward to help, but Vivia was already sitting by the time the Empress reached her. So she stared down at Vivia, and Vivia stared at up at her.

“This isn’t normal.” “Vivia rubbed at her eyes, crusted with sea salt. “I’ve never passed out from my magic before. And certainly not twice in two days.”

“Hmmm.” Vaness eased onto the bed’s edge. She sat primly, hands folded upon her lap. Like Vivia, salt had caked against her skin.

“All magic has a price,” Vaness said after several moments. “And the more powerful the witchery, the steeper the toll. Although…” A tightening of her face. Then a full frown. “I have noticed my own sickness getting worse. As if the magic I’m tapping into has a limit. As if—”

“You are becoming the iron you need to use.”

Vaness blinked. “Hye. That is exactly it.” Her head tipped sideways, gaze roaming over Vivia’s face. “It happens to you then?”

“Hye.” Vivia’s cheeks warmed at the scrutiny. “And because of it, I lose sight of my own limits. I lose sight of—”

“Who I am.”

Vivia swallowed. Vaness wet her lips. And for several long seconds, they stared at each other. An open, unmasked stare that made Vivia’s neck warm. And her chest and hands too.

A knock thumped at the door. Vivia’s heart jumped; Vaness startled to her feet. And a moment later, the Blessing’s captain shoved in. A stocky woman, shorter even than Vaness, she had been several years ahead of Vivia in training—but like Stix, her family was nobility. And like Vivia, she could control the tides.

Shanna Quintay. She nodded at Vivia and her swagger across the room paused just long enough for a bow, fist over heart. Then she directed her attention to Vaness. “We could not reach Ginna, Your Imperial Majesty. We tried several times, but the Voicewitch must be drugged as you were.”

Vivia’s eyebrows lifted, and she turned a surprised eye on Vaness. The Empress had clearly updated Shanna and asked her to reach out to Vivia’s crew, for which Vivia was … grateful. Surprised, impressed, and grateful.

“We did, however,” Shanna continued, “contact a Voicewitch from Noden’s Gift. She said only that the village was under attack and Lovats would not reply.”