At that moment, right as her muscles prepared to evade, the second drill ripped loose. The Lioness rolled sharply to port, flinging Vivia and Vaness out of Kadossi’s path—and instead toward all the sailors who’d realized an attack was underway.

“Free my crew!” she shouted at Vaness. And, for once in her imperial life, the Empress obeyed. She ducked beneath a sailor and flung her hands toward the warship holding the Iris crew.

More sailors stampeded, and Kadossi aimed his flames at Vivia once again. She summoned water from the hungry sea right as flame spewed across her vision. She dove sideways, launching her waters at the captain, but the water hit nothing.

He really was the best.

Vivia pummeled sailors instead. Strong as a shark beneath the sea, she slammed them one by one. No dexterity, no subtlety. Pure force that made the water laugh as it plunged bodies overboard.

Vivia didn’t laugh with it. Already the tides threatened to overwhelm her. Already, they saturated her with power and urged her into chaos. She needed her wits, though for such close combat and a Firewitch on the loose. Nubrevnans were depending on her.

As she leaped up the listing ladder to the half deck, she scoured the battle for Vaness, only to find that the Empress had one arm looped around the balustrade and one arm stretched high. When Vivia squinted toward her crew, she found chains melting off Cam, off Sotar, off everyone from the Iris. Then the iron flew toward Vaness, ready to be used and morphing as it crossed the churning sea.

She plucked the iron—now shaped like a flail—from the air, and with a wild spin, the spiked head swung outward and hammered into a sailor’s chest.

Vivia lost sight of Vaness then. Flames rushed toward her, up the ladder, forcing her to splash up a wall of water. Steam hissed. Then Kadossi lunged through. He moved easily despite the ship’s lean. His shaving scar oozed fresh blood. His cheeks were flushed from heat.

Vivia propelled more water, two ropes to splash his face and veil his eyes. But he ducked easily and blasted rounds of fire—a pounding of them, one after the other that her waters couldn’t stop. Each blast created more steam, scalding, blinding. And in the time it took Vivia to rush across the half deck, its angle increasing by the second, her world turned to fog.

The chaotic fight disappeared. The captain disappeared. Baile’s Blessing, the crew from the Iris, and even the groaning masts of the Lioness were all hidden within a realm of steam.

If only Vivia were like Stix, then she’d have been able to control it. Able to sense where, in all that mist, the captain lurked. But she was only Vivia. Only a Tidewitch. Only a little fox who’d hunted exactly where she shouldn’t have.