Something simmered under her skin, but she didn't know what it was, as she walked away from him.

Fear and its cold claws raking down her spine pushed back against the heat. She clenched her fists, nails digging into her palms, and reviewed the conversation she had just with Declan. The look on his expression. The way he had touched her cheek, so gentle, like she was a delicate artifact he wanted to examine. She'd never thought of him as soft or tender. She didn't want to start.

No, to think of him as anything other than arrogant, crude, and in possession of far too many rough edges for her to even peek past one of them... that felt like the safer option. If she had to think of him as something, she would rather use descriptors that kept him at a distance.

She didn't know how to cope with the insinuations he had given her. The suggestion that Rowena had pushed her off of the ship was laughable, really. For one thing, the girl was a thin, short wisp of a thing, five-foot-one and scrawny, with delicate features that made her seem like a living doll. For another, Rowena bore her no ill will. None at all. So why would she ever do such a thing as push Nadia off of the ship?

Yet fear still coiled its frigid hands around her wrists, cuffed her, paralyzed her. She didn't want to believe Declan. She certainly hadn't wanted to admit to him that she thought about that afternoon on the slave ship almost every night. And not always with trepidation, not always with pain, not always with shadowed terror that trickled through her veins like ice water. No, sometimes, it was with a heady, longing thread of desire that sent her body pulsing.

Sometimes, it was with the memory of his fingers on her skin, tracing over her like she was the most precious thing in the world.

But there was no way she would ever admit that to him.

Not after he had accused her only living friend in the world of being her attacker.

"He's insane," she muttered under her breath. Now she sounded deranged, talking to herself.

"Nadia?" Rowena's soft voice reached her ears. "Where did you go? I thought we were going to meet on the deck."

Her head snapped up and she forced a smile. "Of course! I hadn't forgotten. I only became... Well, that's neither here nor there. Let's go."

They made their way to the deck. "I was only worried about you," Rowena confessed. "I didn't know if something had happened to you..."

"I'm quite alright, and Declan was with me," she said, though she was unsure if that would be a reassurance of her security. The man was protective, perhaps, but to the detriment of all else.

Rowena's face changed, something flickering in her eyes that Nadia couldn't read. "No, I suppose he wouldn't let anything happen to you. What did he want to talk to you about?"

She trusted Rowena, didn't she? Why else would she have been so defensive of her? Or was it only that she was defensive of her own discretion and judgment in choosing friends? Worry knotted her stomach as she chose her words. "He was concerned for my safety, as always. That's all there was. Some business about the ship's captain saying his men saw me getting pushed off the ship."

"Did they say by whom?" Rowena bit her lip.

"By you, actually," Nadia said, trying her best to sound nonchalant. She didn't think it was working. "Surprisingly enough. I didn't believe him. I mean, you would never hurt me, right?"

Rowena took a deep breath, clasped her hands over Nadia's, and said, "Nadia, there's something that I need to tell you. I did push you off of the ship that night."

Nadia dropped her hands. Her voice was a raspy whisper. "Who are you? Truly? And why did Declan send you, to be my maid or to spy on me?"

She sighed. Over the roar of the waves, they spoke in secrecy. Of Rowena's childhood, growing up not a noblewoman's cousin but a poor orphan. How she'd been taken in by kind parents with no children of their own. How she had never stopped her criminal ways because her parents had been poor, low on funds, and so while telling them that she had taken a seamstress position, she had really gone out to steal. How one time, when she had stolen from a lord's manor, she had befriended his wife.

In sum, Rowena Mills was a liar, and a secret-keeper, and a thief.

But she was also the only friend that Nadia had at the moment.

Did that reflect poorly on her judgment and discretion, or on the wealth of friends available to her?

Nadia understood the need to keep secrets. She'd spent her whole life trying to hold hers close to her chest and tried her best not to let her secrets define her, despite all the whispers and rumours that circulated about her. About her curse.

But now, standing by the railing, she stared out at the water and remembered Rowena's words. The ocean was shallower here, as they neared land. Soon, they would be docking in Moyena, and everything would change.

She would have no one. Nothing. And in doing so, she would learn everything.

"So you pushed me off of the ship to save my life?" Nadia asked skeptically.

Rowena nodded emphatically. "I'm glad you understand the turn of events."

"But why was my life in danger to begin with?" she said, raising an eyebrow.

Rowena's big, brown eyes looked genuinely confused as they widened. "You don't remember?"

"If I did, we could have avoided this entire mess of accusation," she said tersely.

"I thought you trusted me," Rowena said softly, glancing down at the scuffed toes of her shoes. "Why didn't you?"

Nadia wrapped her arms around her shoulders, wishing for a shawl as the chill sea air whipped at her clothes, stinging her hair and face. "I'm sorry."

Rowena shook her head. "I only pushed you off because one of the captain's men was approaching us with a knife. He told me that the captain wanted to kill you, so I had no choice but to save your life by pushing you off of the deck."

"You thought that if I drowned, I might avoid death by stabbing?" she said with a choking laugh.

The younger girl looked affronted. "But you didn't die."

"How did you get me out of the ocean?" Nadia demanded.

"You were never there in the first place," she said. "I only lowered you into one of the lifeboats and threw a leaky rain barrel overboard to imitate the splashing noise."

"Then why were my clothes soaking wet?" she said.

"It began raining that night, not to mention that the waves were splashing against the sides of the ship," she said. "You must have caught the brunt of it."

"I..." She had no reason to suspect Rowena of lying to her. Yet there was a gap in her memory where these events ought to have occurred. She could only rely on others, something she loathed to do. Rowena was her only friend - she could not think of Declan as a friend. Not now. "Thank you for saving my life."

"Of course," she said. "Can we still be friends?"

"Certainly." Though Nadia agreed, she could not help but try to recall that night. She could only remember the way Declan had looked at her when her blood had turned gold. The way she had looked at him, the way she had felt like they were inextricably linked now. Like it or not, she was bound to him, and him to her.

By more than blood.

-

"You must not think much of me, now," Rowena said, glancing down at her chipped fingernails. "I didn't come from any sort of great and lofty estate or any royal blood--"

Nadia shrugged. "Neither did I and in case you haven't noticed, I'm not a particularly big fan of those who descend from royal blood."

Rowena laughed before stopping herself. "Declan has been nothing but nice to you. He was so concerned for your safety when he thought you had drowned--"

"I didn't drown," she said. "What happened to make me forget?"

"You must have hit your head on your way back from the lifeboat," Rowena said. "A harrowing night, indeed."

The idea of Declan being concerned for her safety was laughable, though she had seen it before. She couldn't picture him anything more than protective in a gruff sort of way, a way that involved fists and swords and daggers, not warmth and affection. She wasn't sure she'd ever seen a soft side to him, except perhaps when she had seen him be seasick in her cabin.

Her cabin. On land, things would be different between them. They would be vastly different, and she didn't know how to feel about that - about all the Astroian rules of propriety that would doubtless clamp down and separate them. Wasn't that what she wanted? To be free of him?

She didn't know anymore. Everything was up in the air now.

"Yes," Nadia said faintly. "I'm sure we were all quite frightened."